Recent Velvia 50 Dark

Trail Images · Sep 28, 2014

Having used Velvia 50 pretty much as my only film for the last 20 years or so and like many here have seen some changes during that time period with the various versions. For those that have been using V-50 especially in 120 roll size have you noticed anything as of late being different? Basically, does it seem to be darker at all? I thought I was having light meter issues but after using three light meters that are tested on the sunny 16 rule just fine things still seem odd to me.

I actually started shooting at the old 40 trick instead of 50 but that is such a slight change obviously. I'd never really got too excited about reciprocity issues, but even used the recommended additional time there too. It still appears dark to me. Most recently I shot a roll of Provia along with V-50 by taking two shots and changing backs off and on until both rolls were completed. Sent them in for E-6 processing at the same time and place and the Provia was dead on but the V-50 is still struggling slightly. Maybe it's just me, but for someone who burned A LOT of V-50 over the years something seems off to me recently anyway.

Please share thoughts if you're encountering anything like this or have ideas.......thank you in advance.

btw: this is all new later dated 2015 film.

FilmNerd · Sep 28, 2014

I shot a roll of 120 in August and felt the photos did not "pop" as I expected as it does appear they are slightly darker. I'm currently out of Velvia 120, but the roll I shot was purchased sometime in June and I don't recall the expiration date.

Trail Images · Sep 28, 2014

Thanks for your input, FilmNerd.

I suspect if you bought it in June it was of later vintage for the most part. The boxes I'm running now have the later "blue" banner on it, again, expiration of 2015. Obviously one can adjust or bracket out shortcomings. However, for a person who ran the 120 rolls on 50 ASA for years with no bracketing and only a couple failures in low light per roll this latest go around of about 6 rolls with lack luster results has me scratching to figure out what's up.

benjiboy · Sep 28, 2014

I think a lot of people rate it at ISO 40 to make it a bit lighter.

Trail Images · Sep 28, 2014

Hi Ben, thanks for the comment.
Yep the original V-50 years back I ran at 40 ASA. Seemed to work all the time with no fuss. However, when the later stuff got launched probably several years back now, recall is fuzzy on that exactly, I went back to the 50 ASA or ISO settings as it were. That worked for all this time until recently.
During the years of discontinued V-50 by Fuji I ran the gambit of V-100, V-100f, Astia 100f, and Provia 100f. All had their own leans in coverage and color casts.
I was happy when V-50 got reintroduced and had not any issues until about a couple months back and thought at first it was me and not paying attention. But after numerous rolls and trying all the roller coaster tweaks I'm running close but no cigar. Meaning I should have it dialed in soon but what in the world happened along the way is puzzling to me.
Again, could be my perception on things, but the stability of results seems flaky at best.

Poisson Du Jour · Sep 28, 2014

No change in the tonal or palette qualities noted here and my present batch is June 2016. Might be an isolated batch problem though I have not, from long memory, had such a problem. RVP50 is just fine at 50 in 120 format, but it often does need re-rating at EI40 in 35mm, or 0.5sec flashing prior exposure in contrasty light.

Athiril · Sep 28, 2014

Could be under developed from being under replenished, over diluted, under temperature, etc, it happens.

Trail Images · Sep 29, 2014

No change in the tonal or palette qualities noted here and my present batch is June 2016.

I will need to verify the batching I've got. As I bought 5 Pro Packs all at once I only did look to see expiration date and not each batch listing. Thank you for this update on the 2016 batch. It is helpful going forward.

Could be under developed from being under replenished, over diluted, under temperature, etc, it happens.

Always a good valid point and understood. However, I know the 1 roll of Provia I sent in with 3 rolls of Velvia were all processed E-6 at the same location and day. They were there on a Thursday and sent back to me with a tracking number on the next day Friday. The Provia was perfectly exposed on all frames, whereas the Velvia was still dark even after me lowering ISO setting and making sure I was not exceeding any reciprocity issues. Thank you for this thought on the issue also.

Athiril · Sep 29, 2014

Just had some RVP50 put through here (someone else's film), it looks a little dark for my personal taste as well just a fyi.

Trail Images · Sep 29, 2014

Athiril, thank you for this update. As much V-50 I've burned over the years since it's introduction this latest go is a challenge for me to figure out. I know I'll get it worked out, but at what point and how many rolls is not known yet.
I did notice in the mix of my latest 2015 I still had a couple rolls of 2014 stuff. So, to isolate things I'm going to use only the latest 2015 in two different backs and rotate shots like I did with Provia last week and process through a new vendor for a different try. If I get any solid base line again I'll stick with it to make sure it's steady before any change if required.

Poisson Du Jour · Sep 29, 2014

In the off-chance there might be a manufacturing problem of one or several batches, I thought of suggesting you contact Fujifilm in the US to bring the anomaly to their attention, given that from experience you know what Velvia as an E6 emulsion looks like when all it well and good (notwithstanding any metering/exposure errors). True, it could be a swings and roundabouts moment trying to get through to anybody in Fujifilm (that's not the case in Australia where their distributor is very helpful indeed), but might be worth a try. My gut feeling though is it is either a processing error or a batch fault, but as I have said earlier I have never had anything like this to complain of, and I switched to RVP about a year after it came out, which is a long time of use. Of the gripes I have had down the years have been my own exposure errors or processing stuff-ups — even frames cut in half (!).

Rudeofus · Sep 30, 2014

If you want to track down this issue, you need to check whether you have some base density (Dmin) or whether your film simply looks underexposed. The latter one is trivial to fix, simply take one image at various EIs (e.g. 50, 40, 32, 25, 16) and see which one works for you. If you have Dmin issues, these would point at processing errors and you'd need to contact the lab that processed your film.

mauro35 · Sep 30, 2014

I can say I had similar experience. I tried a few rolls of Velvia 50 during last year and I was quite disappointed. My rolls were processed always by the same lab and I found the results too dark. As a beginner I bracketed heavily and, from my what I can see, overexposing did not help much, except I got burned highlights.

railwayman3 · Sep 30, 2014

Athiril said:
Could be under developed from being under replenished, over diluted, under temperature, etc, it happens.

FWIW, I had a Fuji E6 film processed earlier in the year and every shot was dull, muddy colours, although not seemingly underexposed as such. As it happened, I had an identical film, same batch, exposed on the same day in the same conditions and in the same camera.....sent this to another lab and it was fine ! Reading around in the Kodak E6 process faults data sheet certainly indicated under-replenished chemicals at the first lab.

Trail Images · Sep 30, 2014

If you have Dmin issues, these would point at processing errors and you'd need to contact the lab that processed your film.

Thank you all for this valuable feed back. It helps me keep on track and not immediately think I've gone sour here.

I've shot V-50 starting at almost the release of it in 35mm. Later moved to MF and on to LF gear. All with very similar results.......good stuff. This latest go around has been ugly. I just recently was forced to a new lab after old lab closed E-6 processing. So, more and more it appears as listed a possible processing problem.
However, my knowledge on the subject is limited. Meaning, E-6 to me is E-6 for both V-50 and Provia. So, why would Provia make it without a hitch and V-50 not? Is maybe the V-50 more susceptible to the chemical & temp issue then the Provia?.......just thinking out loud before I think it is just a simple lab change issue.

JaZ99 · Sep 30, 2014

Trail Images said:
Velvia was still dark even after me lowering ISO setting and making sure I was not exceeding any reciprocity issues.

Could you please explain this in a little more detail?
What was your longest exposure time?

If you have used ISO40 setting without significant difference, it sounds really like a reciprocity issue. Since Provia come out ok, lab issues are not likely.

Trail Images · Sep 30, 2014

Could you please explain this in a little more detail?
What was your longest exposure time?

Thank you for your comment. Longest exposure was 1 minute. Here is the chart I've used to date. I did shoot all the way through the sunrise cycle to a point of less then 1 second exposures. So, prior to that using the watch, after that using shutter speed settings. The shutter being off at all would have come into play after the watch timed exposures. No reciprocity adjustment for the Provia. Set for 100 and shot accordingly.

4 sec > 5 sec
8 sec > 12 sec
10 sec > 16 sec
12 sec > 19 sec
16 sec > 28 sec
20 sec > 39 sec
25 sec > 49 sec
30 sec > 1 min
32 sec > 1 min 6 sec
40 sec > 1 min 28 sec
50 sec > 1 min 56 sec
1 min > 2 min 30 sec

Rudeofus · Sep 30, 2014

As you probably know, the FD step creates some metallic silver, which is black. The CD step then forms some more silver, and some dye which forms the final image. After CD you need to get rid of all the metallic silver in order to reveal the dye image. If this silver removal step is incomplete, you will have residual density even in heavily exposed regions. Likewise, if the FD does not develop enough silver (e.g. if it is exhausted from overuse or too long storage), the CD will have too much silver halide to develop, will form too much dye, and you will end up with too dark images.

Now about the E6 process: in theory all E6 film behave the same, but this is only true if the working solutions are up to spec. Since it looks like the working solutions in your lab were way out of spec, all bets are off, and some films may be more forgiving than others.

Now how would you differentiate between incomplete silver removal and exhausted FD? Incomplete silver removal usually gives you brown stain, and only in extreme cases black stain. And if Provia came out perfectly fine, then your Velvia slides should have at most brown stain. If you want to be sure, put one Velvia slide in Farmer's reducer and see whether it becomes brighter after a few minutes. If this is the case, hooray, you can save the remaining slides with the same method. If not, the darkness comes from excessive dyes, and there isn't much you can do with the current batch. Once you know what went wrong, you can either help the lab fix their process, change lab, or start home processing.

Trail Images · Sep 30, 2014

Hello Rudeofus, thank you again for this very informative comment. Your comment about the brown look has me wondering. I do not have Farmer's reducer to test with.

As a baseline for this week I've isolated to my latest film batch and will not mix other batches at this point. I've triple checked my meters, once again today, all is well there. I will be shooting this week with alternating backs like I did with Provia last week. However, this time will be with Velvia only and I plan to ship rolls to two different labs to see if there is cause there. Having never had issues in the past I feel there maybe concern on the processing possibly from my POV anyway.

On that subject I'd read on another site that E-6 chemicals are a bit adhoc with certain vendors selling still and others stopping. So, is there any thoughts of a lab changing to new chems that are less then accurate? Although, I'm assuming if the chems were off the test strips would not pass.

I will surely update after I get results back.......thank you everyone here at APUG for you kind support.

Rudeofus · Oct 1, 2014

Trail Images said:
Hello Rudeofus, thank you again for this very informative comment. Your comment about the brown look has me wondering. I do not have Farmer's reducer to test with.

The instructions for making Farmer's reducer are trivial. You should be able to get Potassium Hexacyanoferrate III in a well stocked pharmacy, and you can use any non hardening powder fixer as Sodium Thiosulfate. All together these chems will be cheaper and more effective than another test roll of Velvia.

Trail Images said:
On that subject I'd read on another site that E-6 chemicals are a bit adhoc with certain vendors selling still and others stopping. So, is there any thoughts of a lab changing to new chems that are less then accurate? Although, I'm assuming if the chems were off the test strips would not pass.

I don't think the problem comes from a change in E6 chem source. The most likely culprit is low volume processing, which pressures labs into keeping their bathes for too long. This means the same lab may send out perfect slides once or twice, then suddenly totally mess up your batch. If you know what happened to your Velvia slides (do that test with Farmer's reducer), contact your lab about the issue, and if they are not forthcoming, change to another lab.

Recent Velvia 50 Dark

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