One-Light Slides from Negative Stills

[Erdwolf_TVL]

Okay, I confess this is slightly off-topic, but here goes!

 

I've been taking 35mm colour stills for the past 10 years. I guess this would account for a half-decent amount of film, should I join all the negatives end-to-end.

 

I know that it's fairly common practice to produce projectible film from negative. It appears to be a bit more exotic for stills.

 

Most labs I found on-line transfer digitally (I'd prefer contact printing) and most of them charge in excess of 3 Pounds PER SLIDE. This is not worth my while, considering the amount of material I have.

 

So, here's a thought. I'll join my negatives end-to-end and have them printed by a film lab. Which charge per feet, rather than per image. Even if I have to attach a couple of (hundred?) feet of dead-wood at the end of the reel, it may still be worth my while.

 

Any thoughts?

[Dominic Case]

Any thoughts?

A few . . .

 

I presume you have shot on stills material, not motion picture negative. It's very similar, but not identical: so you may find that the colour reproduction ins't what you expect. In particular, the orange/pink masking levels are a little different - so lab printer lights won't be typical of motion picture stocks, and you may find that the greyscale doesn't stay entirely neutral from black to white.

 

Which brings up the next point: when you shoot stills, each frame can easily be colour corrected individually. If you have your filmstrips printed as motion picture footage, you won't get a unique colour correction for each frame. At best the lab can change it's printer light every three or four frames: more likely they would print the whole lot at one light, or maybe each strip would get a correction. So unless all your exposures were spot-on accurate, you should expect some variation in colour and density in your results.

 

If your negative is (as is normal) cut into four- or five-frame lengths, you will have an awful lot of splices in your joined-up roll: and it's more than likely that you will lose the edge of the end frames in making the splices (they would have to be hot cement splices).

 

What you get back would be a long reel: unless you have access to an automatic slide mounter, you will have a major task cutting and mounting each slide individually.

 

Why do you want your complete collection transferred to slides at this point in time? No doubt it's a good reason - just curious to know what it is!

[Erdwolf_TVL]

Thanks for the valuable feedback!

 

Prints are nice, but they don't leap out at you like slides do.

 

Long, long ago I made the choice to stick with either one or the other. I chose prints, because they are much easier to view and work with. My father has an incredible slide collection that to this day bears my envy.

 

---

 

Nowadays, I'm feeling a bit adventurous, having seen what can be done with Cine film.

 

So yeah. Perhaps I should just bit the buck and have a handful done digitally.

 

- Jako

 

A few . . .

 

I presume you have shot on stills material, not motion picture negative. It's very similar, but not identical: so you may find that the colour reproduction ins't what you expect. In particular, the orange/pink masking levels are a little different - so lab printer lights won't be typical of motion picture stocks, and you may find that the greyscale doesn't stay entirely neutral from black to white.

 

Which brings up the next point: when you shoot stills, each frame can easily be colour corrected individually. If you have your filmstrips printed as motion picture footage, you won't get a unique colour correction for each frame. At best the lab can change it's printer light every three or four frames: more likely they would print the whole lot at one light, or maybe each strip would get a correction. So unless all your exposures were spot-on accurate, you should expect some variation in colour and density in your results.

 

If your negative is (as is normal) cut into four- or five-frame lengths, you will have an awful lot of splices in your joined-up roll: and it's more than likely that you will lose the edge of the end frames in making the splices (they would have to be hot cement splices).

 

What you get back would be a long reel: unless you have access to an automatic slide mounter, you will have a major task cutting and mounting each slide individually.

 

Why do you want your complete collection transferred to slides at this point in time? No doubt it's a good reason - just curious to know what it is!

[John Pytlak RIP]

Don't forget that 35mm consumer (C-41) films are usually perforated KS-1870. So there will be some printer slippage (slight sharpness loss) when you print them on a contact printer. Also, with normal emulsion-to-emulsion printing, the slides will have the wrong orientation (emulsion toward the projector lamp), and may be difficult for some slide projectors to focus well.

 

As Dominic notes, processed color negatives can be spliced into a roll for printing (perforated BH-1866 is optimum), but in most cases, the lab might offer only roll-to-roll color correction, not frame-to-frame. If the rolls have been cut into short 4 or 5 frame lengths, all the splices needed will cause issues.

 

Frankly, if you really want slides, it's best to shoot a reversal film:

 

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professiona...1.22.14.9&lc=en

[Erdwolf_TVL]

Thanks for that!

 

I actually did a bit more research and found

 

http://www.dalelabs.com/

 

By the looks of it, they perhaps got the cost / effort balance to an acceptable level.

 

Regards

 

Jako

 

Don't forget that 35mm consumer (C-41) films are usually perforated KS-1870. So there will be some printer slippage (slight sharpness loss) when you print them on a contact printer. Also, with normal emulsion-to-emulsion printing, the slides will have the wrong orientation (emulsion toward the projector lamp), and may be difficult for some slide projectors to focus well.

 

As Dominic notes, processed color negatives can be spliced into a roll for printing (perforated BH-1866 is optimum), but in most cases, the lab might offer only roll-to-roll color correction, not frame-to-frame. If the rolls have been cut into short 4 or 5 frame lengths, all the splices needed will cause issues.

 

Frankly, if you really want slides, it's best to shoot a reversal film:

 

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professiona...1.22.14.9&lc=en

[K Borowski]

Thanks for that!

 

I actually did a bit more research and found

 

http://www.dalelabs.com/

 

By the looks of it, they perhaps got the cost / effort balance to an acceptable level.

 

Regards

 

Jako

 

Unfortunately, Dale's price for slides from negatives is only affordable should you send the unprocessed C-41 to them. I believe it is several dollars per frame to get slide "prints" made from already-developed negatives.

 

Regards.

 

~Karl Borowski

[Filip Plesha]

1. What do you mean by "exotic"? If you are refering to the color shifts and contrast differences when printing ECN film on paper prints, or vice versa, printing still film to ECP print film, then I guess you can call it exotic, but those are basic photoshop differences, nothing fancy.

Otherwise, both films are made to be as close to reality as Kodak can make them, so in their natural mediums they look pretty much the same.

 

 

2. Why not use slide film? Slide film today comes in a wide variety of choices. High contrast/high saturation slide film is only one option today. You can also get a film like Astia which has softer contrast and natural colors with good skintones. Looks pretty much like a print from a negative (exept for less exposure latitude when shooting)

In fact, today the choice of E6 films is far greater than that of still negative films.

You can shoe from punchy contrasty films like E100VS and Velvia, to more natural films like Astia, Sensia or

Ektachrome 100 plus.

You can also chose from almost 30 year old technology of Ektachrome 64 for a vintage look, to the latest shiny skeek images of modern films like E100G for a more contemporary look.

Or you can chose something in between with films from 80's such as 160T or Ektachrome 100.

 

You can have high contrast high saturation or low contrast low saturation, or a mixture of these,

like high saturation, moderate contrast (Provia), or High contrast subtle saturation (Kodachrome 64, allthough not for much longer)

 

The slide film market of today pretty much covers all tastes and needs. A slide shooter misses NOTHING today, exept maybe Kodachrome 25