The beauty of projected slides.

After a year of not having done any real shooting with slide film,
I picked up a couple of rolls of Provia 400F and my trusty EOS kit
and went on a street photog trip last weekend. Got back my slides
yesterday and did a slide show at home. Though I've done this a
zillion times earlier, it's still like a revelation. Having buried
myself in print film and prints over the past year, the crispness,
colors and vibrance of a projected slide was like a new wonder to
look at.

Personally, there's nothing that comes close to the beauty of a
well composed, well exposed slide projected on a large screen.
When I scan my film and look at the digital images on the comp
screen, there's no emotive response or feeling. I immediately
start thinking in terms of exposure, color correction, etc. Just
another bunch of pixels. Slide film rulez!

* off to pick up another couple of rolls and shoot * ciao!

 

The only thing that bothers me, is that the brightness of the projected
images leaves something to be desired....I am trying to make a box that
reflects them back from my projector onto a sheet of ground glass. - They
will be smaller, (perhaps computer screen size) but brighter. The other
alternative is to get stronger (higher wattage) projector lamps, but I am
afraid I will smoke the slides if I pursue this route too far. The best
images I have seen to date are from a hand-held individual viewer, but this
reduces the viewing experience to a pretty lonesome activity.....

 

There is nothing like the bother of darkening the room, setting up the
screen and getting everything aligned. I've stopped having slides mounted
when I realised it had been ten years since my projector bulb burnt out, and
I still had not gotten around to buying another.

 

There are several different types of projector screens, some of which are
better for viewing at any angle, but are dimmer, and some that are only good
in a more or less straight line from projector to screen, and they are
brighter if you are in that line.

 

Welcome home. I certainly enjoy seeing projected slides, and when I
show them to friends and acquaintances, people sometimes comment
on the fact that seeing slides together makes for a better experience
than passing around prints with people's comments on a picture
totally out of sync with what everyone else is seeing.

Like using a fully manual camera, if I am going to show slides, I need
to think about what I'll show and in what order. This _may_ make a
better presentation than handing out a shoebox of prints. Or maybe
not. Who can tell?

Phil

 

Concur wholeheartedly. For many years, driven by "familly" photography
I had been shooting 20 rolls of print per roll of slides.

A few years ago I begain shooting slide again, and I'm delighted.

Scans nice too.

Still shoot print film for some uses...mainly where sales are involved.

Cheers,
Alan

 

Do not increase the wattage of the lamp in your projector!
One of the important quality parameters of a projector is
the temperature to which slide will be heated! There are IR
filters placed in every projector between the light source
and the slide.

Home projectors stop usually at 250W, many use 150W halogen.
photozone.de has a nice article about slide projection.
(find it via Equipment|35mm Amateur Slide Projection.)

Thomas