I didn't know the shops actually scan the slides first before printing digitally! I thought slides could be printed directly as what they do for negatives. (Pardon me for the ignorance as I'm new to slide-to-print. )
If that's the case, then in effect, what we get is a digital print isn't it? Almost as good as saying equivalently, we can do the scanning ourselves and let them print as you mentioned? Only thing is that there's extra work.
But from the final quality, is there a noticeable difference between printing from slide and negative?
I used to enjoy shooting from slides bcos I have control over the exposure and the colours are great compared to prints. But I think this is an "illusion" due to the reflectance of light? Without a projector and always viewing from a loupe, I find I can't share my shots and it gets straining to view them.
Prints are great for sharing and viewing but most of the time, I end up chucking away about 15-20 shots out of 36 exposures.
I long for the day when digital SLR becomes affordable without the pesky focal length multiplier!
Man, photography is burning a hole in my pocket now... :cry: