Continuing 'I'm done with Velvia'

DavidClapp · Sep 21, 2015

Hello all,

Thanks for the response to my opinions about Velvia and the difficulties I have had with it. I have some images to show you that I scanned this afternoon and I would like to discuss the look of film and what it is I am trying to achieve.

Have a close look at the shot details too and comment below if you would like. There was a lot of positive discussion on the last thread so I welcome an more on the subject.

All the shots are castles in the Loire Valley, France, shot over two days.

MY OPINION - I really like the Ektar 100, as it's got a look I cannot achieve with digital. Its got a really wonderful render to it, like an old seventies book about castles you would find in a second hand book shop. My intention has always been to use film to produce something I cannot with digital and I feel that for this reason alone that colour negative has a greater strength in my photography than Velvia. It is more complex yet too similar to digital with too many latitude / dynamic range restrictions.

EKTAR 100 - Mamiya C330f - 80mm f2.8

EKTAR 100 - Mamiya C330f - 55mm f3.5

EKTAR 100 - Mamiya C330f - 55mm f3.5 - I really like the render of this image in particular as it looks like a 1970's 'Guide to the Loire Valley'

EKTAR 100 - Mamiya C330f - 80mm f2.8 - Again a really interesting colour palette rendered by Ektar

VELVIA 50 - Chamonix LF camera - Nikkor SW65mm f4 - using a 6x12 back

CANON EOS M3... Ok its a digital shot, a stitch of seven vertical images, but it makes a good discussion comparison...

VELVIA 50 - Chamonix LF camera - Nikkor SW65mm f4 - 6x12 back - a stitch of two images shifted up and down as the lens wasn't tall enough

TenSpeed · Sep 21, 2015

i had 2 rolls of velvia go bad on me and got chicken pox all over my film

Ko.Fe. · Sep 21, 2015

Ektar-shmektar, Velva-shmelva.
MY OPINION: No digital can achieve film. It is different. This is why I'm still using film.
Unfortunately, I can't wet print from color negatives, negs scans doesn't really represent what color film do, IMO.

gone · Sep 21, 2015

"My intention has always been to use film to produce something I cannot with digital...."

That something is called quality. Digital sucks, and that's not being stated because I'm a film shooter. I'm a film shooter because digital sucks. When you see the tonality of film, along w/ the juicy colours, how could anyone w/ an eye shoot anything else?

I don't have a preference for what you have posted here. They all look fine to me. Except that the Velvia shots are WAY better :]

Sirius Glass · Sep 21, 2015

Digital is not worth the effort to use. The digital users want to emulate grain and since digital cannot handle the SBR they have to use the crutch of HDR.

There is still nothing like slide film for brilliance. The ability of color prints to cover the SBR is unrivaled. On the positive side digital lowered the price of film cameras and the digital cameras make great bookends and boat anchors.

Your photographs of the Loire Valley are quite impressive.

DavidClapp · Sep 21, 2015

momus said:
"
I don't have a preference for what you have posted here. They all look fine to me. Except that the Velvia shots are WAY better :]

Thank you I am glad you like them.
I introduced the Canon M3 panorama as I have found that Velvia is just too close to what I can post process out of digital... The look of Ektar produces something that I haven't seen before and it will work well alongside my digital imagery. With its dynamic range and striking colour palette, the results seem far more unusual than Velvia does...

mrred · Sep 21, 2015

Scanning slide film has always been an effort that really requires an above average scanner and refined techniques. The scanner needs to penetrate really dense film and it needs a skilled user to bring it out as well as it projects.

With velvia you really need to go all the way.

Poisson Du Jour · Sep 21, 2015

David,
Individual monitors may or may not be profiled identically to render an image exactly the same as you saw it. Therefore, representative scans can either look very bold and enriched, or pale and insipid, even somewhere in between. Having said that, and keeping those things in mind, the Velvia shot looks possibly 0.5 stop overexposed and a touch low in contrast, but this is by no means a failure; if it were printed, you would lost that much at the print-step. Of digital comparisons: I don't know about the Canon, but a number of digi cameras e.g. the Fuji X-series, feature a film simulation mode, among them Kodachrome (by reason of licensing, it is called "Classic Chrome" by Fuji), Provia, Velvia, Standard, B&W/R/Y/B...etc., and these are really accurate in terms of rendition.

What is really eyecatching is the subject and composition: all are spot on there and the subjects are fascinating. We don't have those elegant castles down here in the deep south of Australia!!

Nuff · Sep 21, 2015

All I can add is as it was discussed in the previous thread, you are trying take photo of a scene with too much dynamic range using velvia. You have shadows and you have highlights. Roughly 50/50 split for simplification. As such you had to compromise exposure that didn't suit highlights or shadows. What you needed to use was a graduated ND filter.

Personally I'm not a big fan of velvia 50, sometimes I play with velvia 100. And since it's mostly for street, I expose for highlights and let the shadows go black.

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Alan Klein · Sep 22, 2015

Very nice photos. The Ektars seem warmer but that could be due to either the film or processing or maybe the lighting was warmer when you shot the Ektar. In any case, you have to adjust in post after the scan. So you get to change the results. With negative film, you really don't know what you have until you scan and convert. But what are the "real" colors? You're dealing with negative film that you scanned. At least with Velvia and other chromes, you can compare the post adjustments to the original slides. When I adjust I don't bother to compare. I just adjust until I like the results.

Here are two pictures of Velvia 50 taken from the same roll taken at the same time with different lenses only. Notice how different the colors and contrast are. That's all due to me changing the results in post processing. What are the real colors? I don't know. I never checked the original slide to compare.
Velvia 50's:

DavidClapp · Sep 22, 2015

mrred said:
The scanner needs to penetrate really dense film and it needs a skilled user to bring it out as well as it projects.

I am trying to conquer this with an Epson v850 scanner. I am realising its limits, mainly in its ability to pull out dark shadows, but for now its perfectly adequate at this stage in my film adventure. I think the biggest problem I am suffering from is colour casts. If it wasn't for the Camera RAW filter in Photoshop CC I would be having a very tough time of things, that and the Selective Colour adjustment layer.

mauro35 · Sep 22, 2015

This is my personal opinion on the photos (very beautiful subject by the way): Velvia looks just worlds better to me compared to Ektar. I really can´t stand those cyan skies of Ektar. It is the main reason why I do not use this film. On the other hand I have had my dose of troubles trying to get a decent exposure with 35mm Velvia at EI 40.

DavidClapp · Sep 22, 2015

Nuff said:
As such you had to compromise exposure that didn't suit highlights or shadows. What you needed to use was a graduated ND filter.

Yes thats the problem. Graduated filters are the main reason I abandoned film photography in 2005 and went digital, simply because they compromise the image in one way or another. I was forever trying to reverse the effects of them. This is why colour negative is so interesting and why I am have such a hard time of Velvia 50 once more.

DavidClapp · Sep 22, 2015

mauro35 said:
This is my personal opinion on the photos (very beautiful subject by the way): Velvia looks just worlds better to me compared to Ektar. I really can´t stand those cyan skies of Ektar. It is the main reason why I do not use this film. On the other hand I have had my dose of troubles trying to get a decent exposure with 35mm Velvia at EI 40.

I think its also because its saturated and the eye finds saturation appealing. I have to say that I think the opposite - I can't make a digital camera see the world through Ektar glasses and it is this that I find more interesting and I want to explore it. It is complex, its a wrestling match with the scanner, but the results are very intriguing.

mrred · Sep 22, 2015

DavidClapp said:
I am trying to conquer this with an Epson v850 scanner. I am realising its limits, mainly in its ability to pull out dark shadows, but for now its perfectly adequate at this stage in my film adventure. I think the biggest problem I am suffering from is colour casts. If it wasn't for the Camera RAW filter in Photoshop CC I would be having a very tough time of things, that and the Selective Colour adjustment layer.

I have the V700 and I hit the same wall until I started to wet mount. Have you tried this?

DavidClapp · Sep 22, 2015

mrred said:
I have the V700 and I hit the same wall until I started to wet mount. Have you tried this?

I have the wet mount kit, what will they advance of wet mounting be? The film holders on the v850 are very good, so I haven't had a need to use it so far...?

Trail Images · Sep 22, 2015

When I adjust I don't bother to compare. I just adjust until I like the results.

I agree with Alan's comment. I do not want to go too far on the scanning and digital processing here. But, I've found after using Velvia 50 since it's release, it's all required IMO. The post processing can be laborious. But for me it's the finished results that can be rewarding.

mrred · Sep 22, 2015

Wet mounting can be night and day for colour vibrancy and dense film is concerned. I find the usable contrast quality of anything I scan is much higher. You will just have to try it to see. The issues you are experiencing may just go away.

I

Sirius Glass · Sep 22, 2015

DavidClapp said:
I am trying to conquer this with an Epson v850 scanner. I am realising its limits, mainly in its ability to pull out dark shadows, but for now its perfectly adequate at this stage in my film adventure. I think the biggest problem I am suffering from is colour casts. If it wasn't for the Camera RAW filter in Photoshop CC I would be having a very tough time of things, that and the Selective Colour adjustment layer.

I found that no matter how good the scanner when I would print with stink-jet, even with quality stink-jet machines and the best digital print paper, the prints could not compare to chemical color and black & white prints. Furthermore the ink cartridges would run out of ink quickly and were very expensive to replace. I realized that I was better off financially and with the final results setting up a darkroom with a good enlarger. In the years that have followed, I have never wished to go to digital printing.

mrred · Sep 22, 2015

Sirius Glass said:
I found that no matter how good the scanner when I would print with stink-jet, even with quality stink-jet machines and the best digital print paper, the prints could not compare to chemical color and black & white prints. Furthermore the ink cartridges would run out of ink quickly and were very expensive to replace. I realized that I was better off financially and with the final results setting up a darkroom with a good enlarger. In the years that have followed, I have never wished to go to digital printing.

Talk about an unproductive comment. Pat yourself on your back.

Sirius Glass · Sep 23, 2015

mrred said:
Talk about an unproductive comment. Pat yourself on your back.

If you actually had read what I posted, I said that the cost and quality of stink-jet printers was poor and that I was better off setting up a darkroom. Do I need to draw a picture for you?

mrred · Sep 23, 2015

If you had actually read the thread, we are discussing transparencies. Baring someone waving a magic wand to re-invent Cibachrome, there is no other alternative.

Sirius Glass · Sep 23, 2015

Yes, the demise of Cibachrome has been a hard fall.

Poisson Du Jour · Sep 23, 2015

Sirius Glass said:
Yes, the demise of Cibachrome has been a hard fall.

A hard fall? The world has moved on. There are now much better, more efficient means of printing.

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Les Sarile · Sep 23, 2015

mrred said:
If you had actually read the thread, we are discussing transparencies. Baring someone waving a magic wand to re-invent Cibachrome, there is no other alternative.

I used to send my c41 for optical poster prints and Fuji would shoot an interneg to print. I've shot a few slides to negatives myself using my autobellows.

Continuing 'I'm done with Velvia'

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