Re: Projection vs. viewer

[P3D Dr. George A. Themelis <DrT-3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Erlys Jedlicka writes:

>George,
>Hurrah! You answered the question I was asking, and that is, why can't 
>slides that are excellent for projection also be excellent for viewing. 
>You said they can, and I will forever strive for that excellence.

Well, sorry but I did not say that they can... I also do not think that
this is excellence worth striving for.  Unfortunately, it is a compromise.  
What I said is that there are subjects (limited) that will work well 
both in a viewer and in projection but these are not the best subjects
for either viewing medium...

The best summary of the qualities that count in a viewer vs. projection
was given by David Hutchison a few weeks ago.  It is worth reposting
his comments:

> It's quite true that depending upon your own personal style of 
>shooting there can be considerable difference in what makes a good 
>slide in the hand viewer and what makes a good slide projected on 
>the big screen.  When I was still submitting slides for the PSA 
>salons and sending in slides for the SSA folios, I had to make very 
>careful choices about what slides went where. Many of my slides that 
>looked fabulous in the hand viewer vanished into ho-hum land on the 
>screen and vice-versa.  

>Much of this had to do with the fact that the hand viewer gives you 
>a very bright crystalline image loaded with detail, comparatively 
>little of which transfers to the screen in projection. 

>In general--there are exceptions of course--I kept the big, bold
>compositions with bright subjects in the projection salons and the 
>slides with a lot of fussy detail and very wide contrast range in 
>the hand viewer circuits.

So, in a viewer you get detail and contrast that you don't get in
projection.  Subjects with bold composition that look good in
projection might not look good in a viewer.  Increasing the 
brightness in projection might give good results in certain cases 
but will also result in ghosting in high contrast subjects and 
will still not show you all the details seen in a viewer.

You should not strive to achieve excellence in both media at once
but in each one separately, IMO.  -- George Themelis


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