I am planning on photographing flowers with a macro lens. Would i be better off using high saturation slide film or negative color film. My prints would be processed using a digital film scanner and color printer. Thankyou.

-- Clark Forbes (streamwoodacres@maqs.net), June 15, 2000

Answers

Slide film for sure, Provia 100f or Velvia will work just fine, I think you'll find negatives are a pain and more difficult to get just right. Use a tripod and shutter release to keep your shots sharp, you'll see any camera shake when you scan at high res.

-- Cris Daniels (dafla@gte.net), June 15, 2000.

Slide film is fine for in-your-face colour, but you'll get better shadow detail and a wider tonal range from negative film.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), June 16, 2000.

You'll find that most pros wont touch negatives and thats for a good reason. Slides (transparencies) offer more quality than negatives. From my experience many fashion photograpers and most lansdcape photographers use slide film exclusively. You also dont have to deal with strange colored masks which makes a clean scan that much more cut and dry. The detail and shadows of my Polariod Sprintscan 4000 are fantastic, switching to negatives is a step backwards. The key is properly exposed slides, negatives are more forgiving as far as exposure is concerned.

-- Cris Daniels (danfla@gte.net), June 17, 2000.