At 01:01 1/4/02, Dan wondered:
> Now you know why some of us have all but abandoned color negative!
I'm curious -- if you do develop mostly slides, how do you look at the
pictures and/or show them to others? Is it a matter of using one of those
little viewers every time, having slide shows, or something else? I shot a
roll of slides, and sure, the images were lovely, but then I realised what a
pain it would be to ever demonstrate this to people..
What I use:
(a) A small 10x12 light table and 10X loupe; large enough to hold an
archival page with 20 35mm slides or 12 645 slides.
(b) Three different 35mm slide viewers (collected over time) which I still
occasionally use for a quick sorting of "loose" slides.
(c) Old Ektagraphic II "boat anchor" projector with a Schneider lens.
(d) Even older Rollei P11 dual format projector
I have a small white panel (~18x24) mounted to the wall of my study. In
its former life it was the enameled front panel of a dishwasher. Most
diswashers come with several panels in various "decorator"
colors. Convince the "Chief of Interior Decorating" that the dishwasher
needs to be some color other than white (or the color on its reverse side)
and you can abscond with that panel to use it! Its surface was very, very
lightly abraded using very fine steel wool to matte the glossy finish. I
use this with the projectors for assembling slide shows and going through
the "short list" of slides for printing.
Yes, I do slide shows and use a 50" white matte screen for them. The
ancient home projection screens are 40" and IMO they're small; 50" is much
better. Many of the old screens are also glass bead; has higher
reflectance but at the cost of resolution. IMO the slide show is not a
"lost art;" most home slide shows were [are] done by people who never
learned "the art." I'm very selective about the slides (only the best) and
they *must* be relevant to the audience. The biggest error made is showing
every slide (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) of some holiday or other event
the viewers couldn't care less about. A good slide show on a large screen
using a good projector *lens* has a "WOW" factor. People have been dumbed
down by television and computer screens. These do not have the detail
level possible from good slides projected through a _good_lens_ to a white
matte screen. Want a real "WOW" factor? Project good medium format slides
using a decent projector lens!!
After all, image quality aside, the obvious advantage of negative film is
that you get a stack of 36/24/whatever pictures at the end that you can put
into albums/frames/give to people, and that's all you need; nothing extra
needed to make them 'work'.
Small prints have been a "bone of contention" in my household. The other
half would like a piles of prints to supply her many thick volumes of
"Creative Memories" albums. She still asks about each roll of film I have
developed:
Q: "Did you take pictures this time?"
A: "No, I *made* photographs."
Q: "Why won't you take pictures?"
A: "I don't *take* pictures, I *make* photographs."
[continues into "death spiral" from here, including an
artistic difference of opinion about matte versus glossy]
Been going on like this after hundreds of rolls of film for some number of
years now; it's scripted. She buys consumer color negative in bulk and
shoots quite a few "pictures" herself, so there's no shortage of
"pictures." We pick the best of my slides and have 4x6's printed for her,
but it's not without this Q/A exchange first. I admire her
tenacity. Supplying a photo album with prints from slides requires
willingness to forego the one-hour lab instant gratification, wait for E-6
or K-14 processing turnaround, pick the best of the slides, and then wait
another turnaround time while they're bing printed.
(oh, another thing I was wondering about -- slides have nicer colours,etc
than negative film when they're slides -- does this still hold when getting
prints made from them?
Printing quality and the print materials can make a slide come to life or
it can make it dull and lifeless. Large display prints are done on super
high gloss Ilfochrome or Fuji "R" which have a "sheen" to them that almost
glows. Small 4x6 prints are done by several nearby sources, always
directly printed on reversal paper. I've also used The Slide Printer in
Denver, CO for some 4x6's. If direct printed properly on decent "reversal"
materials the prints can retain much of their brilliance "WOW" factor. It
is different from printing negatives. A lab that doesn't know how to print
transparencies well can make crappy prints from them just as easily as it
can make crappy prints from negatives.
-- John
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