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.
Last Sunday I went out shooting fall colors, still a week to 10 days off peak, and pulled the slide film from my cameras and went with print. Slide and print film have their advantages and disadvantages, and it's just a matter of picking the right film for the job.
I really don't think you can tell much about a photo's technical competence from a website display. they are just too small. You can make judgements about the composition and essentials like that. But you don't get hit with grain and sharpness problems on 650 x 480 jpgs!
The thing with slide film is that it is much less forgiving on exposure changes than print film, so you have to be pretty much on target with your exposure. The catch 22 is that you really can't learn how to do that with print film. Most slide films will show a difference with just a 1/2 stop change in exposure, and mis-exposing by a stop can really hurt a slide exposure. With color negatives, it's almost impossible to see a half stop difference in the film, and exposure variances of a full stop can usually be corrected when making prints. So when you make the jump to slides, you have to be patient and work out those exposure problems and also know when to bracket.
The are advantages to shooting slides. Slower slide films (ISO 100 and less) scan sharper than print film of the same speed and exhibit less grain. When you need fine detail and razor sharpness, you really need slow slide film. Slide film is also easier to color correct than print film - no need to cancel out an orange mask and invert the colors.
I've read over and over that publishers prefer slide film over print film, but that point seems to be pretty irrelevant nowadays when most publishers want digital output. In my experience, I've had a few publishers (usually in the hard core sciences) who demand film, and they have said that they'd like slide film over print but will take either. I think they are more concerned about being certain that there is no digital alteration of the photo.
The biggest drawback with slide film is that it has a very narrow exposure latitude. I shot print film this weekend because it is a gorgeous sunny clear fall day, and slide film would just choke on the contrast out there.
The other drawback with slide film lies in the unforgiving nature of it's exposure range. If you are shooting a fast moving event with rapidly changing lighting, print film gives you a little more of a buffer against errors.
At higher speeds, print film has a lot of advantages.
When exposing negatives, the general rule is to expose to assure that the shadows don't block up, and deal with the highlights when printing. Slides are more or less the opposite - blown outhighlights have no retrievable date, but you can get a fair amount out of the shadows. So exposre for the highlights and deal with the shadows later.
One last comment - IMO a major pitfall of slides is the idea that the slide _is_ the finished product, which actually is the case when slides are shot to be projected. Print film is inherently a two step process. I think Ansel Adams commented that the negative was like the music score and the print was the performance of that score. With slides there's a tendancy to take something and figure "that's it," but with scanning and digital 'darkroom' techniques, the slide itself is just the beginning.
HTH-
MCC ----- Mark Cassino Kalamazoo, MI -----
Photography:
http://www.markcassino.com
