Explain slide film to newbie

[Leighgion]

35 mm will continue? Please tell me I missed something. Great news !

And I have 5 rolls of 120 that I might keep in the refrig to see if they gain value

Breath, man, breath. The announcement is only for sheet film.

 

[choppastyle]

It actually is sad for me, because I love RVP 50 and I haven't had a chance to use my LF at all yet. But, like you said, 100 is still there. I'm surprised they didn't nix 100 and 100F and leave the famous 50 for sheet, but oh well.

 

[Diapositivo]

Breath, man, breath. The announcement is only for sheet film.

Well, not really. Velvia 100F will be discontinued in 135 format as well.

The total choice of slide film in 135 format still in production after the announced cut if I get it right is:

Fujifilm:
Velvia 50
Velvia 100
Provia 100F
Provia 400X

Rollei:
CR 200 (also available as bulk roll)

Not a huge choice, but a choice nonetheless.

The possibility remains, when a film goes out of production, to buy relatively large quantities of it and freeze it, so that it can last for decades (or forever).

 

[pbromaghin]

Yeah, thats it. Why shoot for basically free (digital) when you can pay to buy and process film.

I thought I was being open minded coming BACK to film. ( I am open minded) Do You want to learn what thats all about? Open your mind and come forward to digital. Its all good.

Sorry, been there and I ain't going back.

Don't be so sure of your understanding of the economics of photography. Trying to decide how to spend the rest of my life, I made a pretty careful calculation (I've been an accounting software developer for 30 years, so I do know how to keep track of money) of the future cost of making either digital or film photography a serious hobby. It turned out that, for the difference in the cost of equipment, I could buy and process all the film I could ever imagine shooting for the next 30 years.

 

[Bill Burk]

yohimbe2,

Some projection screens that you find at garage sales stink. Nothing gets rid of the smell.

My wife won't let me do slide shows anymore because of the smell of the screen.

A big white wall is a good idea. My sister gave me a huge oil painting she did in art class and I had that above the couch in the old days. For slide shows I would just lift the painting off the two nails that held it up.

 

[RPC]

Any smell aside, a standard projection screen is recommended over a plain white surface since good ones are coated with a material that has high reflectivity, giving brighter pictures.

 

[wogster]

Yeah, thats it. Why shoot for basically free (digital) when you can pay to buy and process film.

Digital isn't free, there are costs and some of those costs are not financial.

First there is storage costs, I have 2 digital cameras, which average 4MB per image, a CDR holds 700MB and cost $1, for a cost per archived image of 1.85 cents. The real cost though, eventually, like 8", 5.25" and now 3.5" floppies, sometime in the next few years the now ubiquitous CD will follow the 8-track tape into oblivion. I expect when the successor to Blue-Ray comes out, the player makers will quietly drop CD compatibility. So figure that sometime in the next 20 years, you will need to replace even the archival CD-R's that last 300 years, because your new computer can't read them. The real issue here is, will my daughter be interested in every 20 years, putting my photo collection on new media after I am gone.

Second, I have 2 film camera's, one turns 30 this year, the other 35, while the 35 year old is now mostly retired, the younger camera is still being used. I don't expect my DSLR or my P&S digital to last anywhere near that long.

 

[damonff]

Bethesda is too far into traffic hell. Thanks for the tip though. Do you know of any reason I shouldnt use Dodge-Chrome in Mclean?

Bethesda really is traffic (and parking) hell. I've never used Dodge-Chrome. I will check them out! I do my own E-6, but I sometimes run out of chemicals and can't wait for my images. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Diapositivo]

Are there any archival CD-R which last for 300 years? Even embossed ones (the real stuff) are typically thought to last around a century. Rewritable CDs, being after all magnetic supports, as far as I know cannot be relied upon for more than "some years".

This want of reliability is the reason why I went straight along the hard-disk route. Nonetheless, using both film and digital, I agree that digital is not cheaper, and probably is more expensive than film photography when all cost factors are accounted for, the biggest being, at the moment, the financial risk of merely using a digital camera (risk or dropping, theft, damage by water etc. applied to a camera costing €2000 rather than €200). Stuff happens, and sooner or later damage or theft will happen.

 

[PhotoJim]

Are there any archival CD-R which last for 300 years? Even embossed ones (the real stuff) are typically thought to last around a century. Rewritable CDs, being after all magnetic supports, as far as I know cannot be relied upon for more than "some years".

There is no magnetism involved with CD-RW discs - they're still optical. But you're right that "some years" is all they'll last.

CD-Rs are dye-based - that's how they work. Even the archival ones are unlikely to last a century, and of course that presupposes that drives that can read them still exist (which may well be the case, given how ubiquitous they are and the fact that all followup optical technologies still take them). The problem we will probably run into is that we are moving to Internet transport of data instead of using optical media, so optical drives may disappear entirely in a few years.

 

[Diapositivo]

There is no magnetism involved with CD-RW discs - they're still optical. But you're right that "some years" is all they'll last.

CD-Rs are dye-based - that's how they work.

You shake a certitude I thought I had. As far as I knew so far, the CD-R or CD-RW writer would change the orientation of the magnetic material on the disk so that it would become darker or lighter. The reading is optical just like with embossed CDs: darker zones reflect less light simulating the embossed dip on a CD surface, lighter zones reflect more light simulating the non-embossed surface of a CD.

If the CD-R are dye-based, through which mechanism does the writer change the zone reflectivity?

 

[ambaker]

You shake a certitude I thought I had. As far as I knew so far, the CD-R or CD-RW writer would change the orientation of the magnetic material on the disk so that it would become darker or lighter. The reading is optical just like with embossed CDs: darker zones reflect less light simulating the embossed dip on a CD surface, lighter zones reflect more light simulating the non-embossed surface of a CD.

If the CD-R are dye-based, through which mechanism does the writer change the zone reflectivity?

There are drives that use a magnetic component, along with a laser. They are properly called Magneto-Optical drives, and disks. They are in eclipse due to the cheap popularity of CD and DVD. (Try $40 a pop from very few suppliers, for a 5.2 gig (2.6x2 sides) storage space.). They are very archival. We have disks that are 20 years old, that read perfectly and show no signs of deterioration. Like film, the "cheaper" stuff has flooded the market. We will likely run out of blank disks, before the technology fails us.

To answer your question about writeable CD media. The CD-R uses a dye layer that the higher powered writing laser "burns". It heats the dye to a point where the reflectivity changes. For RW technology, a metal film is used where depending on the laser power, it either changes state, or is heated to the point where it reflows to its original state (erasure).

 

[wogster]

Are there any archival CD-R which last for 300 years? Even embossed ones (the real stuff) are typically thought to last around a century. Rewritable CDs, being after all magnetic supports, as far as I know cannot be relied upon for more than "some years".

This want of reliability is the reason why I went straight along the hard-disk route. Nonetheless, using both film and digital, I agree that digital is not cheaper, and probably is more expensive than film photography when all cost factors are accounted for, the biggest being, at the moment, the financial risk of merely using a digital camera (risk or dropping, theft, damage by water etc. applied to a camera costing €2000 rather than €200). Stuff happens, and sooner or later damage or theft will happen.

A CD-R might last 100 years or 300 years it wouldn't matter if in 25 years there are no drives around to read them.

You know hard drives are not 100% reliable long term either, my first HDD was a 20MB Seagate, with a special ISA bus controller card, try finding one of those cards today, try finding a slot that accepts one on a motherboard that will run a modern operating system. Even the IDE interface for drives is likely to disappear in the next decade or so. There is no reason why SATA will not similarly find itself replaced, some day.

What I think is the biggest cost to digital shooting, a lot of people would shoot 72 exposures on film, expect that 10 of those will be worth printing enlargements and call it a good day. They will shoot 7200 on digital, then waste a couple of days to delete all the crap and end up with 72 worth keeping and 10 that are worth printing.

 

[polyglot]

Anyone relying on CD-R, CD-RW or DVD-R(W) for archival storage is a fool. Their expected life in typical (home) conditions is 5-10 years. As an aside, CD-RW and DVD-RW are both magneto-optical drives (application of a magnetic field realigns the material in the disc while in a "molten" state, which changes its reflectivity and once set in the new state the disc is not magnetic); they're just not the ultra-proprietary expensive kind that were available before ISO got around to incorporating MO technology into the CD standards. If you do insist on using removable media, at least put some redundancy in there using par2 (Reed-Solomon codes) spanning multiple discs.

However, digital archiving is not hard if you pay attention. You buy hard drives (which are currently much cheaper per GB than any removable media, not to mention faster and more reliable). You put your stuff on two hard drives, one of which is off-site. When the hard drives are full (takes you probably 3 years), you buy the then-current size, which will be about 5x larger than the ones you used before. You copy everything from the old drives to the new and then spend another 3 years filling the other 80%. Rinse and repeat; the important thing is that you have new, redundant copies every 3-4 years on current technology. The rate of growth in storage is enough to keep up with any amateur photographer's (film or digital) archiving needs.

While it's true that no digital copy will last 1/10 as long as a good archival neg, the digital gives you true redundancy without generational loss. Geographic redundancy and active maintenance of information is what is required if you want something to exist even for a meaningful fraction of your own life, let alone longer. And of course non-proprietary formats; it must be readable by open source software.

 

[Diapositivo]

If you want an external (off-site) copy things get complicated. For mere laziness I do make an on-site backup every 2 weeks or so. Considering that almost every day I do work at photography (be it scans or digital) I should actually make an incremental backup on-site every day to make things the proper way.

Then there is the problem of synchronizing the on-site backup with the off-site backup. That requires fetching, synchronizing, and bringing the off-site disk back (my ADSL line does not allow transferring of this kind of volumes of information in a time-span below the geological era, we are talking about a stock of around 600GB of images).

Any time I make the incremental backup I obviously check the integrity of the entire sets by a "validation" operation. The incremental on-site backup + validation on the entire stock takes an entire night to complete. Validation is probably a bit paranoid but how can I know when on of my hard disks is degrading if not by checking discrepancies in data?

Assuming a 200W consumption, probably optimistic, each backup costs 1.6 kWh to complete, which in this country means around €0.26, and doing it let's say 300 times a year as would be proper that would cost €78/year of electricity alone, and without counting the off-site backup (and validation).

Film really allows to file your film in a proper special sheet and put it in a dust-free moist-free cupboard and "forget" about it. The only real risk remains fire (I suppose nobody should be so insane as to keep film in the basement at the mercy of floods, humidity, insects). Digital is easily duplicable without loss, but it really is a continuous stress to make sure everything remains uncorrupted for decades.

Digital is full of "hidden" costs.

I get along with only one backup (on-site) which is stressful enough.

 

[wogster]

Anyone relying on CD-R, CD-RW or DVD-R(W) for archival storage is a fool. Their expected life in typical (home) conditions is 5-10 years. As an aside, CD-RW and DVD-RW are both magneto-optical drives (application of a magnetic field realigns the material in the disc while in a "molten" state, which changes its reflectivity and once set in the new state the disc is not magnetic); they're just not the ultra-proprietary expensive kind that were available before ISO got around to incorporating MO technology into the CD standards. If you do insist on using removable media, at least put some redundancy in there using par2 (Reed-Solomon codes) spanning multiple discs.

However, digital archiving is not hard if you pay attention. You buy hard drives (which are currently much cheaper per GB than any removable media, not to mention faster and more reliable). You put your stuff on two hard drives, one of which is off-site. When the hard drives are full (takes you probably 3 years), you buy the then-current size, which will be about 5x larger than the ones you used before. You copy everything from the old drives to the new and then spend another 3 years filling the other 80%. Rinse and repeat; the important thing is that you have new, redundant copies every 3-4 years on current technology. The rate of growth in storage is enough to keep up with any amateur photographer's (film or digital) archiving needs.

While it's true that no digital copy will last 1/10 as long as a good archival neg, the digital gives you true redundancy without generational loss. Geographic redundancy and active maintenance of information is what is required if you want something to exist even for a meaningful fraction of your own life, let alone longer. And of course non-proprietary formats; it must be readable by open source software.

The real issue though, when we are gone, will our children or grandchildren bother to maintain that media. I have in my collection a negative, it's taken around 1940, of my grandparents, it sat in a shoebox until 1980 when my grandmother died and the shoebox went to my mother, it sat in a little box with some others in an old box of stuff until 4 years ago. My mother gave me the box of stuff, because she didn't want it any more. I found the negative and added it to my collection. This is a piece of improperly stored film that is as good today as when it was first processed in 1940. Now if this had been digital it would have depended on my Grandmother to keep replacing the drive until 1980 and then my aunt, and then my mother, until 4 years ago when I got it. This is unlikely to have occurred, because none of them would have been interested enough to care about this piece of film. However this is how museums get a lot of their photographs, families going through the shoebox and donating a pile of old photos to the local museum. 100 years from now, the only images from this time period that will still exist will be celebrity where agencies care enough to maintain stock images, a few paintings and a rather small collection of old analog photos. Think about it this way, some of us have photographs of great grandparents dutifully recorded on B&W film, the great grandchildren of the majority of us, may never know what we looked like, because the only photos are digital and were not maintained. Mine will, as there are B&W photos of me around. Reminds me, I need to get a roll of B&W film and take some photos of my daughter, so that her great grandchildren will know what she looked like as a baby.

 

[yohimbe2]

Denial much here? Come on, as much as I like shooting film--- lets get real. It is MUCH cheaper to shoot digital.

Now to some of you veteran photographers, maybe you have shot thousands of rolls of film to learn your technique. Some of us are still learning, and with hundreds upon hundreds of faliures/learning shots, the cost is almost free--to fail. Just hit delete. learn, move on. (very little cost)

a 1 TB Hard Drive costs about $80. Buy two and you have backup. These will hold thousands upon thousands of pictures.

My Epson R2400 prints with archival ink. My grand childrens grand children will enjoy these pictures long after my hard drives have fermented. My best pictures are framed and matted.

Slide film? I like. But then again, a simple projector hooked to my computer will do the job well (as well or better). And I can hit print anytime. (something I'm still confused about with Slide film)

Editing. (now this is huge) lets say my white balance is off ( my first roll of Velvia 50) Too bad. Buy more film.

Film Cost. $7 a roll, $10 to process. About $17 bucks. (for 36 shots) Hate all your pics? (Or LEARNED SOMETHING new?) too bad. Shell out the $$$

Digital cost. (0) Shoot countless pictures and choose your best,----learn---much. (my $40 card can hold well over 1000 pictures)

OK, with that all aside. I want to do BOTH> Film and digital. Why? Because I want to learn photography. Thats it. 99.0% of the digital photography population started like me----with digital. I'm one of the few curious to see where it all started. (although they all tell me I'm nuts). I know film has a place and want to learn.

 

[Roger Cole]

You can change the color balance when you print from film, either hybrid from slides or conventional printing from regular color negatives or internegatives from slides. You can also do many other manipulations such as creative cropping, dodging and burning, and even more in black and white.

Which is cheaper to shoot us not a simple question to answer. Entry price in the form of equipment capable of top notch results is FAR lower with film now. But once you have the gear the marginal costs per shot for materials is far lower (essentially zero until you print them) for digital. Once you talk printing you add another complication as film depends on whether you do it yourself or have others do it (darkroom can be set up for less than a good ink jet printer but then you face needing a location for it and, far harder to arrange for some of us, sufficient TIME) and, if you have others make your prints, what level of quality you will accept. Ink is so expensive, and good ink jet papers not cheap, that the marginal costs per print favor conventional darkroom printing again, even when you consider test prints and waste.

Ultimately none of that really matters. Artists and art hobbyists choose the best tools for the results they seek or the ones they enjoy working with, not the cheapest.

Not sure why you are confused about printing your slides. As many of us have said, many places will print them (usually by scanning and then exposing color photo paper to lasers controlled by a computer from the scan.) I use Dwayne's for my slide developing and they will print them. Can't vouch for the results as I've never had them made but they will do it. Google Dwayne's Photo. Or google "film scanning service" for someone to make high res scans of your slides that you can print on your Epson. Or buy a 35mm film scanner (several still on the market) and scan them yourself. It's only confusing because there are so many choices.

 

[ME Super]

What Roger has said is true. I've had the occasional frame of Velvia come back with a red color cast. After scanning, I can load the file into Gimp (a FREE! tool) and click auto color balance. Bam, problem solved.

Digital is far cheaper per shot once the equipment is purchased. Film equipment is cheaper than digital equipment right now, but the per-cost shot is higher.

I shoot slide film because

1. I like the look
2. I like the resolution I get - when I step up to the screen I see more detail, not bigger pixels
3. It's a nostalgia trip for me
4. I like getting never-before-seen pictures back from the lab - it's like Christmas with 36 little presents!

I shoot digital because

1. The cost per shot is low, once the equipment is purchased
2. Instant feedback - heck I even use digital to get a quick proof before comitting a shot to film in tricky lighting situations
3. Easy to share
4. If I don't like the shot, I can delete it.

 

[yohimbe2]

What Roger has said is true. I've had the occasional frame of Velvia come back with a red color cast. After scanning, I can load the file into Gimp (a FREE! tool) and click auto color balance. Bam, problem solved.

Digital is far cheaper per shot once the equipment is purchased. Film equipment is cheaper than digital equipment right now, but the per-cost shot is higher.

I shoot slide film because

1. I like the look
2. I like the resolution I get - when I step up to the screen I see more detail, not bigger pixels
3. It's a nostalgia trip for me
4. I like getting never-before-seen pictures back from the lab - it's like Christmas with 36 little presents!

I shoot digital because

1. The cost per shot is low, once the equipment is purchased
2. Instant feedback - heck I even use digital to get a quick proof before comitting a shot to film in tricky lighting situations
3. Easy to share
4. If I don't like the shot, I can delete it.

Cool. Others here understand what the best of both worlds mean.

Film. You must take the time to THINK. The extra cost gives you incentive to use you mind. This is one of the reasons I came here.

Digital. Shoot away "lalala". (brain off) who cares its free.

I once saw a photographer off on a 30 day assignment shoot one shot per day. The man knew what he was doing, and every shot was amazing.-------------------This is the main reason I am here.

Call me silly----but I think the art might fade a bit if it becomes too convenient. Both sides offer a valid argument, but I think something might be missing if shooting is too easy.....

Easy is still good though, and cheap

 

[Hatchetman]

Slide film? I like. But then again, a simple projector hooked to my computer will do the job well (as well or better).

Unless you have a $15,000 digital projector, there is no way this is true. A decent analog slide projector will absolutely kill most digital projectors in terms of resolution and color vibrancy.

 

[wogster]

Denial much here? Come on, as much as I like shooting film--- lets get real. It is MUCH cheaper to shoot digital.

Now to some of you veteran photographers, maybe you have shot thousands of rolls of film to learn your technique. Some of us are still learning, and with hundreds upon hundreds of faliures/learning shots, the cost is almost free--to fail. Just hit delete. learn, move on. (very little cost)

a 1 TB Hard Drive costs about $80. Buy two and you have backup. These will hold thousands upon thousands of pictures.

My Epson R2400 prints with archival ink. My grand childrens grand children will enjoy these pictures long after my hard drives have fermented. My best pictures are framed and matted.

Slide film? I like. But then again, a simple projector hooked to my computer will do the job well (as well or better). And I can hit print anytime. (something I'm still confused about with Slide film)

Editing. (now this is huge) lets say my white balance is off ( my first roll of Velvia 50) Too bad. Buy more film.

Film Cost. $7 a roll, $10 to process. About $17 bucks. (for 36 shots) Hate all your pics? (Or LEARNED SOMETHING new?) too bad. Shell out the $$$

Digital cost. (0) Shoot countless pictures and choose your best,----learn---much. (my $40 card can hold well over 1000 pictures)

OK, with that all aside. I want to do BOTH> Film and digital. Why? Because I want to learn photography. Thats it. 99.0% of the digital photography population started like me----with digital. I'm one of the few curious to see where it all started. (although they all tell me I'm nuts). I know film has a place and want to learn.

I wonder though, a lot of the thinking digital is free, removes one important element from the equation, the thought process. When you use a 4x5 camera it's costing you $1 a sheet, plus another $1 to process. The photographer may spend an entire day out shooting and come home with 8 shots, thing is those 8 shots will be 8 keepers for a total cost of $16 . At $17 for 36 shots the cost is 47¢ per image, you still need to think about the images, but not as much. Because you will probably still end up with 8 keepers, and they will cost you 3 bucks and change. Until you figure in that it takes an hour with proofs or light table to decide which 8 are the keepers, if you figure that hour is is worth $10, that makes it $13 and change. So along comes "free" digital, who cares if in the field you make 1,000 shots, except now you spend 10 hours on the computer to figure out which 8 are the keepers. Now if you figure your time is worth $10/hr those 8 "free" digital images have cost you $100 in wasted time.

 

[ME Super]

For the budget conscious: Projection

Before I got back into film, I had rediscovered my slide projector and slides that I had shot in the past. I like the way they look, and was trying to figure out the least expensive way to get slides that I could project, since no digital projector I'd found could project as well as my $100 (in 1990) analog projector, and all the digital projectors cost way more than that. I'd looked at places that could turn my digital pictures into slides (using a film recorder), vs. buying slide film and having it developed. Turns out, the least expensive way to get slides to project is... <drum roll> ... Shoot slide film in the first place!

Now, having said that, there is a place that can turn photos not shot on slide film into slides fairly inexpensively (though not as inexpensively as shooting slides in the first place): Dwayne's Photo! The last lab in the world capable of processing Kodachrome will turn your numeric photos, negatives or prints into slides for $1.10 each.

 

[Bill Burk]

yohimbe2,

I just grabbed a drawer of slides at random to illustrate...

In 1984, I shot 17 rolls of film.

One of these shots was published on a cover of a CD (The Surf, Sensonics, Rhino)...
-Ironic... I think it was groundbreaking as the first digitally-recorded and mastered sound effects CD's -- and the cover art was Analog haaaaaa.

Back in the day, you would just pick up as much film as you could afford... balanced with beer and other expenses... and you went out and shot as much as you felt like. I rarely felt backed into a corner.

Professionals, yeah they shot a lot. But amateurs like me shot a couple rolls on a good weekend. In 1984 my biggest shooting trip was a trip to Carmel. I shot 7 rolls on one weekend - and I brought a newfangled 4x5 camera on that trip too. Shot a few 4x5 slides (came out too dark but wow!)... Some black and white instantaneous surf shots.

I hope you are getting a good impression from the slides you took and just know, you don't have to sink a fortune in it to get good results.

 

[RPC]

Denial much here? Come on, as much as I like shooting film--- lets get real. It is MUCH cheaper to shoot digital.

Now to some of you veteran photographers, maybe you have shot thousands of rolls of film to learn your technique. Some of us are still learning, and with hundreds upon hundreds of faliures/learning shots, the cost is almost free--to fail. Just hit delete. learn, move on. (very little cost)

a 1 TB Hard Drive costs about $80. Buy two and you have backup. These will hold thousands upon thousands of pictures.

My Epson R2400 prints with archival ink. My grand childrens grand children will enjoy these pictures long after my hard drives have fermented. My best pictures are framed and matted.

Slide film? I like. But then again, a simple projector hooked to my computer will do the job well (as well or better). And I can hit print anytime. (something I'm still confused about with Slide film)

Editing. (now this is huge) lets say my white balance is off ( my first roll of Velvia 50) Too bad. Buy more film.

Film Cost. $7 a roll, $10 to process. About $17 bucks. (for 36 shots) Hate all your pics? (Or LEARNED SOMETHING new?) too bad. Shell out the $$$

Digital cost. (0) Shoot countless pictures and choose your best,----learn---much. (my $40 card can hold well over 1000 pictures)

OK, with that all aside. I want to do BOTH> Film and digital. Why? Because I want to learn photography. Thats it. 99.0% of the digital photography population started like me----with digital. I'm one of the few curious to see where it all started. (although they all tell me I'm nuts). I know film has a place and want to learn.

There is no denial here, it is just being told the way it is.
If you are shooting with a low cost point and shoot camera and don't plan on color correcting or otherwise editing your images, and are having the local department store print them or print them with a cheap printer, yes, digital can be cheap. But if you want the quality that is obtainable from shooting film and processing and printing yourself, especially large prints, overall costs are much lower than digital to get the same quality results as has been indicated in earlier posts. I shoot film and print myself in my own darkroom because of this. And I did not have to shoot thousands of rolls to get my technique down. Film is much less problematic than digital can be.

But if you are not into prints but into slides, then as has been said, no digital medium can compete with the quality and low overall cost of a projected slide. But despite this, there is the problem of slide film choices becoming less and processing becoming more problematic. At one time good optical prints could easily be made from them, but not now. And we know why it all is.

Try shooting the slide films that are available. They are all good. You can view them on a light table or with a slide viewer, scan them for viewing on your monitor, print them, and project them for high quality-still very versatile despite the other problems. You'll get a much better return on your money spent over digital.