The joy of (slide) film

I have been going through a back log of archiving film. I’m bad, as the most recent was 10 year old. Also that mean I haven’t shot film in 10 years. After some manual labour and digging for the metadata, I pulled the light table and went through some older archived film, including slide film. They are all in translucent archival “PrintFile” sheet, so they can be examined directly. Here is the view of the light table with such a page:

Strips of slide film (positive) on a light table viewed in a diagonal orientation. The punchy colours brings joy to the photographer.
Strips of slide film on the light table.

WOW. This is what I remember of the joy of shooting slide film: looking at the small images on the table. It’s like magic. Not even the thumbnails on the computer bring that joy. It must be the backlit transparency, the punchy colours. And I never shot slide film in medium format.

The experience

But how was it to shoot colours slide film? Even in 2000 it was expensive, more that colour negative. The rolls, the processing all more expensive, and harder to find. That put aside, it was also harder to shoot. Unlike for colour negative, inversible film (the other name of slide film) had much less latitude exposure (around ±1/2 a stop). While colour negative could easily get 2-4 stops each way and still get something usable, slide film couldn’t. And in a very contrasted scene you might have blown highlights or very dark shadows. Metering had to be much more precise and the resulting image could hardly be improved, which also made a lot of consumer point and shoots not suitable.

Slide film remained the preferred format for professional photography in publishing, until they switched to a digital workflow.

The results

Unlike negatives that needs to be printed, and for which the final results were linked to both the printing machine and its operator, slide appeared as close to the “final” product, and in the early days couldn’t even be printed as is. Slide film is the closest to JPEG SooC (Straight-out-of-Camera) in the digital world, and today, if you shoot Fujifilm camera, there are built-in the film simulations, and lot of user created settings. With the Lumix S9, the addition of LUT for stills also reinforce that trend, where cameras adopt a colour rendition model.

In the end

Now this is just nostalgia. Slide film today cost a lot, something like CA$35 a roll either in 135 (36 exposures) or 120 (I get 12 on my 6×6 TLR) and there is mostly only the new Kodak Ektachrome 100 from 2018 (after it got discontinued in 2012). I vividly remember as a roll was less than CA$10, that a price increase in 2004 triggered my purchase of my first DSLR, a Canon 20D. In retrospect I regret maybe not shooting more of it while it was still reasonable, and while these amazing Fujifilm Velvia and Provia were still relatively easily available. Some calculated the Kodachrome, the parent of all slide films, that got discontinued in 2010, cost more adjusted for inflation than Ektachrome in 2024 when it was released in 1935.

So should you shoot slide film? If you have a film camera that works well and you can measure the exposure properly, you should absolutely try. Make sure you have a way to get it processed as well. Not all labs do it.

Previously: What slide film taught me.

Developing black and white slide film

Kelly-Shane on the Go Everywhere channel made a 7 minutes video to show us how develop black & white slide film, only using regular black and white film, black and white chemistry, and some household chemicals to perform the reversal process.

I am actually surprised it is that easy. I always wanted to try black and white slides but the availability of Agfa Scala always made it a hard sell.

What slide film taught me

The essay What slide film taught me (Archived at the Wayback machine) from Luminous Landscape relate what I basically feel about film photography, what happened with digital:

With digital, I have become sloppy. I can fix it in post processing — whether it is exposure (thanks to “RAW headroom”) or framing — crop with a few of clicks of the mouse. This has undoubtedly led to a lower quality of photographs.

I bought last year a Mamiya C-220 and rediscovered shooting film. Not that I got rid of the film gear I was using before, just that a TLR on medium format led me this new experience. I have been very happy with the result and the yield. I shoot mostly color negative with it, and this, with the scanning, offer some of the head room that slide do not offer. Still, thinking the shot makes my photography better.


Mamiya C-220, Mamiya Sekor 105mm f3.5, 1/60 f/8 – Kodak Ektar 100 negative film

Update 2024: linked to the archived article instead.

Kodachrome 2010

A small documentary “Kodachrome 2010” by Xander Robin, with an interview of Dwayne’s Photo lab manager and how it came to an end.

The video was taken down on YouTube due to a copyright claim.

Robert Cohen found his last roll of Kodachrome and went to the Missouri fair to shoot it ; then drove down to Dwayne’s to get it processed, anxiously waiting to see if the film had any picture on it.

My biggest regret is to not have shot Kodachrome more often. I think that the 3 weeks turn around in France was part of what turned me off.

Goodbye Kodachrome

Kodachrome is dead, long live to Kodachrome.

Yesterday, December 30th 2010, was the last day to have Kodachrome processed at the last lab operating in the world, Dwayne’s Photo, in Parsons Kansas. Rolls had to reach them by noon that day to be processed, after 75 years.

Steve McCurry, the legendary photographer from the National Geographic got given by Kodak the last roll they produced in 2009. You can see shots from his last roll.

It is sad to see this happening, but ever falling sales of film made the enterprise even less viable. I just wish there was a company that was able to manufacture and process a Kodachrome-like film in the future, as it was the best color slide film, with unbelievable archival quality, unrivaled by the E-6 chemistry based slide films.

I just regret to not have shot enough of it, none of them in America.