LighthouseKeepers.com

Slides or Prints?

Posted By: Mike Hershberger

Slides or Prints? - 12/13/02 09:24 AM

I'm curious to see what kind of media you guys are using in your film cameras.

I've used slides, and I like the quality, but I still like to have prints in the photo album to show off, and it would be kind of a hassle to scan then print all the photos I have if they were on slides. And I think I get decent quality out of my print film anyway. Maybe it's because I don't sell my photos, or use them professionally, but I like the prints.

What do you think?? Throw the pros and cons for both at me, we all might learn something or gain a new perspective.
Posted By: Bob M

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/13/02 12:53 PM

I never do slides. I always do prints with one camera and digital images with the other.

Most of my pics are done with the digital camera but I always take pics for prints to display in a photo album or on my wall in my finished basement. I also swap photos of different lighthouses when I can find someone to trade with (hint!).

My basement is finished off in barn-board. The upper three feet or so is all photos under plexiglass sheets. It certainly generates plenty of interest with guests as they look through hundreds of photos and find themselves from days gone by. Most all the pics are people pictures from events in my life and that of my family.

smile Bob smile
Posted By: Mike Hershberger

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/13/02 06:56 PM

That sounds like a good way to display your memories, Bob. Cheaper than a bunch of frames, and you can arrange more on the wall that way.

When you trade photos, are they usually standard prints, like 4x6, or standard enlargements?
Posted By: eskilady

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/13/02 08:33 PM

I am like Bob - the two handed camera shooter - one hand has a digital camera in and the other has a 35mm. I love to have the hard copies for my album and the digital to e-mail to people, enlarge, make cards, etc. My family thinks that I am nuts to even have one camera all the time so two really puts them over the top! I wish that I had the set up that Bob does - the finished basement with walls for pictures but I am out of wall space so frame them for the future when maybe I will get a new place with bigger walls.

Eskilady
Posted By: Webmaster

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/13/02 10:41 PM

I got really interested in photography while in the US Army - 1967-1969 and had the opportunity to purchase top-flight camera equipment at the BX. I shot mostly slides then and when traveling after that.

Looking back it was because the person making my prints had so much leeway to control the final image when shooting from negative film.

When shooting slides, generally you either got it right or you blew it, but it was no-one else's fault. And I fancied that sometime, somewhere I would start to get some of my photos published and those publishers always wanted slides, not 3.5x4" prints.

(I did have one photo published by Time-Life books. It was a color slide of a water fall in the Smokie Mountains. They published it as a black and white in a two-page spread and I got a check for $400 (the color rate.)

Perhaps about 15 years ago, I switched to shooting only negative film and paying for prints.

But just before the 2001 Reunion, I gave up shooting 35mm all together and decided to shoot only digital images. I have a great deal of control over these images -- both from the standpoint of shooting and re-shooting if the image doesn't look good on the screen and through adjustment and manipuplation with PhotoShop.

The quality of the images is just great - and at least with prints up to 8x10 (largest I can print at home), I can't tell the difference between the digital and a print made at a lab from a negative.

Since buying my Nikon 995 a day before the Reunion, I've shot 5,037 images. Many of these are 'throw-aways' (I wouldn't have bothered taking a picture if I would have had to pay to have it processed and printed.)

But figuring that with film, processing and 4x6" prints it probably costs about $1 each, that's over $5,000 bucks I haven't spent on photography. The camera costs me about $799 (now newest model is $599) and the printer cost $199 (now about $99) and a 24' roll of 4" wide paper costs about $22. I only print a few images, the rest I archive to CDROM.

I was in a pro camera shop this morning and was looking over all the latest in digital cameras and middle format cameras and am still happy I made the decision to go digital.

Heck it might even be time to sell the 35mm equipment.
Posted By: Bob M

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/14/02 12:29 AM

Hi Mike, ...In answer to your question, I have all my photos printed glossy and the size is 4x6. Were you interested in swapping some pics?

smile Bob smile

P.S. If anyone else is interested, let me know.
Posted By: Bud Schrader

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/14/02 05:53 AM

When I bought my first 35 mm camera in Viet- Nam, the only film I could get was slide. I stayed with slides a few years, then shifted to prints (easier, I guess} Then last year before a trip to Michigan I picked up a few roles of Sensia to try out, and was real pleased with the results. Since joining the forums and talking with Gary, I've been using Provia and Velvia. The differance to me is major. It's a hassle to scan and print but worth the effort. I take my P&S minolta with me loaded with print film, so I always have two cameras. Someday I'll do digital, but only when I can afford the set-up I want. (digital SLR) I DO have a master plan for all this, it's taking a bit of time, however. :p
Posted By: JWB

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/14/02 06:33 AM

I shoot film, but plan on moving up to Digital SLR's sometime in the future. I get pretty good saturation with print and like the flexibility (when I occasionally miss). Using prints, I think I am in the vast minority.
JB
Posted By: Gary Martin

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/14/02 04:57 PM

It's probably safe to say that 98+% of the film that I run through my cameras is slide film. The slide film that I shoot is exclusively Fuji and is a mix of Velvia, Provia 100-F, and 400-F.

Slide film is far less forgiving in terms of exposure latitude but in my hands at least, the color saturation I can get out of slide flim vastly exceeds what I think you can get from print film. As for the tighter exposure latitude, I guess you could say I predominantly bought the 2 Nikon F5's that are my primary camera bodies for the metering system in them and they've never let me down in terms of nailing the exposure so long as I didn't have something mis-set. I scan with a Nikon Coolscan 4000ED so going from a slide to a print up to 13x19 for me is an "in-house" operation and I've taken scans from slides to 20x30 on a regular basis, so prints from slides for me at least isn't much of an impediment.

About the only print film I ever shoot if Fuji's 800 speed when I'm dealing either with very low light and movement or when I need really high shutter speeds for some reason.

Gary
Posted By: Tammy Wolfe

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/14/02 09:54 PM

Hi Mike,

I shoot print film and occasionally use a digital camera. For lighthouse photos, I use Fuji 100 and 200 speed most of the time. (I've recently tried 800 speed for wildlife photos for this first time with mixed results.) Gary has tempted me to try slide film, and I defnitely will sometime. But I enjoy the convenience of print film. I shoot mostly to put photos in an album to share with others and for my own memories. Often I've taken photos of lights when I'm in a hurry (on a cruise or a trip where I try to see as many lights as I can). So, I like that print film is more forgiving.

Tammy

p.s. Did I see that you just registered in November, and you're already a Wacko? I haven't paid much attention to my # of posts lately. My goal is to become a Wacko before my 1st year anniversary.
Posted By: Mike Hershberger

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/15/02 07:33 AM

Yeah Tammy, I was able to become a wacko fairly quick, but I'm proud to say I did it without cluttering up the forums with useless crapola.
People have been calling me a wacko for years, now I can say that i'm officially one now.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/15/02 06:50 PM

I had used Kodak gold print films until the middle of the year last year when I tried slide film after seeing Gary's incredible pictures. I already had a slide/negetive scanner so it wasn't an issue from that standpoint. I had also bought a second Canon AE-1 program body so I could shoot both print and slide film when I was out and about. So I use Fuji Velvia and the Provia 100, I did buy some Provia 400 but haven't got around to trying it yet.
Posted By: Gary Martin

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/15/02 07:44 PM

It's an addiction, Mark... two bodies leads to three, and then to four...

Gary
Posted By: rgurskey

Re: Slides or Prints? - 12/18/02 01:51 AM

Color print film, usually 4x6 prints. Lately I have asked Clark Color Laboratories to put them up on their web-site, and I download high-resolution images from there.

Robert
© 2024 Collector Forums