Slide film shooting and hopelessness

[Ivo Stunga]

A roll of 135 is more expensive than 120 lol - I see 25EUR for 135/36 so no free lunch for me, just as expected
Thanks for the pointers nonetheless!

 

[George Mann]

Currently, I have 40 sheets of Provia 100F in 4x5, about 15 rolls in 120, and one roll in 135 stored in my fridge. I plan to shoot this in 2025, and I fear this will mark the bitter end of slide film for me, perhaps even for color film in general. The cost of color film in larger formats, as well as E6 developing, is becoming prohibitively expensive.

Well, todays slide film prices as well as all Kodak film is certainly too expensive in any format for the abstract art that I am forced to shoot these days.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Thanks! Reading threads like these I'm forced to conclude that:
- curation matters and possibly even more than the raw output to be curated - the art of exclusion and being coherent;
- that or I'm blessed to have people around me that gladly give 2 hours of their time to see my slides.
- The truth is probably somewhere in-between good curation, decently composed and exposed subject matter (of interest to the public) and music consciously selected to compliment the atmospheres present, and vice-versa.
- Slide projection can be interesting as a tech on it's own as it's rarely seen by general public and I love to crush the stereotype of film being inferior, love the comments about fidelity, color, sharpness, character and
there being zero pixels/grid on the screen - silky smooth presentation instead.

Sometimes I wonder if I have put more time into music selection or shooting/developing my slides. Music has whole worlds for me and I'm usually into raw, emotive, powerful and uncompromising music - usually on the dark side of things. Happy sounds just empty to me, disgusting even
And I dislike the corporate piracy that is Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and every other streaming service out there that pays shit to artists and have devalued music into oblivion. Hence my love for physical media - especially if purchased directly from artists or at venues. I like to support countless artists I love, not the dirty thief in suits.


If interested in my tastes, I have compiled numerous Spotify playlists:

https://open.spotify.com/user/11157205794/playlists

And these two are curated for my Urban Exploration slides:
URBEX:


RUREX:




That's why I picked up BW Reversal - one Provia 100F developed costs about 30EUR. I can have 4-5 excellent BW "Slide Films" for that price, developed. The math just doesn't support color for hobby application. It's as if they consciously want that E-6 film to be inaccessible to general public.

Hobbies can be expensive. How much does the average golfer pay a year for greens fees and equipment, balls, etc? How about someone who bowls? What does it cost today to go out to the movies with your wife? Tell her you're not going this week and she can help you sort and watch your slides instead.

 

[DREW WILEY]

What does it even cost to eat out? There are more restaurant per capita, especially the variety of ethnic ones, right around here more than anywhere else in the US, including NYC. But on average, for the two of us to eat out even once a week would cost more than a box of 4X5 chrome film with processing. And some people eat out two or more meals a day; they can afford it. Or what redneck type won't spend a couple thousand dollars on a set of oversized 4WD mud racing tires several times a year? When I went fishing as a kid the equipment was minimal; but now people will spend as more on a boat and all the fancy gadgets than I spent for my house, and it doesn't even make the fish taste better. How much do people spend for their family cell phones and computer entertainment services every month? An old land line was only about ten bucks. It's all relative.

 

[mshchem]

When my Dad returned home from WWII in late 1945, he took a job as an industrial pharmacist. I think he was making $1.25/hr. Flashbulbs were a dime a piece, Kodachrome wasn't cheap. Photography has always been expensive

 

[Chan Tran]

When my Dad returned home from WWII in late 1945, he took a job as an industrial pharmacist. I think he was making $1.25/hr. Flashbulbs were a dime a piece, Kodachrome wasn't cheap. Photography has always been expensive

I think film was least expensive to shoot (taken into account of cost of living at the time) in the late 90's early 2000. I found film cost and processing didn't increase a lot from the late 70's until late 90's.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

What does it cost today to go out to the movies with your wife?

1) Don't have a wife and neither am interested in what popular Cinema has to offer - least viable product, full of BS pushing instead of art. But I do translate and read decent movies to live audiences and I get paid a little;
2) Me and my ex often enjoyed each-other's slides and contributed to some decision making.

What does it even cost to eat out?

What "grade" of eating-out are you aiming for? 10-100-1000USD? What does it cost to prepare food for yourself an be healthier/more skilled and versed at life at the end of it? A strange metric to compare arts and crafts product pricing to, no?


WHAT MATTERS and could be telling however is this - what percentage of your income you spend on a roll of film? Weaker economies pay more. Kodak film costs more abroad, so we are kind-of "punished" for lesser purchasing power.


I currently spend 0,5 to 1% (monthly salary) on a roll of BW film and shoot up to 50 rolls a year on average. That's up to 3% of my monthly "fun" budget and up to 9% if I want a single roll of chromes. There's that.

 

[Prest_400]

Slide film is what got me into film, simply said. My Dad's Agfachromes had something. When I picked photography myself, I added slide and thanks to a fellow APUGer even got to shoot Kodachrome.
It also was a reason why I went to the largest of medium formats, 6x9. For a point in time, I wanted Provia to be my slow film and Portra 400 just be the standard for color. The color inversion and interpretation of color negatives sometimes has frustrated me, and slide is just it.

The equation has changed a bit given the availability and expense. I do still have slide film around, but living up north, half of the year feels useless handheld. Still have 5-6 rolls left over my tropical trip, which I plan to shoot during the upcoming spring. I will just chase color with it, and if possible, do some portraiture although I am no studio person so it has been ages since I shot people in slide.
About the OP "hopelesness" I have felt it a bit, as I am much more discriminating with slide film nowadays, and some of the rolls just didn't get shot when I should have.

 

[retina_restoration]

I seriously doubt that film photography is any more costly today than it was 25 years ago, taking inflation etc. into account. As others have said many times, (film) photography has always been expensive.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

photography has always been expensive.

But percentage-wise it'd be fun to know at what % what economies start to complain about pricing : D
IMHO and according to this - US doesn't get to complain until they pay 4x more than I do currently - based on average gross wage, UNECE

List of countries by average wage - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Only then can we be on the same page

 

[GregY]

But percentage-wise it'd be fun to know at what % what economies start to complain about pricing : D
IMHO and according to this - US doesn't get to complain until they pay 4x more than I do currently - based on average gross wage, UNECE

List of countries by average wage - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Only then can we be on the same page

I don't worry too much about film prices....but enlarging paper...
Ilford Warmtone FB 20x24 used to be $300 for a box of 50....today
it's $756 USD......so by the time i pay in canadian dollars and add the tax....
that's $1200 a box.....
It makes me shake my head....& print/sell far fewer

 

[Ivo Stunga]

I don't worry, just act accordingly to pricing. And again: E-6 scarcity and price increases made me jump into BW reversal with 0 darkroom hours under my belt, and forced me to be a better photographer. I can't be too mad about this silver lining.

That said:
If Kodak and Fuji doesn't want my limited money - what can I do?
Meanwhile Ilford, Adox and Rollei Analog have my money on regular basis...


There are alternatives to paper (sizes, grades/types), but without a film there's simply no film photography and every price increase I feel 4x more than US citizen, for example, therefore it's amusing to see stronger economies complaining about the same pricing

 

[perkeleellinen]

I try to remind myself that by projecting slides I'm saving money on RA4 paper and chemistry.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

Me too : D
BUT - the downside is that Slides are quite ephemeral in their nature - akin of a Scan.
It's hardly an individual, physical picture to be held in hands and viewed with available light and you probably need a projection setup that has its own price-tag and demand on room and viewing conditions that some or most will find unacceptable.

Therefore the comparison doesn't hold water IMHO

 

[perkeleellinen]

All true. I have a Kindermann AV 150 which makes things a bit more portable.

 

[koraks]

saving money on RA4 paper and chemistry

That's kind of sad. Out of all things in the darkroom, these are probably the cheapest. Cheaper than printing B&W on RC paper.

 

[perkeleellinen]

Don't take that comment too seriously, it was meant light-hearted. I don't worry too much about photo costs.

 

[MFstooges]

But percentage-wise it'd be fun to know at what % what economies start to complain about pricing : D
IMHO and according to this - US doesn't get to complain until they pay 4x more than I do currently - based on average gross wage, UNECE

List of countries by average wage - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Only then can we be on the same page

I assume that map includes Bezos and Musk

 

[retina_restoration]

There are times when I feel something akin to what George has expressed - the pointlessness of making photographs on film materials in this era, at this point in my life. I can relate - sometimes.
But as much as I do struggle with assigning meaning and purpose to what I do, I still persist in doing it because I find joy in the making of photographs. The minute I stop tormenting myself by trying to make "meaningful" photographs, I feel free to play and explore, and pleasure lives in that space.
But affordability is something else, I suppose. I have cached a fair amount of sheet film in the fridge, and I feel confident that it will last at least a decade without deteriorating. (I expect to use it up long before that, though) I don't have an unlimited budget, so I am careful how much I spend on film/darkroom materials, but I also believe that you cannot put a price on joy. So I will continue to fuel my photography by spending $$$ on materials, as long as I am enjoying what comes of it.
But if you aren't enjoying what you do anymore, then find something else to create. I understand that this isn't easy - you have to grieve the death of something you once felt passionate about. That is a painful process, believe me - I understand that. But there's no point in wallowing in a space where there's no more enjoyment to be had, neglecting potential opportunities to find fresh joy elsewhere. I suspect that someone is feeling hopeless about their creative endeavors, it's not about cost of materials as much as it's about their emotional state.

 

[koraks]

But as much as I do struggle with assigning meaning and purpose to what I do, I still persist in doing it because I find joy in the making of photographs. The minute I stop tormenting myself by trying to make "meaningful" photographs, I feel free to play and explore, and pleasure lives in that space.

Well said.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Prints and slide shows are two different things. In fact, a level of exposure optimized for projection might not be ideally exposed for sake of printing. I sure learned that the hard way early on. Then you have to factor the method of printing. If you want RA-4 output you have to either get it scanned and submitted to a programmed laser printer, or else generate a decent internegative from it first. I do it the latter method; but doing that well is both time-consuming and expensive. Printing a slide directly is no longer possible, now that both Cibachrome and Type R prints are gone.

The default is to simply shoot color neg film instead, and enlarge it directly onto RA4 paper, which is in fact more economical than black and white printing. But I like doing both, so have to juggle my budget accordingly.

There must be millions of old slide projectors out there for free, covered with cobwebs in attics and closets. A competently done slide show utterly blows away looking at images on a computer screen... well, at least if it's right kind of content, and not a five hour long nightmare like Aunt Maud showing her vacation pictures of a sausage factory in Peoria - I remember some of those ordeals.

 

[1957ExaktaVarexIIa]

I don't like the digital workflow and the endless possibilities, leaving me wanting something I don't even know what. I like to do it in camera, not post. Soo - no slides, no photography to me.

Similar with me.

I moved to BW slides - waaaaay cheaper than E-6.

Indeed. Here in Germany (with 35 mm Fomapan R100 30.5 meters in a process based on paper developers) it costs about 0.15 € per slide.

 

[George Mann]

Well said.

Yes. The reason I haven't abandoned film is that I find no true joy and satisfaction in shooting digital.

I am now concentrating on supplanting my normal subjects with abstract ones.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The main problem with going to digital capture is that you're forced to print digitally too. It just ain't the same look, or the same tactile experience. And you're also format restricted to relatively small capture. What many of you call a "slide" could in principle also be an 8x10 transparency, with tremendous detail capacity. Yet the same darkroom could print it all, using the same paper and chemistry; mine certainly can. Yeah, I see big digital prints all time; some are very well made, some are not. But to me, the feel just isn't right.

The gamut and surface appearance of inkjet inks in particular leaves quite a bit to be desired. I hope further improvements will be made; the R&D push seems to have plateaued for the time being, which makes business sense, but leaves us color idealists somewhat disappointed.

I don't know if it does any good to scream about price. Heck, a gallon of decent quality house paint has more than doubled in price over the past few years too. Museum board expense has shot through the roof. Even plywood has.

 

[koraks]

It just ain't the same look, or the same tactile experience.

Tactile experience - no.

Funny thing, @gary mulder visited me the other day. He brought two prints, made on consecutive days, on the same spot - same composition, same light. Printed at roughly the same size. There were differences, for sure, but they were subtle. I could tell the digital print apart from the analog one only on the basis of the paper it was printed on.