Big Bend National Park - Velvia 50 a Good Choice? - Ektar 100?

[ggray79]

Haven't been to BBNP before. Are these two films good choices for the landscapes? Will be using a polarizer most of the time. Thanks!

 

[jeffreyg]

I used only b&w Take the polarizer but I don’t think you need it. I used no filters except when there were some light clouds and then used a light orange which was just a bit more than a yellow and slightly helped the green folliage. Check the moon position because it can be very bright and washout the Milky Way. I had to get out at 3:00 AM and got one fairly decent shot. I shot from a dirt road that the cashier in the restaurant suggested. None the less it was great to see along with the number of stars. Amazing how dark it was. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.
You might check for hints about Astro photography on Dan Zaffra’s website
Enjoy your trip.

 

[jeffreyg]

Correction Zafra

 

[Franswa]

Both good choices. Perhaps consider a soft graduated nd to tame those intense skies when shooting velvia. The Texas sun is pretty intense, hopefully you’ll get some nice puffy clouds here and there. You’re going to love the park though. It’s truly magnificent and otherworldly.

 

[ggray79]

Thank you both. I will also do BW with yellow or orange if there is much sky in the shot! Driving now!

 

[loccdor]

Have fun. I think the film choice would be helped by knowing the time of day you plan to shoot at.

 

[koraks]

Are these two films good choices for the landscapes?

Sure - one will give you slides, the other negatives. For an analog workflow, the difference is evident and the choice dictates where you can (not) go with the images.
In terms of scanning, the Ektar will give a bit more leeway provided you give sufficient exposure, but rescuing an overexposed color negative is in my experience easier than an underexposed positive. Of course, underexposed negatives and overexposed slides are a dead-end street either way, so whichever option you choose, be sure to lean in the right direction depending on the material you've got. With CN color balancing will be more tricky than with E6.

 

[Kino]

Depends on the results you want.

Frankly, Portra would probably be more forgiving in that brutal desert light, but that's up to your shooting style.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

You could take the middle road with Provia.

PS What format are you shooting? Velvia 50 is no longer available in large format.

 

[2ndGenNikonian]

I've never shot film out at Big Bend, but I'm seconding the graduated ND suggestion. It gets extremely bright out there if there isn't cloud cover, and the filter will help keep it from blowing out. As for the films, Velvia's a classic for landscape photography. The colors might not be quite true-to-life, but the dramatic saturation is something else. Ektar would be a great choice for negative film. Early on in my photography journey, I shot some at Enchanted Rock. Most of the shots were amateurish, but the colors came out very well.

 

[mshchem]

35mm is pretty dinky for Big Bend

I would take slide film and bracket 1/2 stop.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

35mm is pretty dinky for Big Bend

I would take slide film and bracket 1/2 stop.

+1

 

[DREW WILEY]

With the potential contrast involved, Velvia would be problematic. I never found much use for it in the desert, even back when it was still relatively affordable in 8x10 sheets. A polarizer would even make it worse in terms of rendering earthtones realistically. I don't like the way they tend to kill the magic of natural glare and sparkle anyway unless one is thoughtful. Rock sheen and "desert varnish" is one of great beauties of our desert landscapes; but it depends on the specific geology.

ND grads seem to take a lot of experience to get right; in my hundreds of trips, I've never used one, and probably never will. It's really easy to make a scene look fake that way unless you've learned nuance first.

If the lighting ratio is just too much, sometimes you simply have to sacrifice the shadows and let them go black. Ektar will give you about a stop more realistic wiggle room either side than a typical slide film; about a stop and a half more either side than Velvia.

And it depends what you want out of it, and how you intend to print it, if at all. In recent years I've had great results with Ektar CN film and earthtones, but it's contingent on two things : 1) meter just as carefully as you would with a slide film (don't bet on "latitude"); 2) you have to color temp balance it with appropriate warming filters if bluish overcast or deep blue shadows are encountered. The latter is likely to be abundant in Big Bend (don't count on any of that "I can fix anything in PS afterwards; you can't).

I always carry a 1B light pink skylight filter and KR1.5 or 81B warming filter on such trips. Ektar isn't artificially "fleshtone" warmed like most color neg flms; but it is a lot better overall hue balanced and saturated. Blue skies tend to come out a little cyan inflected unless you counter that with a 1B filter.

Portra 160 would be rather bland to my taste for those kind of scenes, but it's more forgiving.