>Slide film does not have as much latitude as print or b&w film. It cannot
reproduce in the same frame an exposure range from bright to dark that is
more than about 3 aperture stops or a magnitude of 8 from darkest to
lightest.
There is no question that color slide film does not have the same
latitude as b&w, but I really question the 3 stop range. You can use
the shadow/highlight buttons on the OM4 to see that there is a larger
range from black to white. There is no caution in the OM4 manual
that this only suitable for b&w.
If you want to test your own slide film/camera combination for
yourself, you can do a series of photographs at one stop intervals.
It is worth doing for your own education. If you do it with subject
matter you can observe what happens with highlight and shadow detail
at controlled over and under exposure. If you also try it with a
neutral evenly lit featureless subject such as a white wall, you can
create your own gray scale. You can also get instructive results from
photographing the gray card, gray scale and color control patches
from one of the books like the Kodak Color Dataguide. I think that
your gray scale will be more like 5 1/2 stops from black to white.
As for reproduction, I do not know much about the inner workings of
the professional printing industry. However, if you thumb through the
stunning travel and color photography books in any Barnes and Noble
bookstore or your local well stocked camera store in which there is
any discussion of equipment and materials used in taking the pictures
they almost all use some sort of color reversal film. It seems to me
that if these professional photographers could improve the quality
or saleability of their photos by using color negative film they
probably would. Apparently the latitude of film is not a huge
problem except in the mass market where accuracy of exposure is
chancey at best and processor correction is needed.
Winsor
--
Winsor Crosby
Long Beach, California, USA
mailto:wincros@xxxxxxxxxxx
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