Re: slide vs neg

[P3D Eric Goldstein <egoldste@xxxxxx>]

John W Roberts asks:

> >The two reasons for this are the absolute color reference
> 
> Could you please explain that in a little more detail?

You can see the color and contrast of a chrome and try to achieve the
closest possible match in your final medium of choice... what's your
reference with a film negative? How do you know how the negative is
"supposed" to look like?

> Do you happen to know the contrast range available on print paper?
> The Cibachrome prints I've seen had extremely dark blacks - not sure
> about prints from negatives.

I think a paper positive's about 10:1, a chrome's about 100:1, and a
film negatives well over 1000:1.

> Some of the newest color LCD displays have contrast ratios of 300 or greater -
> they might actually be up to the task (though there are no commercial ones
> at present which can display the full resolution of a 35mm negative).

As you can see from the above (if my memory is accurate), not too bad
but not quite.

> One nice thing you can do with negatives even with the lesser range of the
> print paper is to choose which part of that huge exposure range you want
> to be visible on the print. This permits an artistic choice of effects,
> as well as compensation for exposure errors.

True enough for the real printers out there. Also true for the computer
folks. True to some degree with slide film, because of non-linearities
at the extremes (the so-called heal and toe of the film) and of course
there is always the option of actually lighting a scene and not just
shooting catch as catch can (flash, reflectors, cuts)...


Eric G.


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