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What is a Transparency Film?

Another thing is, can one use transparency films instead of negatives? Are transparency films similar to slides? I recently met up with a professional photographer, and she said that she utilizes transparency films instead of normal negatives to avoid error. How does that work?

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March 04, 2003

The "error" the professional photographer is referring to is adjustments made by the lab in making a print from a negative. In making a print the technician can make adjustments to the color balance, overall exposure, adn cropping that the photographer may not have intended.

With slide film there is no interpretation by a third party. What is developed is just as the photographer shot it.

On the otherhand, slide film is much less forgiving of any errors the photographer makes. It generally have very narrow exposure latitude, giving good results only within +/- 1/2 stop of the correct exposure, where print film can give a good result when the exposure is off by as much as -1 to +2 stops.

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March 04, 2003

a. Reversal: The general process used to develop this type of film. The film is actually a special type of negative film and it doesn't have the "orange mask" that negative films have. The negative image is partially developed first, then washed (or bleached out). The remaining emulsion is then "exposed" chemically and developed. Very old reversal process methods actually performed this exposure with light! Doing it chemically is much more accurate. Instead of the cyan, magenta and yellow dyes used in color negative, the dyes used for color "reversal" are red, green and blue. BTW, the dyes are *not* in the film. They are in the chemistry used to develop the film. B&W transparency follows a similar process, but without steps that introduce the colored dyes.

b. Transparency: What the film itself looks like after developing. You can hold it up to light and see a positive image. If totally exposed, such as the piece of film leader that hangs out of a 35mm film cartridgee, it is "transparent" and virtually clear.

c. Slide: This is a transparency mounted in a small frame primarily for use in slide projectors. They also allow easier handling of individual film frames.

BTW, an original slide contains the original film from the camera. It is *not* a copy. You can have slides copied and either a negative or another slide made from it. That is why the pro referred to avoiding error. Because it is the original film from the camera "what you shot is what you got." There is no confusion about where error may have occurred as can happen with prints from negative films. Prints are copies of the original images on the film. All manner of error can be made in making them.

Professionals refer to the film as "transparency" or "reversal" because they are considered more correct descriptions of it. In the world of professional work, a lot of transparencies are never mounted into slides. Reason? They are printed or published instead of projected. Transparencies can be printed. There are several methods for doing this. The equivalent one to making prints from negatives uses special positive print materials. If you've never seen a print made directly from a transparency (as one would do with negatives), they look quite different. There is a boldness and often a realism to them that is very difficult to match with prints from negatives.

Jon is also dead on about latitude. It has much less forgiveness to exposure error. If you can consistently do transparency exposure well, you've got you're "exposure" act together.

-- John

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March 07, 2003

-- John

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March 07, 2003