Re: [Leica] Obtaining Color Prints

["Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com>]

From: Bud Cook <budcook@ibm.net>
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 1999 03:39
Subject: [Leica] Obtaining Color Prints


> I suspect that I'm part of a minuscule minority that's
> only interested in slides for projection.

I never project or print; I just scan.  I find that slides are easier to sort on
the light table, and just as easy to scan as negatives (if the scanner can push
through the greater density, which some can).  A slide displayed on a monitor
looks far more like a projected image than does a print, because the dynamic
range is generally much greater.

> The reason I'm into slides is that the alternative
> of obtaining prints from color negative or color reversal
> film seems very expensive.

That motivates me as well.  Prints cost more, and if they have to be done
correctly or in any size other than snapshots, they cost _way_ more, and they
take 24-48 hours to get.  It isn't cost-effective.  And I have no place to put
them.

> However, even film shot with Summicrons won't produce
> prints that are noticeably better than those from a good P&S.

With prints, you are very much at the mercy of the lab.  If they mess anything
up at all, your prints may not look anything like what the camera actually saw.
One more reason to avoid prints.

> Now there is a third option (digital) but that's not
> cheap either if the goal is to have better than drug
> store quality results.

There's an intermediate option:  scan your slides.  You can scan at high
resolutions and store the results on CD-ROM.  The images, when projected on a
good monitor, look essentially the same as projection of slides on a screen.  In
any case, they look vastly better than prints.  And you can downsample the
images to e-mail to friends, or put them up on a web site.

Using a digital camera can be a very inexpensive way of taking photos (my
current cost for digital photos is only about a penny each).  The only
disadvantage is that the only affordable cameras are the consumer cameras, and
they are essentially built as point-and-shoot cameras, with poor image quality
and very little flexibility, cheap lenses, etc.  A camera like the Nikon CP950
gives great results as digital goes, but the resolution of film still isn't
quite there, and the inexpensive lens limits quality of the image, and the P&S
design severely limits flexibility and makes the camera far less enjoyable to
use than a professional camera.

  -- Anthony