Slide film photography is like "The Lord of the Rings" for fantasy, Sean Connery for Bond, or hummus for vegans. The best of the best.
Before digital photography became wildly popular, slides were used for glossy magazines, photojournalism, advertising – basically everything that required high-quality images. Even now, slides rival and sometimes surpass digital photography in tonal richness and color purity.
The slide development process is much more complex than that of negative film and is done manually: more steps, more time, and higher cost. But when has that ever stopped us? We’re starting to develop slides!
What is slide film?
A slide, or transparency, is a positive film. That means after development in the lab, you immediately see a small positive image, not a negative.
From its invention in 1935 until the 2010s, slide film was very popular. Professional photographers and major media loved it for its colors, sharpness, fine grain, and ease of use.
To know if photos on negative film were good, you had to develop and print them. With slides, there was no need to spend time printing – just hold them up to the light and pick the best ones. Individual slides were easy to label, package, and deliver to clients. Many magazines, like National Geographic, literally bought slides (especially Kodachrome) by the box for their photographers.
Hundreds of iconic 20th-century photographs were made on slide film. For example, the first photo of the Moon taken by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and the "Earthrise" photo taken during the Apollo 8 lunar orbit, were shot on Kodak Ektachrome slide film.
Slides were loved not only by professionals but also by ordinary people – families and friends would gather to watch their photo slides together on a projector. By the way, this is where the term "slide show" comes from.
As often happens, due to technological progress and the explosive rise of digital photography, slides gradually lost ground. Labs that developed slides using the E-6 process closed, and the number of slide films on the market decreased. In 2000, you could choose from about 40 slide films; by 2010, only a few remained. (For example, in 2007 Kodak stopped producing one of the most popular slide films – Kodak Ektachrome. So even those who wanted to keep shooting on slide became hostages of the situation: you can’t shoot, or you might as well not bother...).
Today, slide film is produced by Fujifilm (Velvia 50, Velvia 100, and Provia 100f), and in 2018 Kodak rejoined by relaunching Ektachrome slide film. We are happily watching the phoenix-slide rise from the ashes and believe that in the future there will be even more slide films.
Features of slide film
Fantastic realistic colors, accurate color balance, sharpness, contrast – this film is unmatched. Even modern digital cameras, like Fujifilm, have built-in slide film simulation to replicate its beautiful colors.
But slide film has one tricky feature – it’s for those who know a bit more about photography than just "turn on, click, turn off." For those who understand exposure, can adjust it, and know their camera well. If you set the exposure incorrectly, your photos will most likely come out white or black. This is because slide film has a narrow exposure latitude, so you can’t fix exposure mistakes during scanning.
If you’re unsure about your photo skills, we recommend first learning a bit about exposure, shooting some successful negative films, and only then moving on to slide film. That way, you’ll definitely get great shots and enjoy the process.
We’ve already shot on slide and fallen in love with it! In the next article, we’ll share our photos and impressions. Meanwhile, you can already bring your slides to us for development and scanning!
Check the price for this service at: https://fotovramci.com/pages/proyavka-plivky