Visual impact of projected slides, lost?

In reading a thread which debates the merits of digital vs. analog (film), I started to think that we now have a generation of new photographers who probably have never experienced the thrill of experiencing the visual, almost emotional, impact of a first generation slide image projected to enormous size on the silver screen. Digital images are now routinely 8-12MP images, but the BEST digital projectors that a consumer can afford can only manage 1280 x 1024 resolution!

They have seen images on their monitors, which have limited dynamic range. Or they have seen images printed onto glossy paper, which is not much different. The wider dynamic range of the projected slide may not have been appreciated by the new generation of photographer!

And seeing a first generation slide right out of the camera, where the photographer was able to grab a scene perfectly for exposure and for composition and for emotional impact, is now lost to the typical digital image which has been post processed to its perfection, a whole generation of manipulation of the final product!

It is unfortunate that this aspect of photography and its appreciation, is the sacrifice made to achieve nearly instantaneous gratification in our photos.

I agree. Unless your a glass blower, their aren't too many crafts in todays world that have not been changed drastically by technology.

Mass production vs. Artisans and we know who's winning as the manufacturers race to the market with more pixels/ram/terrabytes.

I guess I'm becoming cynical in my old age.

I'm and old Kodachrome guy Wilt so I'm with you here. You could project those slides with a $300 projector too......I'm still waiting for the DLP prices to come down

We should start a new sticky here - call it Luddites Anonymous

WaltA wrote in post #4044913
We should start a new sticky here - call it Luddites Anonymous

Sign me up then please - I still have a 15 projector rig in storage - Simda 2200 projectors, Berthiot lenses, AVL Genesis and Dove X2's, Chief stacker stands, etc.. Only reason I keep it is because as Wilt said there's a whole generation that's never seen the quality - and I harbour the notion in my head that one day I might actually get around to putting together a show and tour it or have it in a location somewhere.

Rob

Yeah, I got boxes of stuff like that and old film bodies and lenses and every time we move my wife says "You packing that?"

on the flip side they haven't had the torture of going to a relative's house and having too sit thru a 3 hour slide session of someones vacation!
man that was torture!!!!!!

WaltA wrote in post #4044913
We should start a new sticky here - call it Luddites Anonymous

When the image presentation process of today is ten steps backward from what used to be commonly expected, that is not 'progress'! Perhaps you like the MP3 audio quality loss, compared with CD audio quality, too?!

When ever I think of projected slides, I think of boring grand parents, or aunties and uncles showing the family holiday snaps, while the family looks for any chance to escape.

It would be more than fair to say then that I am part of the very generation you describe.

Wilt wrote in post #4044692
They have seen images on their monitors, which have limited dynamic range. Or they have seen images printed onto glossy paper, which is not much different. The wider dynamic range of the projected slide may not have been appreciated by the new generation of photographer!

Which raises a question:
Just how important is the paper we get Digital prints done on, just how much of a differnce is there?
Is there a difference between Matt and Gloss that is important?
I have some photos done on both, and I much prefer the gloss versions.
Sorry if its a little OT, but I think it's with in the orginal theme.

Great topic, Wilt. And count me among the luddites.

Yes, there are boring family slideshows, but there are also boring family snapshots, digisnaps, and for that matter stories and anecdotes.

What I really want to find some day is a slide projector that can project large format transparencies. I've got a lot of medium format and 4x5 transparencies that I'd love to project on a giant wall, and now that I'm shooting 8x10 Astia portraits it would be even better.

That's the thing.
You need a dark room, a screen, a projector, time to set it up.
You need enough viewers to make it worth the effort.
Then the people viewing the slides are at the mercy of the guy running the show.
There's no viewer control.
Because of these things, a lot of great slides were made that very few people ever got to see.

Nowadays, I can take a picture of a church function on a Wednesday night and it can be projected onto the screen before the service starts on Sunday. Hundreds of people get to see it, while the event is still fresh in their minds. Meanwhile back at the lab ... did you get that slide film processed yet?

Grandparents now get weekly pictures and videos of their grandchildren thousands of miles away.

I think it's a different kind of "wow factor".

I hate boringly long slide shows, like everyone else! But when you experience a professional putting on a slide show, or you participate in a photography workshop where each attendee shows 2-3 of his/her 'best' from a photo shoot, you get to really appreciate the beauty of the work that can be presented in a form that puts prints and monitors to shame!

Even putting photos on HDTV is a poor excuse...scarcely competes even with a 1280 x 1024 projector for resolution, let alone dynamic range!

But lest I am called a luddite, again, I should point out that one CAN get slides created from digital files at a fairly reasonable cost per slide. I haven't investigated into the resolution available within those reproductions yet, though.

People who make digitally-enlarged negatives (like for platinum/palladium printing or cyanotypes, or whatever) have them printed on imagesetter or whatever other high end printer, usually on some kind of acrylic transparency material. I think that like other printers they will go up to around 360 dpi. This is far under the resolution of a digital file when you're printing it at capture size. At capture size high res digital cameras are resolving what 4000 dpi or whatever, so to print it digitally is to sacrifice a lot of resolution.

Remember that slides are projected very large. If it's 4x4 feet on a screen, that is worlds larger thjan your typical 11x14 or 16x20 print. Actual slides don't lose much resolution through the projector, but to make a huge enlargement like that from a 1024 pixel projector is going to leave you with what like 10 dpi on the screen or so.

DrPablo wrote in post #4045953
Remember that slides are projected very large. If it's 4x4 feet on a screen, that is worlds larger thjan your typical 11x14 or 16x20 print. Actual slides don't lose much resolution through the projector, but to make a huge enlargement like that from a 1024 pixel projector is going to leave you with what like 10 dpi on the screen or so.

<calling 'Ralph'!>

Hehe.

Well, I present my work a lot of meetings, and occasionally I'll throw in some of my pictures into the slideshow. I never put in anything more than an 800x600 image. It's sometimes as large as 12x12 feet on the screen, which would translate to single digit DPI. But in an auditorium it looks great. It's the same effect as billboards, which are printed at 10 dpi or less.