The intrepid photographer at work

[RBSinTo]

Taken earlier this summer in the Food Court in the Toronto Eaton Centre Shopping Mall.
My wife and I were spending an afternoon with our Son, Daughter-in-Law, and their two children, and when they scattered to the various kiosks to get lunch I spotted a young man seated along the wall. I liked the repeating pattern of seats and tables and the horizontal bands of colour, and I grabbed this shot. It was only after getting back the slide that I noticed my reflection in the mirror.
motorized Nikon F3P
Makinon 28~80 3.5 AIS manual focus
Fuji Velvia 100 ISO colour slide
3.5 @ 1/60th or 1/30th

[Shadowman]

Nicely done. I see you were using ISO 100 film, have you ever tried or prefer more sensitive films? Did you have the lab make the print at actual ISO setting or did you select push processing?

[RBSinTo]

Nicely done. I see you were using ISO 100 film, have you ever tried or prefer more sensitive films? Did you have the lab make the print at actual ISO setting or did you select push processing?

John,
I shoot outside in daylight with 100 ISO film, and only use high-speed stock (400 ISO which I rate at 800) indoors, and then have it pushed one stop. As 400 colour slide is no longer being made, all my remaining rolls (about 15) have come via Craigslist or the photo swap meets so I use them very sparingly.
On this occasion I was outside shooting while my wife was indoors, and we met up with the kids and grandkids later in the Eaton Centre so I was using 100, and couldn't be bothered to go back to the car and switch rolls. When we got inside there was enough light to shoot wide open (considering that I took this shot at 28mm) and get a reasonably sharp photo. A few other shots I made at longer focal lengths were not particularly sharp.
After years of shooting 100, my freezer stock is about used up, so very soon I will switch to my large stock of Fujichrome 50, which was all donated by photobuds when they switched to Digital.
Robert

[Shadowman]

John,
I shoot outside in daylight with 100 ISO film, and only use high-speed stock (400 ISO which I rate at 800) indoors, and then have it pushed one stop. As 400 colour slide is no longer being made, all my remaining rolls (about 15) have come via Craigslist or the photo swap meets so I use them very sparingly.
On this occasion I was outside shooting while my wife was indoors, and we met up with the kids and grandkids later in the Eaton Centre so I was using 100, and couldn't be bothered to go back to the car and switch rolls. When we got inside there was enough light to shoot wide open (considering that I took this shot at 28mm) and get a reasonably sharp photo. A few other shots I made at longer focal lengths were not particularly sharp.
After years of shooting 100, my freezer stock is about used up, so very soon I will switch to my large stock of Fujichrome 50, which was all donated by photobuds when they switched to Digital.
Robert

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the response, when I last shot film which was about ten years ago I purchased ISO 400 film because at the time I wanted to experiment more with low light shooting. The film (Kodak MAX) was listed as all conditions so I thought I'd be covered for any environment. I also noticed that the box listed Process C-41 which upon reading up on stated that negatives tended to fade or color shift over time. Have you noticed that issue with any of your images or does archiving as slides help protect? I have hundreds of negatives that I haven't tried to scan in years, wonder if it is worth saving them.

[RBSinTo]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the response, when I last shot film which was about ten years ago I purchased ISO 400 film because at the time I wanted to experiment more with low light shooting. The film (Kodak MAX) was listed as all conditions so I thought I'd be covered for any environment. I also noticed that the box listed Process C-41 which upon reading up on stated that negatives tended to fade or color shift over time. Have you noticed that issue with any of your images or does archiving as slides help protect? I have hundreds of negatives that I haven't tried to scan in years, wonder if it is worth saving them.

John,
Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but my film is slide film, so there are no negatives. The developing process is E-6 and what was in the camera is what one gets back in the slide mounts, as positives. The film is developed as the negative which is then reversed to give a positive, hence the designation Reversal Film. I keep my slides in plastic pages in boxes and while I've always understood that Kodachrome slides were far more colour stable than any E-6 stocks (Ektachrome. Fujichrome, and virtually all slide films other than Kodachrome) I've never had a problem with colour shifts. The exception to that is of course using unexposed rolls that were subjected to temperature abuse, as is sometimes the case with the odd roll of my donated stocks. I keep them all in the freezer, but I suppose the odd roll that I was given sat in high temperatures before I ever got them. They result in slides with a very magenta cast, but that is almost always fixable in Photoshop.
It is always worthwhile to go back through old images to find forgotten gems. I've recently done that with a number of binders of slides and ended up doing three photo-essays. Additionally, many of my recent postings are of slides shot ten or fifteen years ago that were never even shown when they were first taken. So my answer is yes, they are worth saving but only if you plan to at least go through them and keep, scan and/or print the good stuff.
Robert

[Shadowman]

John,
Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but my film is slide film, so there are no negatives. The developing process is E-6 and what was in the camera is what one gets back in the slide mounts, as positives. The film is developed as the negative which is then reversed to give a positive, hence the designation Reversal Film. I keep my slides in plastic pages in boxes and while I've always understood that Kodachrome slides were far more colour stable than any E-6 stocks (Ektachrome. Fujichrome, and virtually all slide films other than Kodachrome) I've never had a problem with colour shifts. The exception to that is of course using unexposed rolls that were subjected to temperature abuse, as is sometimes the case with the odd roll of my donated stocks. I keep them all in the freezer, but I suppose the odd roll that I was given sat in high temperatures before I ever got them. They result in slides with a very magenta cast, but that is almost always fixable in Photoshop.
It is always worthwhile to go back through old images to find forgotten gems. I've recently done that with a number of binders of slides and ended up doing three photo-essays. Additionally, many of my recent postings are of slides shot ten or fifteen years ago that were never even shown when they were first taken. So my answer is yes, they are worth saving but only if you plan to at least go through them and keep, scan and/or print the good stuff.
Robert

Hi Robert,

No problems, when you mentioned slides in post #3 I thought you were referring to slides used with a projector. Never got into using slide film and probably would've if I had continued with film.