Iceland in November, Germany in December.

I have a few days off in early November and will be heading out to Iceland for 3 days. I'm taking my Rolleiflex with around 20 rolls of Portra 400 for walkaround/street and 10 rolls of Velvia 50 for landscapes. I was going to bring my 4x5 but wanted to go there first before returning with a LF camera.

In mid December I'll be going to Germany, France and Austria for 2 weeks. I was thinking of taking 60 rolls of Portra 400 and possibly 30 rolls of Ektar 100.

Any Input? Should I dump the Velvia for Iceland and go with Ektar? I think it's mostly overcast in Iceland in November so contrast shouldn't be an issue, and I think the colors would be great on Velvia.

I'll be shooting a lot at night in Germany so Portra would be great to push to 1600 if needed.

I have heard that horse trecking in iceland in the winter can be fun.

I vote for Velvia in Iceland, I don't like Ektar with the colors of the landscape here.

alanrockwood said:

I have heard that horse trecking in iceland in the winter can be fun.

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Oops, I see my response was not actually responsive to your question. Sorry for the diversion.

The usefulness of Velvia in Iceland depends on finding a scene, or scenes, with strong colour in them and wrangling Velvia to either modulate them (as close to natural) or boost them -- either with or without a polariser (in diffuse/overcast conditions only, which is what Iceland is renowned for!). I would be inclined to hedge Velvia up and down from box speed to suit conditions, that is to say, sometimes I rate it at EI64, at other times, EI40. A lot of people think Iceland endears itself very well to B&W photography, because the landscape -- variously described as bleak, lonely and coarse, can be very monochromatic, almost bland in its presentation, and using Velvia (or any colour film) on a scene with scarcely any colour in it won't necessarily 'lift' it. Tim Rudman's book Iceland: An Uneasy Calm has thrilling atmospheric B&W imaging in it when demonstrates the pervasive drama and majesty of such a rough landscape.