Best Slide Film?

Poisson Du Jour said:

The Velvia 50 (RVP 50) film strengths lie in the green spectrum

Click to expand...

Greens are my BIG point of contention when it comes to Velvia 50 (and, to a lesser degree, 100F). Simply put, Velvia 50 tends to put ALOT of yellow hue into greens (and, for that matter oranges). So in the end, you tend to get ALOT of 'kelly greens' and 'pea greens' rather than deep, dark greens. Even if you are shooting foliage that is decently dark. The effect is an almost glowing effect, kind of like a glow stick at a rave. And I have not been able to develop a taste for this - even (or, should I say especially) for landscape. This is probably the BIGGEST reason why I RARELY shoot Velvia, and prefer less 'wild' films like Kodachrome, E100G, or even Astia.

Kodachrome 64 by far, what you see is what you get with Kodachrome. My second is Astai 100F another realistic film very smooth. I also like Kodak E100G.

Jim

Ektachrome EPR64 that expired in 1981 & 1984...

May sound odd, and don't look for it on B&H, but I bought a bunch of this a year or so ago from a guy who apparently had a photographer relative who didn't rotate the film stock in the freezer... got two batches of 35mm, one that expired in June'81, another that expired in March '84. They'd been frozen right along (decades!). Also got a few rolls of 120 that expired in '94, which I haven't used enough of yet to see the color extent.

I'm shooting it as ASA80. The palette is great - especially the browns and other 'early spring' colors. The blues are also great, and purples. Maybe I can get some scanned and posted at some point. I've been using expired film since I was a student in the early '90s, and this is by far the most fantastic and unusual emulsion I've found. Nothing unrealistic or color shifted or weird, just different and beautiful. Almost magic, really. I won't use it for everything (not so good for the interior Alaska winter scenes of white, gray, and gray-green), but looking forward to spring colors in the Upper Peninsula (bike trip in May) to use some more!

For new film I like KR64 (and KM25, which is still 'new', relatively, for me).

in 120: e200 is very versatile, Provia 400 tends to be too cool for me, but is lovely film and I haven't shot that much so my opinion may not be valid. In 135 grain might be an issue and therefore e100g or Astia might be the best all purpose films. For landscape velvia, e100vs, provia are all good, for people Astia, EPP, and E100g are probably good choices.

I don't think EPR, ERY or EPN are still made and of the three EPN was the only one I liked. For Tungsten Fuji 64T is the only one standing I believe.

jd callow said:

I don't think EPR, ERY or EPN are still made and of the three EPN was the only one I liked. For Tungsten Fuji 64T is the only one standing I believe.

Click to expand...

To the best of my knowledge, EPN is still made. I actally bought some last fall. Of course, I guess I could have just been buying out the store's remaining stocks of it. I should note that EPN (and prehaps E100G) is about as close to Kodachrome as you are probably going to get in an E6.