i apologise for the knottiness of this e-mail in advance, it is not easily explained in text

i have shot slides exclusively for about 4-5 years now. i very rarely use a projector. what's happening is that i am becoming frustrated with the photographic process (after the film has been processed). i have thousands and thousands of slides sitting in my apartment gathering dust. i have relatively good success with my work. i have had some success with exhibitions and slides but what i am looking for is an outlet for my photographs after the fact. i cannot afford to print everything i like, and exhibitions tend to leave you with a s**tload of framed pieces in you apartment afterwards.

here are some points: * slides are hard to show people, when you want to show a friend what you shot the previous week (in a bar for example) * there are no type-R/ilfochrome facilities in seattle where you can print it yourself. * i love provia-F and really do not want to leave it, but i miss the ability to print myself (both for the cost issues and the creativity). * can anyone suggest a color negative film for me? something from 100-400 that might give me something similiar to provia. does anyone have some results online that i could look at to see how the film comes out? * i shoot most of the time at night handheld in bars quite often *i like saturation and contrast. * i would be interested in knowing what people do with their slides etc. after they are processed? do people have a system that they use to deal with there processed film?

john

-- john molloy (ballyscanlon@hotmail.com), February 28, 2002

Answers

Yes John. Buy a good film scanner and an inexpensive inkjet printer and scan and print to your heart's content. It's no longer cutting edge technology, it's pretty mainstream. Recommendations? Nikon Coolscan Scanner and epson 1280 printer. That should enable you to make 13x19 inch prints at a fraction of the lab cost, with even more control than your own darkroom.

Alternatively, have you thought of investing about $300 for Leica's small autofocus slide projector? It can actually be fun to project the little guys onto the wall.

Sometimes I even send my film to ad agenies and magazines where they print them and send me checks. That's when it works best for everyone.

Kirk

-- kirk tuck (kirktuck@kirktuck.com), February 28, 2002.

I use a coolpix 995 and corresponding negative/slide adapter for digital conversion (neat little system), then print on an epson stylus - works great

-- Anam Alpenia (aalpenia@dasar.com), February 28, 2002.

I concur with the posts above. I never have my slide film mounted--I just have the lab process only & get it back in the uncut roll. Then I scan it, edit in PS & print off an Epson 1280. Wonderful stuff. Then you needn't give up the film you've grown to love, & won't have dusty slides kicking around all over the apt.

-- Patrick (pg@patrickgarner.com), February 28, 2002.

Even if you do not choose to print yourself, with a scanner you can create "slide shows" on disk or on your HD which you can view on your monitor or a TV set (with the proper hookup). The slides can be stored away safely. For screen viewing you do not need a 4000dpi scanner, so you could buy a used 2700dpi model for a song.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), February 28, 2002.

"i have thousands and thousands of slides sitting in my apartment gathering dust."

As a part of the decor in his NY studio, Jay Maisel had (maybe still has) a meeting table made from a tabletop sitting on a huge wire wastebasket full of reject slides - labelled "Love's labors lost." Just to keep himself humble.

RE your questions. I shoot slides too, and scan them to make my own prints. Epson sells standard 4x6 snapshot paper as well as larger exhibition stuff, and it takes about 3 minutes to print one of those (plus scanning/correction time of maybe 30 minutes - but you only have to do that once). The digital process makes for much better tonal range than type-R/ilfochrome prints.

On the whole, once the printing issues are dealt with, slides have the following practical advantages over negatives (not image related) 1) you only have to keep the 'keeper' images, and not all the junk frames in between. 2) they CAN be projected easily if needed/wanted. 3) the positive image is not filtered through an additional step (contact sheet, 1-hour print, whatever) before you can judge it.

If, after all this, you still want to try negs, I recommend Kodak Supra professional films (100/400/800) I tried the 100 recently and it tied Fuji Reala for grain and edge sharpness, and was really quite close to Velvia (let alone Provia) for image quality. Relatively inexpensive ($13 for 5-roll pro-pack of 135-36), but only available through pro camera shops, not Walgreens. I don't think you can find a film that is significantly better.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), February 28, 2002.

...Oh, regarding storage and organization. Plastic slide pages bound in loose-leaf binders by project and year. With LOTS of bookshelf space. And a lightbox.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), February 28, 2002.

I do not think that there is a comparable color negative film that has the same color saturation and contrast that Provia has. I think you would be disappointed! I too think you need to scan your chromes. If investing in a scanner is too expensive buy an Epson 1280 (around $300.00) and have a local lab/service bureau scan the cream of the crop chromes you take. Print only the best throw the rest away. It has been said "the better the photographer the larger his[/her] waste basket".

-- Rob Schopke (schopke@attbi.com), February 28, 2002.

I agree that you should chekc out the scanner/prniter option and keep shooting the chrome film you love. I will also second the suggestion that you think about picking up a slide projector. This can be more than you might think possible- very gratifying to see your shots projected big, too.

Something to think about- if you are hesitant about the cost of digital solution, think about processing 10 rolls of film. How long does it take you to shoot ten rolls? What's your percentage of keepers/crap per roll?

Keep shooting Provia F- and try the 400 F, too!

-- drew (swordfisher@hotmail.com), February 28, 2002.

Can any of you tell me how long it is going to take to prnt a A3 size photo on the Epson 1280 with 2880. Someone told me it is going to be over 30 min. Is it true?

Would you recommend the new Canon S9000 over the Epson 1280?

-- Phyllis (lam_6@hotmail.com), February 28, 2002.

Re: color negative films to replace Provia-- the only film that I really like for color negs is FujiPress 800, simply because it gets me in to *really* low-light situations without as much graininess as you'd expect from such a high-speed film. Yeah, I know, faint praise. But still... I like the look, and at $3/roll, it's pretty durn cost-effective to shoot.

Re: new Canon printer vs. Epson: TechTV did a comparison between the two, and gave Canon the nod for print quality. See:

for the story.

I have to admit that I used to shoot a ton of negative film and scan it, but I've gotten so SICK of scratches on negatives from various scanner transport systems (we share 5 Sony UYS-77 scanners at my Journalism school), that now I shoot chromes and scan them at home on my Kodak RFS 3600. (Got it for all the free film, don'cha know.) In my experience, chromes don't always scan as nicely as negs (they scan on the dark side), but they have fewer scratches and let you ding out the icky shots right away.

I put my slides in the plastic slide holder bags and stuff them in binders.

The other nice thing about slides is that they're easy to prepare for mass-copyrighting. Just lay a sheet on a light table, and photograph with a good digital camera. Details at editorialphotographers.com or the asmp website.

HTH, rich.

-- Rich Fowler (richfowler@mindspring.com), March 01, 2002.

Oops... mistyped the url for the printer story. Here it is:

http://www.techtv.com/products/hardware/story/0,23008,3373126 ,00.html

rich.

-- Rich Fowler (richfowler@mindspring.com), March 01, 2002.

I shoot slide pretty much exclusively. I'm unlikely to keep more than 2 mounted slides per roll, so I don't have thousands and thousands of slides lying around. For instance, my Dharavi project used up 250 rolls of film, out of which I have now around 500 selects, and the final cut would be around 80 images. I'll take a look at the selects in around 6 months time (I'm sick of them now, having just finished the layout for the book, a process which has taken over six months of agonising and staring at the snaps) and throw away everything except for 200 slides. Even then there'll probably be some dross.

As for showing stuff around, I find a laptop is the best portable light table. Personally I use pdf's for portfolios, whether online or on my computer, and the presentation is very professional and easy to distribute. There are also viewers like irfanview, but they will compress images very considerably to speed up display and the quality is poor.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), March 01, 2002.

Regarding choice between Canon and Epson. I firt got a Canon S800. It prints just beautifully. The Canon Pro paper is gorgeous. Colours are great, definition outstanding, etc... Wonderful. BUT, that parper is about the only one that works well with the printer. In the Canon range, there is NO matt paper of comparable feel. I have tried TDK, Tetenal and Ilford papers, they don't work in the Canon. Full stop.

Enter the Epson. I got 2 months ago an Epson 1290 (1280 in US). Print quality is about the same. Maybe slightly different, but I did not bother doing formal comparisons. It prints beautifully too. And, you've got a wide range of papers to choose from. The Epson Heavyweight Matt is currently the one I use and I love it.

To summarize, both printers print beautifully, on the same level for me. The available paper range makes all the difference for me.

The Canon, BTW, is definitly much faster thant the Epson. At the very least twice.

I was disappointed by both in B&W. I just bought a Focomat V35 for that :-)

-- Stephane Bosman (stephane.bosman@2ci.net), March 01, 2002.

Stephane Bosman

Is Focomat V35 still available? When can I get one over the net? are there any 6X9 enlarger by Leica still available?

-- Phyllis (lam_6@hotmail.com), March 01, 2002.

The Focomat V-35 is no longer available from Leica but offers often show up on Ebay. For 6X9 it would be better to go Beseler or Durst.

-- Jack Matlock (jfmatlo@attglobal.net), March 01, 2002.