I started pursuing photography as a serious hobby in 1999. After wetting my feet with a few dozen rolls of print film and getting lack lustre prints from the lab, I decided to try out slide film – the one that folks at National Geographic were using. I shot my first roll of Fuji Provia at the rose garden in Santa Clara University. When I got my little box of processed and mounted slides, I laid them down on the light table at the store and peered at them with a loupe. I have never quite recovered from that visceral shock of seeing razor sharp images with rich saturated colors back-lit by a sea of white light.
Over the next 5 years, I shot thousands of rolls of slide film. I was a ruthless editor of my work. When I got back processed slides from a shoot, I kept a trashcan next to the table as I scrutinized them one by one on a lighbox and loupe. Out of a roll of 36, I usually kept just 4 or 5 and trashed the rest. I learned the constraints imposed by slide film by trial and error. Over-expose by half a stop, and your highlights are shot. Under-expose by half a stop, and your shadows are muck. Over time and repetition of a great many mistakes, I learned to judge a scene, and set an exposure to fit the narrow dynamic range of the slide film I was using. I used a tripod and mirror lock-up to get sharp slides. I learned the tricks of using a graduated neutral density filter and fill flash. I studied photos in National Geographic, especially ones by Galen Rowell, Sam Abell and Steve McCurry, researched the kind of film and techniques they used, and tried to emulate them. I rarely got it all right. But every once in a while, I would, and it was a thrill to see a perfectly exposed slide in the midst of all its dull brethren destined for the trash can.
I stored slides in archival preserves in file folders, and viewed them only on my lightbox with a high quality loupe. I never projected them for fear of damaging them. I showed them off to my friends in the same way. For printing, I sent out the slides in a mailer to a company that made type-R prints. They did a wonderful job in matching the slide to the print, and I still cherish the few prints retained from those days.
I was vaguely familiar with Ansel Adam’s advice on “Image Management”, and the the interplay of pre-visualization, choice of camera/lens, perspective, exposure, and post processing in making a photograph. But some how, I always felt guilty about cropping an image. I was inspired by the compositions of Henri-Cartier Bresson who insisted on not cropping any of his images. With slide film, there was no post-processing – what you get is what you captured on camera. But this pressure led to greater awareness while making a photograph. The ultimate result was better technique and better results.
My first step towards digital was when I decided to share my photos on the web. I bought a 4000 DPI slide scanner for this purpose and discovered that I had just opened a new can of worms – Color Calibration. The scans didn’t exactly look like the slides, and they didn’t look the same on 2 different monitors, either. That’s also when I learned the phrase “unsharp masking”. Scanning led to a whole new learning process. Now that I had digital scans of my slides, I tried to print them digitally, thus added printer calibration to the list of my woes.
Then came the real digital revolution – digital SLRs were dropping in price daily, and by 2004, the pressure had built up too much to ignore. The touted advantages of instant feedback and cost savings on film and processing were very enticing. But what made the decision for me was the promise that I wouldn’t need to throw away 10 minutes of my life per slide in the scanning process. The complete switch to digital came with its own learning curve. Ansel Adam’s phrase “Image Management” took on a new meaning with software like Lightroom, and the endless internet debates about cropped vs. full sensor, digital resolution, RAW vs. JPG, etc. ensued.
By now, I have used digital capture for more number of years than slide film. For nostalgic reasons, I recently dusted off the plastic covers and took out my slide collection that has been in storage for the past 8 years. But I didn’t even have a lightbox anymore. So, as a testament to the insanity of the digital revolution, the solution I came up with was to lay my sheet of slides on a “Flashlight” App (for the white backlight) on my Apple iPad and view them with my loupe. I was once again presented with the magical experience of seeing my first slides in 1999. I was also intrigued by a colorful “grid background” I saw in my slides, which I soon realized was a highly magnified view of my iPad’s screen pixels.
Nostalgia aside, I have been thinking about what exactly happened in the switch from Slides to Digital. I have realized that what I have lost in the transition is discipline, and what I have gained in the process is confusion.
The limited range of slide film combined with the cost and practical difficulties of carrying film led naturally to a workflow where I paid attention to every single frame that I was capturing. 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.
With slides, there is a “master” – when in doubt about a digital scan or a print, put the slide on a lightbox and compare. Now, with RAW, you have a digital negative – the “score” waiting for your “performance”. You can correct exposure, correct color, convert it to Black & White, and even simulate film grain. ISO means nothing – unless of course, an ISO of 12800 means something to you. To some, infinite choice means infinite freedom. To me, this kind of choice has led to confusion and less freedom.
This situation makes me think about any artistic medium and the constraints that it imposes on the practitioner. Does a pencil artist feel “constrained” compared to an oil painter? Is someone who walks around with a camera and fixed focal length more “constrained” than one with a zoom lens that covers all possible focal lengths? I think the answer is that as long as you understand and accept the constraints of a medium or a workflow, it actually frees up your mind to focus on the essentials – the art, so to speak.
Below is a portrait I captured in 2000, shot on Kodachrome 64 slide film using a Leica M6 and a 35 Summicron. The scan does not quite look like the slide, but at least I know what it’s supposed to look like. The slide is so sharp that you can see the embers in the cigarette clearly with a loupe.
Here is one of my first digital portraits taken with a Nikon D70 and a 18-70 lens. On the left is the image straight out of the camera. In the right is one of the many possible “performances” of this image.
In conclusion, I know and accept that for better or worse, I am stuck with digital photography. From a cost and convenience perspective, I can’t imagine going back to film of any kind. But I do hope to remember and practise the one valuable lesson I learned from slide film – accept constraints and focus on essentials.
So here is a toast to slide film: A tough Master, but a great Teacher. I am a better photographer because of you.
Mahesh Venkitachalam
Hello. I found your article through a link on The Online Photographer (http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/04/ode-to-slide-film.html). I find a great deal of truth in what you have written here. I think digital photography encourages sloppiness in even more ways than you have mentioned. For example, the per-shot cost of digital shooting is virtually zero, so one thinks nothing of firing off a thousand shots, hoping that at least one of them will be great, where before one would have taken more care since every 36 shots one had to change to a new roll of film and pay to get the last roll processed. I also think that the level of automation in modern cameras has become excessive. This was true even before digital. The camera calculates exposure for you, it focuses for you — what is left but to point and shoot? Since the 1980s, cameras have actively encouraged us to trust them to take care of the details, and therefore discouraged us from really taking responsibility for our photography. For all these reasons, after several years of exclusively shooting digitally, I went back to film in 2010, using vintage manual-focus cameras exclusively. I still have a DSLR, but my serious photography is all done on film now.
“I have lost in the transition is discipline, and what I have gained in the process is confusion” – Interesting thought. That is, in short, exactly what I have experienced.
“I was vaguely familiar with Ansel Adam’s advice on “Image Management”, and the the interplay of pre-visualization”
Visualization. Nowhere in The Camera, The Negative or The Print does Adams use ‘pre-’.
Thanks for the correction, Steve. I think this is widely misquoted. But in this context, he meant visualization *before* taking the photograph, so there doesn’t seem to be a contradiction here.
An interesting article. I too switched from film to digital in 2004 and sold my film camera. Last year I switched back and bought a lovely old rangefinder. So nice to feel involved with the process of taking a photograph. Now I interpret the meter reading, set the aperture and shutter speed, focus the lens and wind the film on afterwards. I also started using slide film having previously used print film. Both Velvia and Provia are outstanding emulsions. Then I bought a high quality scanner. Then some old medium format folder cameras. Velvia at 6×9 cms is heaven. Film has a 3 dimensional quality which I don’t see with digital. Rangefinders and manual cameras are so much nicer than pressing buttons where you can’t go wrong and where you learn nothing. Getting only 39 pictures on a film (or considerably less on MF) makes you think about what you are doing. Digital doesn’t. Film isn’t really expensive. My cameras are 50/60 years old, work perfectly and are going up in value. My digital EOS has been superseded 3 times since I bought it 4 years ago. It stays in the cupboard now and I enjoy taking photographs so much more.
Very eloquent
Lovely thoughts
Thanks
An interesting commentary, and very correct. There are some of us diehards who will NEVER adapt to digital imagery!
Too many of my friends still use slide film; Kodachrome is gone, in fact Kodak as a producer of film has just about expired.
They used Fuji Sensia and I use Provia. Still prefer Provia 400 ASA even in the bright of summer. Sensia slide film has disappeared
as well as all too many of the E-6 processing labs. I use Dwayne’s in Parsons Kansas. The turnaround is three to four weeks, the cost about $16.00 for a roll of 36 exposures. There are one or two remaining labs here in Southern Ontario however they are even slower than Dwayne’s
and are for less meticulous. Then too they charge more and their price does not included the 13 mandatory provincial percent sales tax.
All my photographic friends (something like ten or fifteen) all use slide film, none own or want a computer and they range in age from 51 to 86. Also too we have month;y slide shows to show and view our latest wares.
Suspect I am the only one to have a computer, Macintosh and am able to use Photoshop.
Personally though, digital is a waste of time and effort for me.
Tried to aclimatize myself to digital and have owned the entire gamut of DSLR’s fromNikon and Canon.
All have been sold, some to KEH.
None of the devices inspired me as much has either myvF100 or F34 Nikon film cameras.
Digital is for cheap point and shoot device, film is for real people using real devices and
having a reason to exist with a real image, not some kind of will of’ the wisp kind of imaginary fluff.
Bryce Lee,
Burlington, Ontario
Canada
Thanks to all for the kind comments!
great article, thanks
I have had a similar experience myself. I tried to hold on to slide film by upgrading to Mamiya and medium format … But I still couldn’t resist the easy handling of my digital Nikon and Olympus 
Still love my Mamiya though!
It seems most people (including myself in my previous comment), agree with your points. One point I didn’t make, but I think is very relevant, besides the points previously made, is that one key aspect of good photography is controlling the depth of field in a photograph.
With the majority of people using digital cameras with small sensors which in turn require short focal length lenses, the opportunity to limit DOF on most digital cameras is restricted. This coupled with the rather slow (zoom) lenses which most people end up using, only adds to this problem. Having a lens with nice wide apertures (f2 or less) is not something which many digital photographers have, and many will not even be aware of this issue having not used film in the past with cameras that allowed you to control this. This benefit is even greater on MF as lenses need a longer focal length to produce similar results, giving you further control.
By the way, in England buying film and having slide film processed is neither expensive or slow. I sent a slide film to be processed last Monday and received the processed slides on Thursday – 2 of these days the film would have been in the post. I don’t know how it is in other countries.
Michael:
I agree – the combination of slow lenses and cropped sensors means too much DOF for me. I have a Fuji X100 which has a 23mm f/2 lens on an APS-C sensor. That is not really equivalent to a 35 mm f/2 lens on full frame. Even at f/2 there is way too much DOF, resulting in very minimal background separation for the subject distances I typically shoot with. But there is only one (expensive) choice if I want a small camera with a 35 f/2 lens and a full frame sensor!
Hi MV,
My full frame sensor 50mm f2 camera is a 47 year old Voigtlander Vitomatic lllb with Ultron lens (only 23% of the cost of a Fuji X100 and going up in value!). I also have a 1968 Olympus 35SP (42mm @ f1.7) with a full frame sensor! I prefer the Vitomatic though.
Your article captures pretty succinctly why some of us have so far resisted the siren call of digital. But I would like to point out that the notion of the difference between the “score” and “performance” exists for film, too, at least if you are working with negatives and printing your own, which it sounds like you never did. In fact, I believe that very metaphor was originally used by St. Ansel himself. When you shoot negatives, esp. b&w, you make choices when you expose, then more choices when you’re in the darkroom. Because you got in late in the game, you probably never saw good prints of your negatives, only digital machine prints, which tend to suck.
Good point. In fact, I was fortunate enough to take a 2 week darkroom course when I lived in the US. I still have some wonderful fiber prints I made during that time. Due to that experience, even today, when I envision the digital capture in B & W, I feel somehow more comfortable with post processing. Lightroom provides digital equivalents for the same tools I used in the darkroom – cropping, contrast adjustment and dodging and burning, and I stick to these.
I’ve been making my living (such as it is) exclusively from photography for 33 years.
But man; some of you people sound old.
“…film is for real people using real devices and having a reason to exist with a real image…” REALLY????
We are ancient, all over sixty years of age, and ninety nine point nine percent of our photography is taking photographs of railway trains.
Never family (we ain’t got any) or anything else!!!
Film you can feel, touch, see, not so with digital imagery unless printed and who the heck requires a printed image?
Hey MV, I saw your link on The Online Photographer. A beautiful and engaging article. I understand that you don’t have developers for slide film near where you are located in India. I don’t know if it would be worth your while in postage, but if you want to send your exposed slide film to me here in Washington State, I have two VERY good local sources who still use the E-6 processing. If it is feasible for you, I would be happy to take care of it for you, only because I know how you love to shoot film along with digital. I personally feel blessed that I can still have my E-6 film developed quickly and professionally. Back on the postage, I think that if you sent a lot of exposed film in one package, the postage cost would take care of itself. The two labs here charge an average of about $6.00 for my 120 film slide film developing, and I think they are charging about $7.00 to $8.00 for 35mm slide film developing.
Back on the article, I think it is yet another blessing that we all have a choice of digital or film. We couldn’t ask for more than that.
Laurence
Hi Laurence,
Thank you so much for the offer. Unfortunately I don’t own a film camera anymore, having sold all my film gear in the transition. What I regret most is selling my Leica M6 – I’ll never get over it. The only hopes I have of shooting film is when I can set up my own darkroom – that way I will be less dependent on external sources.
Regards
Bourne & Shepherd in Kolkata, India sell and process E6 slide film:
Bourne & Shepherd
141, S. N. Banerjee Road,
Kolkata – 700013
Phone: 2228-9645
They even develop film
Thanks for the tip!