What brand of 35mm SLR lenses do you prefer for slides?

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AgX

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... but back then only Kodachrome and Agfachrome. Mainly Kodachrome, but I preferred Agfachrome for people and some landscapes.
In the late 70s Agfa made a full page ad for Agfachrome, with part of the page filled with a full size photo of a trout with next to it the circumference of the trout in dottet line. The reader was asked to lay a real trout in that field and compare ...
 

Dennis-B

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Pentax Super Takumar lenses rendered superb results for me, especially the M42 screw mount SMC's. That doesn't discount Nikon, Leica, or Canon, but it was my preference. I still use an ES-II, and the 70's era lenses do fine. I also preferred Kodachrome, because the others tended to be a bit cool for my tastes, and folks liked the warmth of projected Kodachrome. Later on I tried Fujichrome, found it was too green-biased, and found that Ektachrome was a bit too blue-biased. It didn't make any difference the brand of camera or lens, but results relied instead on the color bias of the film.

I've scanned several thousand 35mm slides, and my original suspicions have held. Fuji is green-biased, Kodachrome red-biased, and Ektachrome blue biased. The most neutral seems to have been Agfachrome, though it wasn't my favorite at the time.
 
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chip j

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Judging solely from my high-quality 4X loupes, the Nikon seems cold & dull, while the Canon seems warm & downright delightful.
 

blockend

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This is another one of chip's joke threads. We await "what kind of camera dials do you prefer?" and "left or right hand focus?"
 

MattKing

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Judging solely from my high-quality 4X loupes, the Nikon seems cold & dull, while the Canon seems warm & downright delightful.
So when you project them using a projector with a halogen lamp, the Nikon slides will look natural, and the Canon slides will look garish:whistling:.
 

Sirius Glass

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When I owned Minoltas I preferred the Rokkor lens. Now that I use Nikons for 35mm I use Nikon and Tamron lenses.
 
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chip j

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I meant my Nikon & Canon LOUPES (looking at Zeiss G slides). I'd rather loupe than project.
 

Ap507b

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Have only ever shot slide film on Nikon bodies with mostly Nikkor lenses. Used a few third party lenses but the last 15 years has been solely Nikkors .Variety of slide films over time .Kodachrome 64, Fuji Velvia 50, Sensia 100 & Provia. Used a few bodies & getting on for a dozen Nikkor primes & have been very happy with the results. Do kiss Kodachrome 64 but really taken with Provia. Favourite slide film at the moment but itching to try Ektachrome when it sees the light of day again .
 

AgX

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This is another one of chip's joke threads. We await "what kind of camera dials do you prefer?" and "left or right hand focus?"

I first thought, yes, a typical Chip question. However with a slide being the final product, a lens can have some influence.

A hue can easily be filtered out in a neg/pos process, for slides one would have to use a CC filter at taking.
However when looking at a slide in ambient lighting, room and projector lighting are of effect too.

Low saturation of a lens would affect both neg.pos process as a slide.

The two issues you brought up, dials and left or right focusing, are even more reasonable questions.
 

blockend

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However with a slide being the final product, a lens can have some influence.
I agree it can. My Nikon, Canon, Yashica/Contax, Minolta and soviet lenses all render colour slightly differently, but an opinion on which is best would be purely subjective...one man's meat. Do you like cool and neutral, super saturated, warm and honey coloured? Add the natural film colours and you have virtually endless combinations.

It makes a change from, "how much sharper is Leica than Canon", but chip's threads bring out the cynic in me.
 

blockend

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In my experience, variation in color rendering among various brand lens is much more subtle than this.
In addition to film, I've tested my lenses on the digital. With the same sensor there are noticeable differences, in the case of Yashica a completely different look. Nothing you can't compensate for by changing film brands or tweaks in the edit. Who knows what other people like, or even if they perceive colour the same way?
 

John Koehrer

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Along with AGX and blockend I'd say there is a difference between the brands. Once upon a time several of us
tried an experiment using Canon, Nikon and Leica lenses. With one roll of E6 film shot several
frames in each of the three cameras there was a perceptible difference when view on a light box.
If you project them you won't see it.
 

ic-racer

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What brand of 35mm SLR lenses do you prefer for slides?
Choose wisely, Irving Pen did...
Screen Shot 2018-04-20 at 4.19.19 PM.png
 

Sirius Glass

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I first thought, yes, a typical Chip question. However with a slide being the final product, a lens can have some influence.

A hue can easily be filtered out in a neg/pos process, for slides one would have to use a CC filter at taking.
However when looking at a slide in ambient lighting, room and projector lighting are of effect too.

Low saturation of a lens would affect both neg.pos process as a slide.

The two issues you brought up, dials and left or right focusing, are even more reasonable questions.


I was using Minolta slrs for shooting slides for years and I used Rokkor lenses and one pre-Series I Vivitar telephoto. Since the telephoto did not have the same glass and optical coatings they tended to have less snap, pop, ... than the Rokkor lenses. I should have dumped the telephoto and bought a better one.
 
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