P3D Re: slide film or neg film?

[Eric Goldstein <egoldste@xxxxxx>]

Dr. George A. Themelis wrote:

> Can slide film
> be made with wider contrast range?

You are going to get more expert information from folks such as Bob H.
on this but to my knowledge, contrast range is a characteristic of each
type of material. Paper positives can only accomodate 4ish stops, film
positive 6ish stops, and film negative 12 (or more) stops.

> Just curious is this characteristic of the postive/negative
> nature of the film or the fact that we want slides to be
> contrasty and negatives to be less contrasty?

"Contrasty" I think is more a function of the shape and rake of the
gamma curve. In other words, we could make a four stop film look
"contrasty" or flat depending on how the middle tones present versus the
extremes.  High contrast films used in graphic arts titling essentially
have no "middle" to their curves, only the extremes of black and white
or the "heel and toe" are significant.

Eric G.


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