i would like to know why some people (esp.pros) prefer to shoot slide film rather than negatives,do the former performs better in terms of resolution,color balance and saturation? i found that some slides are advertised to be 'very saturated',are they really? if so,why? Are there any negative which have good color saturation? Also,can i print the recorded image out,just like negatives? Thanks very much

-- legnum (legnum212@email.com), September 24, 2001

Answers

Most of the time, slides will give you the exact coloration that a printer of graphic designer needs to go with but color is VERY subjective. Now aday's, a printer wouldn't look at a negative because they weren't set up for that but that is the thing of the past... for the most part. As far as saturation, slides are still tops in large format. In smaller formats, you can use Fuji (Reala, NHG and the pro line for the most part) films and some Agfa films (if you can find Agfa Ultra!!! but I think it has been changed to 100 speed vs the slower 50) that come close but I think chromes are still more saturated.

-- Scott Walton (scotlynn@shore.net), September 24, 2001.

I correct myself when I said "now aday's" it should have said "in the past" and to answer your last question about printing slides (I pressume this is what your referring to) yes, using cibachrome paper to print slides is beautiful!!!

-- Scott Walton (scotlynn@shore.net), September 24, 2001.

I think that it is a little misleading to state that pros prefer slide film. It depends on what is being shot.

Probably one of the largest group of pros is wedding and portrait photographers. Nearly all of these shoot neg film, which is designed to be printed using standard photo means. OTOH, photographers shooting for print purposes tend to use slide film. This allows two things: the printer has a color reference to go from, and the editor can look at the film to determine which images to use. Likewise, stock photographers tend to shoot slide film for the editing purposes. (tradition also plays a part here).

For the fine art photographer, slide film can give a greater color saturation. For many subjects, there is nothing that can beat an ILFOCHROME print, which requires a transparency.

David Carper

-- David Carper (david.carper@ilford.com), September 24, 2001.