Slide Films
35mm SLR,
100mm Macro lens, Fuji Velvia, 1/8 sec at f-16. Bogen Tripod and Ball Head.Color slides or transparencies, give a positive image. They produce more brilliant colors and give better sharpness than print films. Unlike print films, slides require a loupe or a projector for better viewing. When judging slides for sharpness or color, use a quality 8X loupe. It is difficult to judge a slide by projecting it. However, projectors let you view your slides on a large screen which is always very impressive and brilliant. Slides are also cheaper per shot than print films, and you can always make high quality prints from your slides. If you want to sell your work, you need to use slide films. Fine art, book publishers, magazines, as well as majority of other publications use transparencies only. Slide films are less forgiving than print films. Since the image is made inside the camera, any mistake will show up and fixing them is more difficult than print films. With negative films, you take the picture, but the processor or the processing machine decide how your pictures should be like in terms of color or exposure. If you over or under expose your slides, you can't fix them as easily as a print user can, especially if you overexpose a shot. With underexposed images you still have some detail to work with, but with severe overexposure all detail is lost. Slide films have only +/-2 stops of exposure latitude. You must work within this range. At +/- 2.5 stops all detail is lost.
As you can see, exposure calculation is more critical with slides. For middle-tone subjects, slides give good results. If a scene contains shadows and highlights, loss of color saturation or detail will occur. Use a slow fine grain slide for best results. Slower films are sharper and have tighter grain than faster films, but require longer exposure times. Use faster films in low light situations or when photographing fast action. You can push your film if you need faster shutter speeds. You can rate your film 1 to 2 stops faster than its normal ISO. For example, an ISO 100 can be set to ISO 200 to gain an extra shutter speed. You must have your film push processed or your slides will be underexposed. Image quality will suffer to some degree when films are pushed. It is best to use a faster films instead of pushing a slower film. Processing slide film is easier than print films. If you have a darkroom you can process your own films and make quality color prints. For serious photography work, use slide films. You have total control over your images and the final result is very rewarding. Try different brands of slide films, and compare their color and sharpness, and pick the one you like best.