Negative vs. Transparency - Pros and Cons | What's Your Favorite Type?

Being relatively new to LF photography, I've been extremely eager to experiment and play with different types of film. I appeal to you experts to point me in the right direction. Also, if you have any tips when using certain types of film, that would very much be appreciated.

When my professor gave me his entire 4x5 camera set, he included film holders of which six had Provia 100 (transparency). I bought a box of Kodak Ektar 100 (negative) to fill the other empty holders and was on my merry way. When I finally had the courage to get my film developed, I was blown away by how amazing the quality was by both types of film. I loved the immediacy of transparency, but I also loved the the extra wide gamut of negative.

I'm not sure where to go from here. My professor did say that he always recommends negative, especially for landscape photography, my preferred style. He said that negative renders more details and is much more forgiving/flexible. He also told me to rate negative at always half its recommended ISO, which I'm not too sure about.

1.) What type of film do you guys like to shoot and why?

2.) What type of photography calls for transparency or negative?

3.) Is there a certain type of film that's better/best for night photography?

4.) Is negative or transparency better for extremely large prints? (I know that Gursky and Struth use/used transparency for a lot of their work.)

5.) And finally, my professor (and, believe or not, Stephen Shore himself!) told me that, when metering, to rate negative at half its ISO (so, for example, for Ektar 100 to meter it at 50) and transparency at exactly its recommended ISO. Do you guys think this is generally correct?

Many thanks, as always!

Negatives all the way. I can print those in the darkroom. Basically that's where the reasoning ends for me.

It's a matter of taste/preference really. It's not like one option is better than the other for whatever purpose. There's many ways to skin a litter of cats.

I'm getting outstanding color reproduction in the darkroom printing on RA4 papers from contact internegatives made from large format chromes. Easy to state, rather complicated in real practice. But since Cibachrome is gone, it's one way to salvage one's stack of chrome sheet film shots and excel digital printing options. But once the handwriting was on the wall concerning the demise of Ciba, there was around the same time a real increase in the quality of color neg films, so I started shooting those exclusively going forward, which means I can print newer work directly onto RA4 without an interneg, though I still sometimes use supplementary masks. DO NOT rate Ektar at 50. That might have been routine advice in the old days, but it's counterproductive with these newer films. I don't care what your professor thinks. And no, it makes no difference if his name is Stephen Shore. Maybe he wants the same kind of muddy look like he got with old Vericolor neg film. But Ektar is a completely different animal, engineered differently, and is capable of very clean hues IF you understand it. Use true box speed (100), meter carefully just like you would with slide film, and pay attention to lighting color temperature. If you use corrective filters for strong imbalances in lighting, you won't need to fuss with altering ASA in a half-baked attempt to make sense of this film. I carry a pale salmon 2A or similar Skylight filter for modest correction of the cyanish tendencies of Ektar, an 81A amber filter for blueish overcast days, and sometimes an 81C stronger amber for deep blue shade at high altitude etc. Don't believe ANYONE who tells you they can post-correct just anything. It's a myth. Once mud has been mixed, it's awfully hard to separate out and wash clean afterwards. If you want a more classic, lower contrast, less-saturated color neg look in sheet film, use Portra 160 or Portra 400. Color neg films are better than ever. Few choices of chrome film remain, and none of the best in terms of printability. Perhaps Kodak E100 will be revived in sheets, but I wouldn't hold my breath. And learn the ABC's before you think about extremely large prints. Format-wise, 8x10 film will obviously hold more detail than 4x5, but comes with more of a learning curve; and any kind of 8X10 film is going to be quite expensive these days. Transparencies are somewhat easier for a beginner because you can judge your progress just by putting them atop a lightbox. With color neg film you either need to make sample prints or invert the colors via a scan to view them.

I've shot a lot of both, and neither is a wrong choice.

If you plan to, or have access to a darkroom for your output, I would choose negative film. It'll work in your enlarger, so that is uh...a plus.

If you're scanning then either are good choices. I have been loving e6 film lately however for it's workflow simplicity. It's easy to scan and get fabulous color. It's true that you don't see as much shadow detail but this hasn't really mattered to my work, you just have to find beautiful light. When E100 is available in sheet sizes, that'll be all I want to shoot for color. Negative films are much more interpretive when it comes to color. You can go in different ways depending on your preference, where as a chrome is what it is for the most part. I sort of like that. The Portras are also very low contrast, which sense given they are portrait stocks. Ektar is just very punchy. I find chromes to be somewhere in between. They have a way of being vivid, but also neutral.

It probably used to be that chromes were finer grained than negative, but these days almost all films are basically grainless in large format.

Re rating film. Simply halfing the ISO is a little simplistic. I have some good rule of thumb ratings for popular color neg film.

Portra 400 - 250-320
Portra 160 - 100-160
Ektar 100 - 100

Ektar goes very red when over exposed. This is true of Kodak color neg in general so I wouldn't go too far over. Now the older generations of C41 films did like to be over exposed a lot more. The NC/VC stocks probably did want about double. You can't get it in sheets anymore, but Fuji 400H looks fantastic shot at 100 ISO. However the new Kodak stocks don't require as much over exposure. Personally the only film I over exposed is Portra 400, and only by 1/3rd stop (320). I also regularly push Portra 160 +1, and rate the film in my meter at 250. This gives a nice washed out, high contrast look.

E6 films should not be rated outside of a 1/3rd stop window from box speed. I shoot Provia 100F at 100, and bracket when needed (often).

For night work I would shoot negative.

Transparency film is sorta like digital; you can easily lose the shadows or highlights with some bad exposure. If your shutter is 50-60 years old and not in perfect tune for the weather, it might complicate your work. Cibachrome/Ilfochrome printing options for transparency are pretty much gone. You'll have to scan it or make a negative of it.

Negative film is more flexible in exposure. Yes, lower contrast, but you can add contrast in photoshop if you scan it. If you need to match the color to the original scene, take a DSLR photo with manual white balance for reference.

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Originally Posted by manfrominternet

5.) And finally, my professor (and, believe or not, Stephen Shore himself!) told me that, when metering, to rate negative at half its ISO (so, for example, for Ektar 100 to meter it at 50) and transparency at exactly its recommended ISO. Do you guys think this is generally correct?

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This is a good advice for negative film as an starting point, it is a suitable safety factor, for example you may have not tested your shutter speeds or the aperture calibration. When you have a controlled workflow you can predict what density will have each scene spot on the negative, so "rating" film at a different speed is not necessary.

Me, I use the true ISO speed, and I adapt my metering style to get what I want, but this is a YMMV.


With slide film... by rating slides to the half you can burn many things.

I'd like to re-emphasise Drew's comments about Ektar, you see the same behaviour in the digital domain if your inversion is halfway competent - especially the effects of overexposure & the cyan. Both are easier to solve at the taking stage.

Why are so intent on color?

How do you process the color?

B&W is very popular.

Tin Can - the topic of the thread is color film options. Pere - once again you're totally guessing. Ektar is quite contrasty for a color neg film and has especially STEEP well-defined sensitivity spikes. That's why I've repeatedly stated, IF you are comfortable with chrome film, Ektar will be no problem. But cutting the rated ASA in half can take you right off a cliff. Nobody hoping for good results in a chrome would ever be that careless. Unless you want to go broke buying expensive color sheet film, forget all that "latitude" nonsense and act like a pro. I don't know how much pushback I've had on this subject by the usual "I can fix anything in Photoshop" hacks; but when you look at their actual images, it's pretty much galvanizing a corpse. They whine and complain about Ektar being a lousy film with awful blues etc etc, but aren't willing to equalize the three curves with a simple warming filter! So they spend several days futzing around in PS and come up with something half-baked. Talk to any Hollywood cameraman who doesn't get paid if he shoots from the hip and doesn't do it right the first time, and ask him about the need to balance color neg film to actual color temp conditions - and those are wide-latitude films! Ektar is even less forgiving. Or someone is going to whine that it costs nearly $30 a shot in 8x10, developed, but they can't afford a basic 81A filter! Why bother. Therefore what you call "safety factor, Pere, amounts to incompetence in this case. You should have your shutter speeds tested and known, your meter properly calibrated, and a basic knowledge of color temperature correction just like any color pro was expected to know in advance in the past. Even with digital cameras there are certain hue reproduction problems far easier to solve with a corrective filter in place than any push-button options.

“...forget all that "latitude" nonsense and act like a pro.”

“Therefore what you call "safety factor, amounts to incompetence in this case.”

Gulp.