 BetterPhoto Member |
film Why do pro's prefer shooting slide film over print?
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John A. Lind |
David, I believe this is a [common ??] misconception. More accurate is "pros use a much wider variety of films." In sheer number of rolls burned, the single biggest use of film by pros is for portraiture and weddings. It overwhelms other types of professional photography and is the "bread and butter" for most professionals. That type of work is almost exclusively done using professional color negative film: Kodak's Portra, Fuji's NPS/NPH, Agfa's Portrait, etc. Quite a bit of color work for fine art, commercial, advertising and high end editorial photographs is still done using transparency (slide) film. This may be what you're referring to with your question. I've found it much easier to edit transparencies using a projector, or a light box and loupe. Results are not confounded by (proof) print quality. The original slide is the film that was in the camera; "what you shot is what you got." In addition, direct prints from transparencies have a much different look to them that is difficult to achieve with color negative. IMO the difference is a combination of narrower film latitude and the characteristics of display quality positive print materials. All that said, film is selected for a specific task based on a variety of its characteristics. I routinely use nine different films: three B&W negative, three color negative, and three transparency. That doesn't count some additional ones used occasionally. Which film is selected depends on the task and what I've visualized for finished photographs of the subject material. -- John
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
As usual John has given you good information. To which I will add that images taken for print (4 color press) have traditionally been taken on slide film because the press needed an image to color match to. A negative doesn't do this. A slide however is an original and is much easier for the press to match.
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