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Garry Black Photography

Question:

I am so glad to have found your web site.  It is a wealth of information!  I am an amateur photographer and have started to sell some of my work locally.  I was watching a video tape I borrowed from our local library on photography, and the fellow on the tape said serious amateurs and professionals use slides.  Up until this point I have been using Kodak film and having my negatives printed off and enlarging and framing them.  Since I am putting my work into retail stores, I want to get the best product.  Should I be using slide film?
My camera is a second hand Minolta X 700.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Answer:

There are 3 basic reasons that professionals shoot slide film.

1. You can precisely control the exposure of the picture. Have you ever
taken a negative in for reprinting and it doesn't look the same as the
original print?

2. Slide film has much finer grain than negative film, so larger
enlargements can be made from slides.

3. To have your work published in a magazine, they always want slides.
That's what the industry standard is. They also work from digital files now,
either scanned images or shot on a high res digital camera.

Now having said all of that, there is a downside to shooting on slides.
Getting a photographic print straight from a slide is very expensive or you
must get an internegative. However there are quite a few good inkjet
printers that a lot of photographers are now using to sell art prints, but
still you will have to get your slide scanned.

So what should you do? If all you're doing is selling framed prints then you
can stick to shooting negatives, but don't use any film faster than 100 ASA.
Higher than that and the colour starts to get muddy and the grain gets very
noticeable.

Hope this helps you.