Bill Smith's Photography

 I confess, I don't shoot a lot of slide film, Kodak Ektar 100 is pretty reasonable and I can get the Kodachrome look without having to hijack a TARDIS and go back to 1972. Slide film is expensive to buy, Kodak E100 is about $28 per roll while Fuji Provia 100 is roughly $8 cheaper if you can find it, most stores are out of stock on that. I had one roll of each and went up to Elora with my Canon New F-1AE. The weather forcast was for a sunny day, well that was the forcast reality was we got a ton of high altitude haze from the forest fires in Northern Ontario.  Shooting slide film is a different beast, pretty much like you are shooting digitally as you are metering for the highlights as not to blow them out. Didn't have that problem today, that said waiting for the slides to come back from processing by Dave Nardi at E6it was worth the wait. My Canon New F-1's are coming north with me this year, if the trip up to Billie Bear is a go.  There is a difference between E100 and...

I don't shoot slide often, last year I grabbed a box of Fuji Provia 100 for kicks and giggles, Kodak's Ektachrome 100 wasn't released yet in 35mm. I shot two rolls up North and had my friend James process them. Fast forward to this spring, I went up with my friend John Meadows from Classic Camera Revival and The Toronto Film Shooters to Elora to wander around. The trails were still super icy so our wanderings were almost exclusively in town. I loaded my Rolleiflex with Fuji Provia 100 slide film. By the time we got up there, the skies became overcast and hindsight being 20/20 I should have rolled with Kodak Portra 400, I went with what I loaded and I'm happy with what I got This time out I sent the slide film away to be processed to Borealis Photo Lab in Montreal because there's no one in Toronto is processing slide film in volume with a dip and dunk line. I want to thank Rachel Labreche and her team for doing a fabulous job on my slides and if you are looking...

My friend James offered to process my slide film and I took him up on the offer, he owns a Jobo Processor and I know the end results would be great. Well, there was a teachable moment along the way. James lives up in Milton, and Milton draws it's municipal water from wells and is as hard as a granite countertop. That is the chemical wrench in E-6 processing. All my slide film came out almost a stop or two underexposed and there was some serious rescue work done in Lightroom. James apologized profusely, turned out he usually uses distilled water mixing up E-6 chemicals only this time used tap water. I  get it because that is the same exact blunder I would do on autopilot. So the teachable moment, if you're processing your slides at home, either 1) use distilled water or 2) invest in a water softener. Hard water does a number on the dye couplers so some colour channels are over represented and others under represented. I also had a roll of Velvia 100 and Provia 100 in 35mm pro...

I plan to shoot more slide film, while I love shooting Kodak Ektar 100 and Portrait 400, there's something about Provia 100F and Velvia 50. I can't wait until Ektachrome comes out... Camera: Nikon FE2, Nikkor Ai 50 f2 lens. Film: Fuji Provia 100F, expired a decade ago and freezer stored.

I haven't shoot E-6 in a very long time, a year or two ago I came across a ziplock back full of Fuji Provia 100 slide film expired sometime last decade. Being freezer stored I wasn't too worried yet on the same token you don't want to be using this for critical work. I tried a roll out for a walk around Oakville a few weeks ago. Actually, I think digital shooters would take to slide film like ducks to water as you have to expose for the highlights. Having shot Portra 400 and Ektar 100 for the past six or so years I kinda lost my groove a bit. I also found slide trickier to scan, I have to re-learn. Shooting slide isn't' cheap, you're looking at $20+ a roll for Fuji Provia 100 or Velvia 100, I have no idea what Kodak is going to charge for the soon to be re-introduced Ektachrome 100, as for Ferrania, who knows at this point, some day, maybe. The other challenge is processing. You can go the Walter White route but the temperature is critical, it is easy to sc...