Hi, I shoot mostly on slides, though not Velvia. I tend to use Kodachrome.
If your aim is to produce scans you can get perfectly good results from colour negative. In fact they may even be better than slides for scanning because they have more exposure latitude so you will probably have a better tonal range. It is as easy to scan negatives as it is to scan slides. You buy a scanner, learn to operate it, learn to tweak the results in some imaging software, and there you have it. It's quite easy to get acceptable results for the web. It's possible that your dissatisfaction with prints comes from the printing process rather than the developing process. Developing negatives and slides both appear to be very standard processes. So your negatives may be as good as slides would be, as far as processing accuracy goes. Of course you may prefer the colour palette of something like Velvia, and that's fine. I don't know what country or city you're in, but in the larger towns and cities in Western Europe it should be quite easy to get your negatives or your slides scanned to a cd by the lab. This may be your best choice for now until you decide to spend money on your own scanner. If you can get a personal recommendation for which lab you choose, all the better, but most pro labs should be able to do a decent job. Once you have the slide or neg scanned you can look at a finished product by printing it yourself, or having it printed professionally. If you decide to go mad for slides then, assuming you're not doing your own processing, you will need some or all of the following pieces of equipment: slide mounts folders and storage a daylight-balanced lightbox - many people build their own a loupe - good ones are quite pricey a projector - pricey a projection screen or a white wall Slides shot with a good lens, projected to a large size through a high quality projector with a good lens, onto a high quality screen, look stunning. You will probably also enjoy looking at them on the light box through a good lupe (Schneider, Pentax, etc.). Hope this is some help. Bob Thursday, October 9, 2003, 7:27:11 PM, you wrote: > I've been dabbling in photography for a few years but my skill level may be > considered amateur at best. Everything I shoot has been on film to this > point and to a certain extent I have only been somewhat satisfied with the > results. Most of this can be attributed to "operator error" however there > are those moments when everything should have been perfect but leave me > quite displeased when I get the results back from the lab. Of coarse, some > shots are better than others but generally I have not been impressed with > what comes back. The greens are not nearly as green as I remember them. > Same with the blues and reds.. There's just something missing. > I have visited many of your web pages out there and the one thing that > appears consistant is that mnay of the pictures that I find so awe-inspiring > are those taken using color slides. Specifically, I have been most > impressed with those results from Fuji Velvia in the ISO 50 range. > Sorry to be so winded so I'll get to my point. What does it take to switch > to color slide and be able to enjoy the results? I am completely illiterate > as to how you turn color slides into jpgs or any type of viewable picture > for that matter. Is it worth the switch? What kind and how much of an > investment in equipiment can I expect to have to make? I'm not sure is I > want to give up the convenience of being able to look at a fisnished product > like you can with film. . > Someone please enlighten me or send me down the right path at least. Once > again, any and all help is very much appreciated! > Pat Wunsch
