The Future of Slide Film

[Poisson Du Jour]

Not with Provia 100, but certainly, Provia 400X can be pushed to 1600.
We can still get this film, but it is coming directly from Japan rather than local sellers.

 

[Roger Cole]

Chrome film in general has become expensive to shoot. $15 for a roll of Velvia and another $15 to process it, makes me think twice about pressing the shutter. In some ways, though, that may be a good thing, but does little to stimulate the market.

I still feel bad that Kodak stopped making KodaChrome because I stop shooting it in 1982. They struggled for years to make it work. Unfortunately, I didn't get back into chrome film until about 5 years ago (school and life got in the way).

Then you are getting ripped off. A roll of 35mm Velvia 50 is $11.50 at B&H and a roll of 120 is $8.55:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/searc...+4019732826+4130468174+4130468182&srtclk=sort

Dwayne's will process it for you for $8.95 for the 35mm and $7.50 for the 120:

https://www.dwaynesphoto.com/common/newforms/Slide_Film_Processing.pdf

S&H is $5 on the first roll so that does hit your processing cost, but additional rolls are just fifty cents each for S&H which brings the total cost per roll way down if you send several rolls at once. I usually send them 4-5 rolls at a time.


Then you

Not with Provia 100, but certainly, Provia 400X can be pushed to 1600.
We can still get this film, but it is coming directly from Japan rather than local sellers.

There is still some available but the announcement was posted here a while back that it has finally been discontinued everywhere. Some stock is still available.

I love Provia 400X. Yes you can push 100 to an acceptable 400, but it won't be as good as a native 400 and, as pointed out above, you can push the 400 to a quite acceptable (for many uses) 1600.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Velvia 50 is $37 for a roll of 35mm here in Australia, and anything from $7.95 to $16.95 for processing (double that for process + scan). 120 format Velvia and Provia is cheaper online, and that's where the momentum is. Haven't seen 400X in retail stores since last July.

Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk

 

[ericdan]

Not with Provia 100, but certainly, Provia 400X can be pushed to 1600.
We can still get this film, but it is coming directly from Japan rather than local sellers.

Really where do you get that from now? I live in Tokyo and the stores here told me that production stopped last year.
There was a huge run on the remaining stock and I don't see anymore in stores even here in Japan.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Really where do you get that from now? I live in Tokyo and the stores here told me that production stopped last year.
There was a huge run on the remaining stock and I don't see anymore in stores even here in Japan.

eBay.
Or Hong Kong (three stores in Causeway). Or Thailand. Or UK. All legacy stock but lots of choices.
I have three rolls of 400X (expiry 10/2016) but won't be buying more of it.

 

[Roger Cole]

If I can get more for less than $20/roll I may. But when I have seen it, it's been $30+.

 

[mooseontheloose]

Really where do you get that from now? I live in Tokyo and the stores here told me that production stopped last year.
There was a huge run on the remaining stock and I don't see anymore in stores even here in Japan.

Yodobashi had it in stock very briefly (a few days) a week or two ago (the days seem to run together so I don't remember exactly).

Maco Direct is selling some for very inflated prices.

 

[Prest_400]

Oh boy, until it hits near and hard I didn't realise.

So, after a few months abroad, I've a bit of E6 that will need processing. In a note of convenience, instead of mailing it to a hip lab (these that have a very active social presence, send negs and get the scans online: Carmencita, FINDlab, indie, etc) I opted to see how the state of Dev only was in Barcelona, so I could drop in the roll while I'm around the city as I study there. Also, as I scan myself now, I try to avoid mailing.

In late 2014, the two labs I checked placed 120 E6 DEV at 5,50 no tax, another about 8€ with tax... But now the former are at 25€/roll without tax! The latter discontinued E6 sendout.
AFAIK there is was a central lab somewhere that processed all the E6 from different places in BCN, but individual small labs run C41 themselves.

I'll have to pool up the E6 together with C41 and send batches by mail. Just will have to incorporate the postage and extra waiting.

As of the price increase... I grabbed a pack of Provia 100F from an ebay seller at an old price, 6/2017 batch. In Spain it didn't seem to be widely stocked, Fuji perhaps does produce just enough in demand yearly.

 

[destroya]

just learn to develop your own slides at home. the chems work out to about $2 a roll and its not any harder than B&W. all you have to do is get a water bath to keep them chems at 100 degrees. a large cheap slow cooker works great for me.

While I do have a large stash of film, I too am worried about being able to buy fresh e-6 film going forward.

 

[captain ZZM]

I don't know what is advantage of slide film, today use slide to enlarge color paint is difficult even impossible and negative color film has more details than slide film.

 

[AgX]

The advantage of slide film is that you can put it in a projector.

 

[NJH]

Loads of reasons, its no coincidence that the slides films that survived are the ones that give deep colour and amazing half tones (both in change of colour tone and light level).

 

[Roger Cole]

I don't know what is advantage of slide film, today use slide to enlarge color paint is difficult even impossible and negative color film has more details than slide film.

The advantage of slide film is that you can put it in a projector.

Exactly this.

There is also the fact that the image is complete right out of the camera, or at least right out of the initial processing. This is especially good in larger formats though it's true enough in 35mm. But a 4x5 or even 6x7 transparency on a lightbox is a thing of beauty in itself. You don't have to rely on making a print, or at least an inverted scan, and then on getting the color balance correct, just to tell if the shot is any good. And - let's face it this is a factor - if you need or prefer to scan for some reason then positives are easier, or at least easier to judge when they are correct.

It really just depends on your intended output. I do shoot for projection, and for that it's obviously slides. I send scans of those to people who can't be present for the show. If I want prints as final output and that's the main concern, then I agree that I prefer negative film.

 

[sagai]

I don't know what is advantage of slide film, today use slide to enlarge color paint is difficult even impossible and negative color film has more details than slide film.

When you see slide projection than you know instantly the advantage.
I have seen true hdmi digital projection ... not even close to a even a 135mm slide projection.

 

[gzhuang]

Thanks TS for telling us he shoots super cheap slide film.

 

[tomfrh]

The advantage of slide film is that you can put it in a projector.

Yeah.

Like Don Draper says - a slide projector is a time machine. It's magic.

I really hope they keep making good slide film. I'll cry if it goes away...

 

[Alan Klein]

I shoot Velvia 120 slide film because I like the colors. I bracket, so it's easier to select the right shot to use. I don't project but I find it easier to do editing with it over let's say Ektar 100 negative color film.

 

[IloveTLRs]

I don't know what is advantage of slide film, ...

With slide film, the final result in terms of color, is exactly what I saw when I tripped the shutter. I don't always get that with color negative (especially Ektar 100.)

 

[Roger Cole]

When you see slide projection than you know instantly the advantage.
I have seen true hdmi digital projection ... not even close to a even a 135mm slide projection.

I dunno, I'd LIKE to believe this but...

I had an experience with it fairly recently. I go on monthly excursions in a local state park during the summer hours of DST with a group I'm involved with (not a photography group, I'm the only one who shoots many photos.) Every year during the holidays our tradition is that we have a year end party, and it's become tradition that I do a slide show. This past year we had an unusual amount of rainy weather which limited the amount of slide film I shot. On those days I didn't take a film camera for that reason I still took some photos with my iPhone, an iPhone 6 so a recent model.

To round out the show I showed both slides and my digital shots via my home theater projector, an Epson Home Cinema 2030. From a normal viewing distance, while the two sets looked a bit different, I'd be hard pressed to say one was clearly better than the other. The only thing I'd have pegged as "wrong" with the digital shots is that they were pretty uniformly a bit over saturated for my tastes, but that's entirely a matter of the algorithm in the camera and easily fixed with any image editing software, I just didn't have time to bother. It's also a matter of the slide films I shot, which were E100G, Provia 100F and Provia 400X. I suspect Velvia would have been considerably more saturated than the digital shots. Now if you walked up close to the screen, closer than you'd ever do to view the entire image, then yes the difference was obvious with pixels and some artifacts visible in the digital images. But from back where they were intended to be seen when projected to that size - I'm not so sure.

The last thing I want to do is turn this into another digital comparison thread. And there's also the point that a 35mm slide projector can be had very, very cheaply these days and not that many people have, or care to shell out the money to buy, a really good digital projector. I paid about $900 for mine not counting cables, mounting, the player that feeds it movies etc. and I would never have done that just to show still frames. I bought and installed the system for movies and just pressed it into service for the still photos. The price on that model has come down in the nearly two years since I bought it, but only by about $100 so it's still a far more significant purchase than a slide projector which can be had for well less than $100 now.

I love film, and I'll continue shooting slides on those trips as long as slide film is available (and the weather allows! Yes, I could buy a Nikonos or the like but I'm not going to just for that.) But that's also because it has other advantages. If I wanted to, say, make a (coughcough about how I'd have to do it now with Ilfochrome and Type R gone) large print from one of those frames I suspect the 35mm slide shot on Provia 100F or E100G, and possibly the ones on 400X as well, would blow away anything I could do with those iPhone shots, especially if I did any additional cropping. The slides will last a very long time if I store them carefully. The digital shots are backed up on my computer but really just on the phone and computer and who knows if I will still have the files, or even be able to read them, in 20 years or more? I love slide film I'm just not sure that "it's so much better projected" is a reason why.

 

[Wallendo]

I dunno, I'd LIKE to believe this but...

I had an experience with it fairly recently. I go on monthly excursions in a local state park during the summer hours of DST with a group I'm involved with (not a photography group, I'm the only one who shoots many photos.) Every year during the holidays our tradition is that we have a year end party, and it's become tradition that I do a slide show. This past year we had an unusual amount of rainy weather which limited the amount of slide film I shot. On those days I didn't take a film camera for that reason I still took some photos with my iPhone, an iPhone 6 so a recent model.

To round out the show I showed both slides and my digital shots via my home theater projector, an Epson Home Cinema 2030. From a normal viewing distance, while the two sets looked a bit different, I'd be hard pressed to say one was clearly better than the other. The only thing I'd have pegged as "wrong" with the digital shots is that they were pretty uniformly a bit over saturated for my tastes, but that's entirely a matter of the algorithm in the camera and easily fixed with any image editing software, I just didn't have time to bother. It's also a matter of the slide films I shot, which were E100G, Provia 100F and Provia 400X. I suspect Velvia would have been considerably more saturated than the digital shots. Now if you walked up close to the screen, closer than you'd ever do to view the entire image, then yes the difference was obvious with pixels and some artifacts visible in the digital images. But from back where they were intended to be seen when projected to that size - I'm not so sure.

The last thing I want to do is turn this into another digital comparison thread. And there's also the point that a 35mm slide projector can be had very, very cheaply these days and not that many people have, or care to shell out the money to buy, a really good digital projector. I paid about $900 for mine not counting cables, mounting, the player that feeds it movies etc. and I would never have done that just to show still frames. I bought and installed the system for movies and just pressed it into service for the still photos. The price on that model has come down in the nearly two years since I bought it, but only by about $100 so it's still a far more significant purchase than a slide projector which can be had for well less than $100 now.

I love film, and I'll continue shooting slides on those trips as long as slide film is available (and the weather allows! Yes, I could buy a Nikonos or the like but I'm not going to just for that.) But that's also because it has other advantages. If I wanted to, say, make a (coughcough about how I'd have to do it now with Ilfochrome and Type R gone) large print from one of those frames I suspect the 35mm slide shot on Provia 100F or E100G, and possibly the ones on 400X as well, would blow away anything I could do with those iPhone shots, especially if I did any additional cropping. The slides will last a very long time if I store them carefully. The digital shots are backed up on my computer but really just on the phone and computer and who knows if I will still have the files, or even be able to read them, in 20 years or more? I love slide film I'm just not sure that "it's so much better projected" is a reason why.

The problem with this analogy is that you had to convert your slides to 24-bit 2 megapixel images to view on your projector. Even your iPhone images were scaled down from their native 8 megapixel format.

When slides are projected in the analog manner, color depth is much greater than 24-bit RGB, and resolution is much higher than 2 megapixels (1080x1920).

Whether it makes a big difference is probably most determined by "normal viewing distance". As you move back from 1 and 1/2 screen heights, resolution becomes less important.

What your experience really points out is that digital resolution is vastly overrated, and megapixel counts are really just a marketing ploy to get people to replace perfectly fine cameras with more expensive cameras offering little quality improvement.

Did you have a chance to do a side-by-side comparison of your slides with a slide projector vs. the same slide scanned on projected with your Epson?

 

[Sirius Glass]

+ 1

Here is a news flash. Digital scans of slides still do not compare well to using a slide projector. Just because there is a newer way does not automatically make it better.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

The advantage of slide film is that you can put it in a projector.

If you want. It's also the gold standard for printing, and has been all through the Ektachrome, Kodachrome and Fujichrome era when it was done solely to Ilfochrome Classic. Prints from C41 just do not cut it with those looking for the 'WOW!' factor in prints.

 

[1L6E6VHF]

To me. The biggest advantage of slide film is that one can look through it with an achromatic stereo slide viewer, such as a Realist ST-61.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...It's also the gold standard for printing, and has been all through the Ektachrome, Kodachrome and Fujichrome era when it was done solely to Ilfochrome Classic...

That is incorrect on several counts.

The "gold standard" for printing from transparencies depended on one's aesthetic preferences. To my taste, Cibachrome/Ilfochrome were gaudy, over saturated, excessively glossy things. They did last a long time in the dark, but, since I thought they were rather ugly to begin with, that was a disadvantage to me. On display, they faded perceptibly.

Both Kodak and Fuji made direct reversal color papers with an appearance I found more pleasing than Cibachrome/Ilfochrome. Although incapable of handling all but the lowest contrast transparencies without masking, they were slightly better in this regard than Cibachrome/Ilfochrome. Their surfaces were, to me, "just right," with enough shine to support low values but not so much that one's reflection was visible when looking at them in typical lighting conditions. Unfortunately, their stability wasn't very good.

Many considered dye transfer prints to be the best ever made. I found them lacking in sharpness, something unacceptable to me when the originals were 8x10 transparencies. Also, while dyes' gamut might have been measurably superior, I've never found actual pictorial prints to exhibit any advantage as a result. Dye transfer prints are extraordinarily stable in the dark, but fugitive on display.

For me, the gold standard in prints from color transparencies is the approach where they are drum scanned, appropriately processed into image-setter-written separation negatives and then assembled from individually exposed carbon pigment tissues prepared using those negatives. These were offered commercially for a brief period around 20 years ago under the "Evercolor" and "Ultrastable" brand names. They combined excellent color rendition, an ability to cope with transparencies' inherently high contrast, and unmatched stability (both on display and in dark storage), to achieve what I consider the ultimate color prints. I have a 20 x 30 inch Evercolor print in our living room that, after 20+ years under bright daylight illumination, remains as vibrant as the day it was hung. The 32 x 40 inch sheet of Denglas it's covered by is not UV coated, so whatever solar radiation (diffused by wood shutters) makes it through the windows reaches that print. The Denglas is AR coated, revealing the Evercolor print's semi-mat, relief-type surface clearly. If prints like this were readily available today, I might still be shooting large format color instead of having transitioned to exclusively black and white film work.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I've made Fuji Supergloss prints from color neg film that even experienced lab pros couldn't tell apart from Cibachromes. There have of course been
many other pathways. The joke about Evercolor was that it had all the beauty of a plastic placemat. Color rendition was outright awful, and the surface like a piece of newsprint. I spent quite a bit of time chatting with those folks in their facility once. A noble effort, but overall a misfire, and
utterly unaffordable compared to current scanned options. There were predecessor attempts at commercializing halftone carbon prints, such as the Polaroid permanent process, but none gave the relatively seamless look of continuous-tone carbros, carbons, or dye transfers, none of which are the best choices if high detail resolution is a priority. I'm too much of a beginner at dye transfer printing to know what I can or can't do with it; but I do know that Ciba, and now certain RA4 prints, can be brought to a high level of color reproduction if one is willing to expend the effort to really know the process. I made a number of high-quality internegs from 8x10 chromes a couple years back - I mean with a lot of meticulous masking and so forth - in one case eight different masks involved before the final interneg - but don't know how soon I can actually print them to see the result of all that effort. It's just so much easier to shoot new color negs rather than adapt old chromes; but I've sure got a stack of 'em, and really don't like the look of inkjet prints (at least for my own shots).