Re:slide vs neg

[P3D Greg Marshall <greg.marshall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ron labbe  writes:
>> For other reasons
>>I prefer and mostly use transparency films, but for ultimate accutance
>>and resolution, negative color film is the clear choice.
>>
>
>You're opening a can of worms! I don't really know anything about negative
>film, so I can't argue. However, isn't it true that most professional
>photographers use transparency film for reproduction? I've never heard that
>negative film is the most accurate, but it makes sense since it is less
>'processed'...

>(sorry to those who think this thread is not 3D related... I feel the medium
>is part of the art- I usually keep my posts short...)

It definitely is a can of worms, which I've wallowed through before.
First, let
me correct a misquote:  The word I used was "accutance" not "accuracy".
Accutance is the measure of "sharpness" as opposed to "resolution" (I
think).

I think transparency film is commonly used in pre-press operations for
the
same reasons I use it:  It's convenient to see (more or less) what the
final
image will look like, and it's much easier to transform from one medium
to
another.  Specifically, when I scan a negative I can get a much wider
range
of densities, but it takes a lot more work because the transform is
severely
non-linear.  So if I have a good exposure on an image with normal
contrast
range a slide is much easier to deal with.  If I need a wide density
range,
either to cover a bad exposure or for image content, I'd rather have a
neg-
ative so I at least have a chance of getting a good image.  I think this
point was made by another respondent to my post.  However, I also
contend that for the best sharpness, negative is definitely better.
Some-
times it doesn't seem that way because a negative shows grain and a
transparency generally doesn't.  But if you shoot test charts to see how
fine
a line you can reproduce, at similar film speeds a negative will always
win.

Greg Marshall


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