How do you display your chromes?

[Mats_A]

I have a question to all LF-shooters. There are projectors for 35mm and 6x6 slides. What about 4x5, 5x7 or 8x10 slides. How do you display them? Are they forever doomed to be admired on a light table? Do you scan them and make paper copies? Are there any "mini light tables" that goes on the wall, perhaps with an enlarger and built in illumination? Like an analog version of the digital frame.

Am thinking about getting an LF-camera and I understand what to do with my B&W pictures but the beautiful Velvias I will (hopefully) make, what will I do with them?

r

 

[pgomena]

I don't make chromes anymore. They have become too expensive for me, and there are fewer and fewer labs to process them. If I did, I would reproduce them by digital means, which is what I do with the small amount of color negative film I do use. Be careful, displaying them on a light table eventually will cause them to fade. If you do want to display them on a "light table", I would scan them and broadcast them to a big flat screen TV, or use digital technology to create an enlarged transparency. It makes me sad to see transparencies becoming less used. I grew up with them.

Peter Gomena

 

[tim k]

Print em big, and hang em on your wall.

 

[Ian Grant]

I used to get them printed, as R3's on Fuji paper but now that option is gone I'll probably switch to Ektar and go down the C41 route for future colour projects, as I do my own RA-4 printing..

Ian

 

[Sanjay Sen]

I shoot a bit of chrome in 4x5 (not anything bigger yet). Mine are "doomed to be admired on a light table". I plan to get them scanned by a lab for displaying on the web, and did get a couple of Chromira prints from those that I really liked.

I do hope to get some printed traditionally while that process is still available.

 

[keithwms]

I have some big lightboxes, they are abundant in my (physics) dept. You could also look for the ones docs use to look at xray images. You could also make your own LF projector.

I do get lightjet/chromira prints done now and then, they can be quite successful at very large enlargement. For example, I think I have done something like 48" width from a 5x7 slide. I am sure my next comment will ruffle some feathers but, these prints stack up extremely well to cibas/ilfos that I have seen and require no contrast masking... and there is zero loss of detail due to intermediate lensing, if you have your scans done with a drum. Hence I haven't even bothered to do ilfos myself. All I am saying is that lightjet/chromira use photopaper and provide me with affordable large prints with high impact. (And, personally I find lightjet/chromira unsuitable for b&w, but that is another story.)

 

[MattKing]

Someone here on APUG recently posted that they liked to use an overhead projector to show 8x10 transparencies.

Matt

 

[keithwms]

Yes, well, they make those cheap craft store projectors; you can probably put a slide on a light table and use one of those...

 

[erikg]

Ciba trans used to be awesome for this. There are some great little light boxes out there, and they are easy to make. I've built a few for exhibitions in the past, although the last ones I built were for some b&w trans done on kodalith, I'll miss that stuff too.

 

[removed account4]

i over expose them a little and magnet them to the white fridge!
having them in a clear frame in a window so they illuminate with the sun ( like stained glass ) works well too ...

 

[keithwms]

John, are they colourfast in sunlight? I thought of making 'windows' with my 11x14 provia, but, I worry about fading. Maybe with UV glass...

 

[nworth]

I scan and print. That seems to be the most common way. In the past, a friend used to make enlargements of his work on Cibachrome translucent material which was then displayed backlighted. The material is still available, but the process is now too expensive.

 

[Ektagraphic]

Couldn't one use an overhead projector like they use in schools?

 

[MattKing]

Couldn't one use an overhead projector like they use in schools?

See post #7

 

[removed account4]

John, are they colourfast in sunlight? I thought of making 'windows' with my 11x14 provia, but, I worry about fading. Maybe with UV glass...

hi keith

not sure, i don't notice, or should i say didn't notice ..
i did this a while ago, and haven't in years ( even bought a boatload of 5x7 fujichrome to do it with ) ... uv glass would be good

 

[Joachim_I]

This question is exactly the reason why I decided for 6x7 as my main format. It is the maximum format for which slide projectors are readily available (from Goetschmann). For a while, there also was a 4x5 large format projector, the Noblux 4x5. However, I never saw one in person. I guess it was produced in very small numbers.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

I have shot 35mm to Ilfochromes for 24 years, for a while from Kodachrome 200 trannies, then Velvia (since 2000, printing to 40x50cm; any bigger when framed is unwieldly and fragile to transport). Adopt an holistic approach: invest in the best quality lenses, refine and refine again your technique and knowledge of film, response and palettes, and importantly print the very best of your work to the very best media you can afford — 'chromes, and frame them for perpetuity (e.g. 9 ply Rag matt with UV glass and vac. sealing) and display them. Trannies from which the prints are obtained should be archivally sleeved or ideally, masked, and stored in a dark, dust free place. This silly business of buying huge ultra-expensive cameras and only printing postcards or A5s or worse on inkjet printers is nauseating.

And look, long after your rise to the Pearly Gates (assuming you've been a good boy!) your beautiful images should remind the world of what you achieved in your time and place, not what trends or materialistic mores driven by a consumerist society dictated at the time.

 

[Stephen Frizza]

I print them to Ilfochrome like everyone else should hehehe just being cheeky. seriously though i feel if your going to shoot slide and have it printed then the only process is Ilfochrome. Everything else well why bother.

 

[richard ide]

"Everything else well why bother"

Stephen, Very well put. I did my own up to 16 x 20 and they put everything else to shame.

 

[jdimichele]

For my 4x5 chromes, I pretty much scan them into digital format now. It's definitely possible to purchase backlit boxes that hang on your wall, but if I were to do that I would probably make my own so they looked custom and low profile and not pre-fabricated. I will from time-to-time look at my chromes on my lightbox and I enjoy looking at them.


Cheers,
Jay
www.jasondimichele.com