Film: Slide or Print?

This has been visited before, with people providing their preferences, but usually within a thread on another topic, so I thought I'd isolate this.

What do you prefer, trackside? What is your ultimate use for the photography?

I went to Henry's and a sales guy there said that velvia/provia was wasted expense, and would just make things more difficult for me from an exposure POV, if prints were my ultimate goal anyway.

Basically, I'm getting ready to do a sample program, where I take a roll of three or four different films (brand, speed, pos/neg) to a race, and shoot like crazy to see what works for me. I've previously used primarily 400 Kodak Max print film. It's available quite cheaply in large quantities (as are 200 and 800), and since I'm an amateur, it made sense for last year. Now I want to see what I can do to improve my pictures from a materials standpoint.

Scans I've put on this site were a bit washed out compared to the prints, but others who have put pics on the site have much clearer, more vibrant shots. Some of that will be technique, some will be equipment, and some may be scanning (or that they were digital in the first place). I'm just trying to determine what part of the difference is due to the film I'm using compared to others (like kdr, who uses velvia).

Speaking as someone who knows and has been in the darkroom and photographic side for over 20 years all I can say is that your salesman is talking c**p! I would say that the Fuji film (either provia or velvia)is tops...those pro's who use slide film (and myself)use these. For value for money try Kodak's 100asa film and push it if need be but dont by 200asa or 400asa slide as the grain will look like golf balls and the film is not as good either. On the print side for fine grain use Fujicolour 100 or a slightly faster one use 200asa-these are superb. The 400asa stuff I use all the time when weather is a bit naff and 800 has surprisingly fine grain for those very bad light times. Kodak's films (when enlarged to 10X8 or larger) seem to have bigger grain as they use a different grain structure in their emulsion. At the end of the day its the processing that counts-a proffesional Kodak lab here produces absolute rubish as is used by a famous "blue coloured" camera shop chain here in the UK. Get your prints processed at a lab that uses "Diamond Laser" machines-you will not get a sharper print anywhere and the printing (colour wise) will be as good as you can get-good enough to send to mags...I know cos' I do! It's not the equipment-its the man behind the camera!!

So, your recommendation boils down to:

(in order of importance)
Use slide film
Use 100 ASA
Use Fuji rather than Kodak
Get the slides developed by pros not using Kodak. (or is this one specifically "Diamond Laser"?)

Have I got that right?

It all depends in what you are going to do with the pictures. If you can get away with a slow film (ie 50asa or 100asa)then your pictures (print film/colour neg)can withstand enlarging up to big sizes of print without to much grain (imagine looking at a spoonfull of sand-then look at it with a magnifying glass...the sand will look like little pebbles-thats how the film grain works...the higher the asa the bigger the grain. You can scan on computer either neg or print (a neg scanner will give you better quality)-though have your neg films printed by diamond laser. For slide/tran' films-you can get them processed where ever-it doesn't matter too much though most pro's use fuji-it seems to withstand pushing very well without losing colour balance etc. Printers normaly prefer to scan from trans though this tends to see trans damaged slightly as these have to be man-handled. Plus...after 10 years or so tran' film can get a "virus" that spreads and makes your film emulsion look like crazy paving and can not be rid of. If it's for yourself I'd use print film or if it's for a magazine ask what they prefer beforehand! Myself and most pro's will use Fuji print film-Kodak still hasn't matched Fuji for quality.

Baz, I usually get my photos developed at Max Spielmann's, what do you think of them? do they use that diamond laser ?

also I usally use FujiFilm Superia iso400, what do u think of that? my prints seem pretty good, but if they can be improved then great.

cheers
Woody

I have heard that Max's dev' and printing is very good though unsure if it is diamond laser-though doubt that it is. I also use fuji colour 400 (for when its a bit on the dark side)and think it's great. Perhaps try a diamond laser process at Boots or Jessups and judge for yourself. It must be said that the opperators of these diamond laser machines must know what they are doing as should the people behind the counter. The last lot I had done "seemed ok" to the bloke behind the counter but I could see a very faint double image "no one else has complained " he said. But they got a fuji technician in and found a fault with the machine-I know what to look for as i was a colour printer for about 25 years!

Remind me to pick your brains at a circuit sometime later in the year about cameras/film/technique etc Baz, assuming you don't mind.

ok thanks, i will try Jessups or Boots sometime.
do you have a website where you put your photos Baz?
ive been scanning my photos and uploading them to my site (url in my profile)

Don't have a website at the moment but may do later this year possibly-once I get a decent computer/scanner. Maisie-best thing to do is get a camera put some film in and make it go click-and see what devlopes! (feel free to "come up and see me!")

;) I'll bore you with some pics from last year sometime.

another 2 cents of opinion, slide film is generally used for publication for the time issue-you can get an E-6 film developed and mounted in about 2 hours, as opposed to development and a contact back for the next day.

A number of years ago, scans from negs were a bit more problematic than from a transparency, and while there are still issues from scanning from a neg (a bit of guess work for densities and colour, whereas with a slide, you can do a visual check of the slide itself to compare your scan) publication work can easily make do with negative film.

So, I would make your life easier and go with negs. Over here, the Fujipress 400 is an excellent film, with a very good balance of contrast and grain sharpness. We use it exclusively for press type stuff BUT as snapper says, so much of it comes from the individual sitting at the machine.

djb, when you say the machine, do you mean the prints? Is there any finesse to developing the film itself? I thought C41 was pretty automatic...

Basically, I'd like to develop (the easy way) the film, use the prints as an ersatz contact sheet, and then decide what (if anything) deserves an enlargement. If the negs can be done by anyone and it's only the second stage that requires skill, I'll only pay for that separately; but if I need to pay the high price for the development, I'll do that.

On an entirely different subject, is there any call for black and white in motorsport?

Paul, C-41 developing is developing is developing BUT then you get into the whole kettle of fish of a sloppy lab and a well run professional lab that 1. keeps close tabs on the chemicals, 2. their machine won't have occasional splash marks or kinks in the emulsion , and /or 3. will be very careful with the negs afterwards so you do not have any scratch marks because the employee doesn't give a hoot, doesn't know any better or never hears from the umpteen million customers whose films are dropped off at pharmacies etc and shipped to this third party place.

Word of mouth can give you an idea of good labs to go to, and it doesn't havae to be a "pro" lab that only does enlarger prints to get good development. The place we go to with 35mm C41 jobs-4x6 econo prints is a place named "Kant photo" in downtown Montreal that serves mostly regular people, but they do good development and the prints are consistantly very adequate for econo prints.

now if only there was a demand for b+w......

My experiences with C41 filsm...

I have shot tons of Kodak Max in 100, 400 and 800. I can say that while they all work well for snapshooting, none of them work as well as the Fuji Superia versions. The Kodak film does not produce eyepopping color, the colors tend tward flat, especially when shot in broad daylight. The Fuji Superia has brighter reds and yellows and deeper blues and greens. A lot depends on what you want from your images. Also, the Fujji Superia 800 is just plain better than Kodak Max 800. The graining on the Kodak is bad.

On pro grade films my experience is less for sure. Fuji Provia 400 is an awesome slide film. The pictures are probably twice as sharp as the best C41 film, but is $13 per 36 exposures for the film alone. Too expensive for me. I have shot one roll of Fuji Provia 100 and really liked it but the film and developing approaches $20 per roll. There is no doubt how good these films are compared to $2.50 a roll C41.

I have had pretty good luck with Kodak C41 B/W film. The grain is very fine in the 100 ASA range. Watch out for some of the Kodak film though. There is one of the lines that produces a nasty orange shade to the images. Also, a yellow or orange or red filter is needed to increase contrast and keep the images from being washed out by a lot of light.

I couldn't agree more KC - Fuji Superia in my experience is far better than Kodak's equivalent.

Has anyone else tried cross processing? Taking slide film and getting C41 processing done can result in some very striking photos.
The only one I have scanned is attached. (Fuji Velvia in C41 chem)
Also, I tried cross-processing with Kodak EliteChrome 100 and 400, expecting similarly bizarre colours to the Velvia.

Instead, the prints came out in completely balanced and beautifully saturated colour, even better that any of the Fuji C41 films I shot at the same time.

More experimentation required...

This was also done with Fuji Velvia in C41 chem.

Never tried cross processing, nice pics though. Interesting how the film reacts to the simpler solutions.