Slide film shooting and hopelessness

[Chan Tran]

...and that rubs me all the wrong ways. Why shoot Slide Film if you're adding a limiting factor to the equation (lossy scan, lossy display)? Is your scanner capable to lift all there is to lift from emulsion, staying true to the grain and color fidelity without any iffy approximations and sharpness cheating, does it focuses properluy and does service or disservice?
Is your TV calibrated and does it display uncompromised color gamut? How are the black levels and contrast?

Slides are very bright at low magnifications. And if the projector can take it, there's always a brighter/hotter bulb available.

And there are screens with glass beads embedded, making the image brighter.

But why do that if room light can be controlled, making brightness issues moot? Do you ask for brighter image at cinema?

But to each his own.

How's your eyesight?

Yes if I view my images on a monitor or TV screen it's better to just shoot digital.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Just find an old Carousel projector and some mounts for real film. You've NOT going to better that with any kind of digital projection!

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Yes, I've done that on occasion. It's been a (long) while, probably over a decade ago. Kind of fun, but nowhere near the magic of a proper slideshow.




Imagine the captive audience that's being parked in front of a 75" screen to watch a YouTube video.

I remember the days when the family came over. Once they saw you setting up the projector at the end of the meal, they would feign a headache and leave early before the show and even before you could serve dessert. Now with the the slide show on a memory card plugged into the smart TV all the time, all I do is click it on in the middle of the football game, "Care to see our vacation shots of the Louvre?" and start it rolling. Of course, they haven't been back since.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Thank you all for this interesting discussion.

Were you able to test recent 4K projectors with good blacks for photo projection ?

I know they cost much more than slide projectors and are bigger and less transportable, but I wonder if photos could look good or "as good as" slide projection..?

Personnally I have only projected on affordable 2K (full hd) projectors and the results are not that good. I am asking this because many of the slide film recorders recorded at 4K or 8K, which is often considered optimal for 35mm recording..

I may be wrong, but digital projectors were useful when TVs were much smaller. Now that you can buy a 75" or 85" smart TV rather reasonably, I don't think a digital projector makes sense for home use. When you get that large, a projection image gets much lighter, with less contrast. Digital TVs are always lighting the image outwards rather than reflecting the image on a screen as a projector does.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Like I said earlier, few of us in the mountains even had TV yet, because there would have been no decent reception anyway. Too many high hills in the way. Same goes for reliable cell phone reception today. And when I did my own slide shows, people really wanted to attend. I kept those shows brief and with really beautiful Kodachrome and old style Agfachrome 50 images. No music.

But the dreaded 2 hr slide show types graduated into even more boring 3-hour long video presentations of their monotonous vacations.
That's when you feign the flu, and beg to be excused from coming. The next advance in technology has at least given us the opportunity to click off any boring website, which is a lot easier than sneaking around the outside of someone's house looking for the circuit breaker panel.

 

[albireo]

Now, I'm no novice when it comes to making silver gelatin prints. Back in the 80's and 90s I was frequently hired by many high profile Toronto artists to print their show works, so I have a lot of experience. So it's not like I don't have the background to identify a silver gelatin print. But in the 2020s, it has become very difficult to tell inkjet prints from silver gelatin prints. My own work, when printed via inkjet, is so similar to how my silver gelatin prints look that the difference is negligible. I am absolutely certain that 99.5% of viewers would not be able to say with any certainty what process produced my prints*. Maybe its different with color work, but you won't be able to convince me that good B&W inkjet prints don't look as good as a high quality silver gelatin print.

Hi Retina, can I quicky jump in here and ask you for advice on a dependable, consistent B&W inkjet printing workflow?

Lately I've been toying with the idea of printing some of my scans, but I know less than zero about professional quality digital printing. E.g. are there special Epson or Canon or HP etc printers which are BW specific and do a great job? Special inks+papers? What kind of postprocessing is needed to get the Inkjet print to look as close as possible to the scan as viewed on your monitor?

Seems like you know a lot about this topic, if at some point you could be bothered to post a tutorial or something I'm sure many people would appreciate it.

 

[koraks]

all I do is click it on in the middle of the football game, "Care to see our vacation shots of the Louvre?" and start it rolling.

I'd be thrilled to see the abhorrent green screen make room for Paris, really. I think you should be happy that these particular friends have not returned.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

Vacation shots should be kept only for themselves unless they have some artistic merit.
Who wants to see a pleb at a tourist site in front of an over-photographed object for any amount of time?

 

[koraks]

Vacation shots should be kept only for themselves unless they have some artistic merit.

Millions of people enjoy going through each others' vacation photos. Speaking for myself, I enjoy it, too. I love to see the photos of all the touristy spots my cousin and my niece put in our group WhatsApp whenever they travel (which is quite a lot). Lovely! I'm sure I'm not the only one. I don't think any of them need to be re-educated, and I also don't think there's any need on this planet for people telling others to please keep their holiday shots to themselves because they lack "artistic merit".

 

[DREW WILEY]

Depends. I have family members who have gone on some pretty extreme "vacations" to very remote beautiful parts of the world, and have had their shots published on the covers of adventure and climbing magazines. But let's face it, the kind of vac pictures many people take nowadays are the same ole selfies blocking the scenery behind them, or alongside some park sign identifying what that scene or trail supposedly is, which can't itself be seen. That does get monotonous.

I get a greater kick out of going through stacks of frontier shots taken by ancestors, whether ambrotypes or tintypes, or early silver prints, whatever. That's what I call a "vacation" - crossing the continent with a covered wagon, and founding a town in what was wilderness. All the "selfies" are ugly, with chewing tobacco stains going down the middle of men's beards, and all the women toothless by the age of 40; but at least it's authentic.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

I don't think any of them need to be re-educated

Agreed, they don't, but

the kind of vac pictures many people take nowadays are the same ole selfies blocking the scenery behind them, or alongside some park sign identifying what that scene or trail supposedly is, which can't itself be seen. That does get monotonous.

and I'm going by my own experience which is the torture many have been exposed to in their lifetimes - negatives, slides, facebook, instagram and all

"John was here" and that's all - poorly framed and exposed - I'm referring to only this type. Guess I could say that I'm interested in the external, not bragging rights

 

[albireo]

Millions of people enjoy going through each others' vacation photos. Speaking for myself, I enjoy it, too. I love to see the photos of all the touristy spots my cousin and my niece put in our group WhatsApp whenever they travel (which is quite a lot). Lovely! I'm sure I'm not the only one. I don't think any of them need to be re-educated, and I also don't think there's any need on this planet for people telling others to please keep their holiday shots to themselves because they lack "artistic merit".

Completely agree. I love seeing pictures of my friends, family and extended family being happy and doing things they love. Just in this period I often find myself thinking I should have taken more pictures of and with my beloved dad, in the most mundane situations, even - but it's too late now.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

True, I should've too.
But sitting in front of a large series of selfies (or "selfies" taken by a stranger non-photographer who was asked to take a quick and dirty image) with changing backgrounds and static expression/pose is just not fun. To me at least.

And my replicas could be taken as suggestion for quality Slide time, not re-education :F

 

[albireo]

True, I should've too.
But sitting in front of a large series of selfies (or "selfies" taken by a passer-by who was asked to take a quick and dirty image) with changing backgrounds and static expression/pose is just not fun. To me at least.

I don't know, I experienced only a few slide shows back when they were popular and they were all organised by my uncle who took pictures sparingly and was a good photographer. I seem to remember us kids liked the experience. It was never more than 20-30 images at a time and he had interesting comments on all of them.

I distinctly remember the low buzz of the projector and the clack-clack of the mechanism. What does a decent projector cost these days? I remember seeing exoteric Leica ones on the catalogues in the 90s - they had 2 lenses...What were those for? Some sort of fade in fade out mechanism?

 

[Paul Howell]

I think there are a wide range of experiences with the slide show. I had a projector but did not have friends over for a slide show, my work is and was a wall with some in a photo album on a coffee table. I shot a fair amount of slides for clients or the wires. For news we usually shot color negative film, slides for travel and fashion. While in the Air Force we did shoot slides for various projects, our tech orders called for slides when the image was going to be projected and color negatives for prints. Most commercial and industrial work I did slides as that is what the art director wanted, the additional production of cost making a C print along the masks was just part of the overhead. A few weeks I spent a few hours looking at my personal slides. Kodachrome, Ektachrome are holding up as are 60s vintage Agfa sides processed by Agfa while the GAF slides processed by GAF or by me are fading as are polaroid I self processed in the 80s. My color negatives seems to be holding up, I have Kodak and GAF from the 60s which I am going to have printed, I will have the lab print without correction to see how much color shifting has taken place.

 

[Taylor Nankervis]

What does a decent projector cost these days?

...about $20!
From time to time they crop up on lawns outside the front of houses — free for the taking (but I wouldn't touch them if they have been left out in the rain!); other times, flea markets or garage sales. My own slides haven't been projected for close to 40 years now. My specialisation is printing from chrome film, not projection.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Just a dust cloth for me. I got my Carousel for free over 30 years ago. I don't even remember what my first slide projector was.

I have actually printed only a handful of my own 35mm slides, specifically on Cibachrome. Nearly all my color prints have been made from sheet film chromes instead, at least until I started printing via RA4 chromogenic media. I now print multi-format : 6x7, 6x9,4x5, 8x10, once in awhile 35mm.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

I think there are a wide range of experiences with the slide show.

Yup. All driven by what's on the plate.

- One can go on vacation and take just images of blocked objects of interest by striking a similar pose and smile at a distance or
- show to folks at home what they saw and were impressed by whilst being abroad.

One looks at oneself/internally, the other option - to the world around one self/externally. I prefer the 2nd option and could spend a considerable time enjoying these, but to each his own.


France, my ex is driving a retro car from a private collection


Belgium, steelworks - now demolished


Lifosa plant, Lithuania. Abandoned premises


Latvia, Karosta fortifications


Pripyat, Ukraine




Portugal


Netherlands


You get the idea...

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I'd be thrilled to see the abhorrent green screen make room for Paris, really. I think you should be happy that these particular friends have not returned.

Can't blame them. I hate when people want to show me their vacation shots, like on a cell phone as they thumb through the same pictures from different angles one after the other after the other after the other.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Millions of people enjoy going through each others' vacation photos. Speaking for myself, I enjoy it, too. I love to see the photos of all the touristy spots my cousin and my niece put in our group WhatsApp whenever they travel (which is quite a lot). Lovely! I'm sure I'm not the only one. I don't think any of them need to be re-educated, and I also don't think there's any need on this planet for people telling others to please keep their holiday shots to themselves because they lack "artistic merit".

After my next vacation, I'm inviting you over.

 

[MattKing]

Our Darkroom Group is having a slide show day on Saturday. I'm both working on putting a small tray of my medium format slides together for it, and looking forward to seeing other people's selections.
I'm not bothering to bring the 110 projector for those, but the slides will probably range between 35mm and 8x10 - for which an overhead projector works reasonably well.

 

[NiallerM]

I developed reversal B&W for the first time tonight.

For some background: I need to get into reversal because I have a medium-term project to ceate a new form of autochromes. Something which marries the original method wih newer techniques and what have you. Anyway, producing a positive image is part and parcel of that, so I got myself a roll of Foma reversal and the chemicals I'd need. I should add that for some reason I loaded the film into a camera which I love, but which isn't exactly something which is ideal for a tightly-controlled experiment. That camera is a Kodak Retina. I say "tightly-controlled" because the first thing that emerged in conversation with someone who had used the process way back when was that the film typically doesn't afford much latitude; it was important to be pretty accurate in exposure.

Whatever, I didn't really get around to pushing the film through the camera and it was today - after two or three months - that I finally took a last couple of snaps to finish the roll.

So to development. I won't pretend that I'm flippant when it comes to development, but I've become comfortable enough not to rely on stopwatches and the rest. I'm not exactly winging it, though. I'm most normally developing sheet film and I have recent knowledge of the conditions in which I took the photo. I react accordingly. I also always have a test shot from which to adjust the second negative.

Tonight, I was using the stopwatch. There was still a frustrating re-exposure which wasn't very specific in the instructions, but I did, in fact, wing that bit.

The results blew me away. They look just so sharp, so alive, and the contrasts were wonderful. I am in love with this process!

The other thing - and this is something which was a joy I'd almost forgotten - the film had been in the camera for three months. The photographs were new to me.

 

[Chuck1]

Agfa scala was very nice
I need to look into reversal processes

 

[ChrisGalway]

I developed reversal B&W for the first time tonight.

For some background: I need to get into reversal because I have a medium-term project to ceate a new form of autochromes. Something which marries the original method wih newer techniques and what have you. Anyway, producing a positive image is part and parcel of that, so I got myself a roll of Foma reversal and the chemicals I'd need. I should add that for some reason I loaded the film into a camera which I love, but which isn't exactly something which is ideal for a tightly-controlled experiment. That camera is a Kodak Retina. I say "tightly-controlled" because the first thing that emerged in conversation with someone who had used the process way back when was that the film typically doesn't afford much latitude; it was important to be pretty accurate in exposure.

Whatever, I didn't really get around to pushing the film through the camera and it was today - after two or three months - that I finally took a last couple of snaps to finish the roll.

So to development. I won't pretend that I'm flippant when it comes to development, but I've become comfortable enough not to rely on stopwatches and the rest. I'm not exactly winging it, though. I'm most normally developing sheet film and I have recent knowledge of the conditions in which I took the photo. I react accordingly. I also always have a test shot from which to adjust the second negative.

Tonight, I was using the stopwatch. There was still a frustrating re-exposure which wasn't very specific in the instructions, but I did, in fact, wing that bit.

The results blew me away. They look just so sharp, so alive, and the contrasts were wonderful. I am in love with this process!

The other thing - and this is something which was a joy I'd almost forgotten - the film had been in the camera for three months. The photographs were new to me.

B&W Reversal is special ... the best moment is removing the film from the spiral at the end and seeing those little miracles!

 

[Ivo Stunga]

My fave is reexposure stage as it tells a lot about development and is the 1st time I can see pictures and can somewhat observe them reversing in light.