Beginner's Guide To Slide Photography

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Please share your thoughts, experience here for beginners!

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

For landscapes essential to shoot on slides bigger format surely better than 35mm. Many old folders and TLRs provide superb image quality on large size on acceptable or low price. First step I think look around who will develop your slides at your area. Good local lab is essential, you will not shoot a lot on film so self development not economical.

For landscape photography don't need arsenal of lenses so a fixed lens medium camera like Yashica MAT 124G or Bessa RF 6x9 folder more than enough. They cost is not too high especially if compare easier to scan them and provide far better quality than most 35mm format.

For landscapes select Velvia 50 or Provia 100 if you wold save on film costs , try to get expired films from trusted sources and put them into freezer. A cold stored film after expiration date works well for years.

Buy a sturdy tripod if you don't have any yet. At low ISO like 50 ISO a good tripod is a must have equipment. Shoot always at least at F8 or slower aperture.

marty · Joined: 09 Apr 2009 Posts: 767 Location: Italy

I agree with Attila's suggestions. I just wanted to add few thoughts. Whenever possible/applicable use a cable release or the self timer to reduce camera shaking. If you are going to project any minimal shake will turn in blurred image due to high magnification ratio.
I want to put in a word for a slide projector. I know it's a pita to set up the screen or to take down a picture from the wall but the result will be very worth the effort. Now a medium format projector is surely expensive, but for 135 ones good deals can be found.
For those accustomed with b&w processing you only need a thermometer that could reach 40°C/104°F with a half deg precision and a conveniently large plastic tub to make a water bath. An E6 kit can make 6 to 8 rolls, if you shoot enough to put them together within the expiration of the chemicals (usually 2-3 weeks in stopped bottles after mixing) you're ready to go.
Regards, Marty.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Buy a good scanner on acceptable price like Epson v500. This scanner produce beautiful output on medium format and also pretty good one on 35mm.

hexi · Expire: 2011-11-18

Ok, now i have a question. Can slide film be developed in C41 ? or do i need special E6 stuff ? thanx for any infos.

marty · Joined: 09 Apr 2009 Posts: 767 Location: Italy

Let's say it can be done. Whether you should or not is artistic or aesthetic matter. Developing a slide film in C-41 chemicals, as you may imagine, will yield a negative image. After the process the film will have the aspect of a negative without the orange mask. The interesting aspect is in that the colors will go crazy, rendered in a very unnatural way. Due to the high contrast the highlights will tend to be with little or no detail. If you are after this kind of effect it is an interesting way to experiment. I'm thinking to try myself this technique, which is by the way known as cross-processing, as far as I will find a suitable subject. If you do a search over the net for "cross-processing" or "x-pro" you'll likely to find some examples of what a cross-processed picture will look. As I mentioned some experimenting will be involved to find out how to rate the film and how long to develop. It is also possible to do the opposite, develop negative film in E-6 chemistry that is.
In this case the result will be a positive with a turquoise mask and the colors will also be in some way altered.
Regards, Marty.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Thank you Marty to make it clear!

marty · Joined: 09 Apr 2009 Posts: 767 Location: Italy

You're welcome, Attila.

hexi · Expire: 2011-11-18

Thanx for the tip marty, i've checked some crossedprocessed pictures through flickr and its very interesting in terms of color rendition without being totally shocking, Velvia and stuff i'm coming Very Happy

i should as well try the E6 kit, is it the same process than C41 ? if so its great. any infos welcome as usual thanx.

marty · Joined: 09 Apr 2009 Posts: 767 Location: Italy

Hi,
Basically E-6 involves an additional step at the beginning of the process. This phase is the "first developer", which is nothing but a high energy B&W developer. The process is as usual done at 38°C, the control of the temperature is critical only for the color developer (small variations are tolerated for the other steps, that is). The detail of the operation varies from kit to kit, as some of the steps may be combined: you may find bleach and fixer as separate or in a single chemical called "blix".
Hope this answers your question.
Regards, Marty.

hexi · Expire: 2011-11-18

Very good infos marty thanx again ! for color lately i bought the tetenal C41, and E6 is from the same brand, so the blix is the same procedure i guess. Mixed once and reusable .

marty · Joined: 09 Apr 2009 Posts: 767 Location: Italy

I'm almost positive it is the very same chemical for both E-6 and C-41.
Marty.

bawang · Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 548 Location: Indiana, USA

What about metering? Do you over or under expose with slide as compared to film? I have been told to overexpose a bit. Any thoughts?

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

A great learning tool for beginners who want to learn slides is the exposure bracketing function of your camera (when present).
If you are unsure of what is the correct exposure for your purpose (note that I say "for your purpose", not "for your scene"), set up a three exposures bracketing, one at the value you think is the correct one, and the other two, half stop less and more, respectively.
Write down your considerations, and the chosen value(s), on a notebook.
When you have the developed slides, turn on your projector or your illuminated table (scanning slides is NOT a good way to evaluate actual exposure), and look at the results. Have the notebook open and compare the values with the results.
Do some rolls this way, it will be a very useful school.

If your camera does not have bracketing feature, no problem: just do them by hand - in manual mode, of course.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Probably more than you ever wanted to know about exposing slides:

http://www.cs.wayne.edu/~kjz/KPZ/PhotoTechnique/

I have always shot my E-6 films at box speed, and Kodachrome 64 at EI 80. Shooting K64 at EI 80 is a tip I picked up over 25 years ago. Color saturation is improved. I found that bumping up the exposure index of E-6 films didn't really help any.

Because slide film has a narrower exposure latitude than color negative film, and a much narrower exposure latitude than B&W, getting the right exposure for a given scene is critical. But what if you're photographing a scene that has a wider dynamic range than the film can handle? This is a problem not often encountered using B&W, somewhat more frequently encountered when using color negative film, but it is one that can often occur when shooting with slide film. There is no simple answer to this question because it really depends on the scene.

So one needs to pay attention to the lighting in a scene, and just as important, one needs to be familiar with the way their camera's meter (or their external meter of choice) handles such scenes. Becoming familiar with the way ones camera meters a scene is very important when shooting slides -- much less important when shooting negative film.

The general rules I've followed for getting good slide exposures is that, if the subject is brightly lit in a scene that may also have shaded areas, it is best to expose for the subject and just let the shaded areas go dark. The reverse is true if the subject is in shadow but other areas of the scene are brightly lit. Expose for the subject, and let the highlights blow out. In some instances, if the subject is in shadow, I have found that using fill flash helps greatly, and is often a necessity. I can set my exposure for the highlights and trust the flash to open up the shadows (and the subject, as a result).

Yebisu · Joined: 13 Feb 2011 Posts: 1299

I'm halfway through my first roll of slide film Velvia 100 (not Velvia 100f) and I'm sure I've incorrectly exposed most of the shots. I've bracketed a few times so hopefully I'll have one or two good shots. It's all a bit stressful though. I think I'll go back to digital color and b&w film after this. Smile

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Yebisu · Joined: 13 Feb 2011 Posts: 1299

Thanks for the advice Attila. I finished the roll today. I'll get it developed on Wednesday. It's going to cost more than twice c41 to develop! It could be a very expensive failure Crying or Very sad

. Oh well, I put in a roll of Neopan tonight. I getting used to shooting that. Wink

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

std · Joined: 09 Feb 2010 Posts: 1826 Location: Bulgaria

I always find slides more difficult to scan than negatives.

This week i have accidentally won on ebay a small slide copier ( black tube with white plastic).
And i can tell you shooting slides with my p&s Canon G9 gives me more dynamic range and correct colors than scanning with Epson V500. Also it is much faster Wink

Yebisu · Joined: 13 Feb 2011 Posts: 1299

I've just seen my 35mm slides on the light table in the lab. The colours looked amazing. The compositions might not be very good but the colours, wow! I hope I can get a decent scan. I'll post some up when I scan them.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

polarhei · Joined: 29 Dec 2011 Posts: 29 Location: Hong Kong,PRC

If you have read the DX code (20 years ago,the Automated included) carefully, you will know that you will need high-precision (EV +-0.5?) when you use that film.

For beginners, I shall ask you, Have you taken lots of good shapes (at least 72) in daylight with ASA 200 Color negative film in manual mode?

If you are,then you may take a try.