Slide film advice

niclester · Jun 8, 2006

Hi All,

I am off to the carribean in a week with my 35mm camera. I was wondering about slide film choices. I am interested in the 'blue skies / beach scenes' as well as colourful towns. I use Kodachrome 64 at the moment but I was wondering about the new Velvia 100. I can still get stocks of the old Velvia 50...

Bit of an open question really!

Any advice/thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!

Amund · Jun 8, 2006

If you can still get some Velvia 50 I`d get that, but if you`re going to include people in your photographs, I`d buy some Kodak E100G/GX too. Good skintones and nice reds and blues too.

Soeren · Jun 8, 2006

Try Elitechrome 100 EC.
It's cheap and as good as the "Pro" films.
It renders blue and red better than both Velvia and Ektachrome 100 VS does.
Just my opinion.
Cheers, Søren

niclester · Jun 8, 2006

Thanks

Thanks for your help,

bought some of all the films... THink I need to become less reliant on kodachrome... Anyone know it's future?

DBP · Jun 8, 2006

If anyone knows, they aren't telling. The more we use, the more likely they are to keep making it.

roteague · Jun 8, 2006

I would go with the new Velvia 100. It has a great pallette for the ocean and does a good job with skin tones, unlike the old Velvia 50.

roteague · Jun 8, 2006

DBP said:
If anyone knows, they aren't telling. The more we use, the more likely they are to keep making it.

Hate to say it, but I plain don't like the color palette of Kodachrome.

Dave Parker · Jun 8, 2006

I think you can figure, Kodachome is pretty much a dead horse, not because people won't use it, but the enviormental concerns have become to great over the years..

R.

metod · Jun 8, 2006

I would throw in the bag some Provia 100, just in case you get some cloudy days (which is probably unlikely). This film responds well pushing 1 stop, where you pop up colors a bit in flat light and at the same time gain extra speed. Just in case.

DBP · Jun 8, 2006

Does anyone know why Kodachrome is more environmentally destructive than E-6 or C-41? I thought they had resolved those issues when K-12 was replaced by K-14.

dmr · Jun 8, 2006

DBP said:
Does anyone know why Kodachrome is more environmentally destructive than E-6 or C-41? I thought they had resolved those issues when K-12 was replaced by K-14.

I heard the same thing you did. What I always heard was that there was something very nasty in the developing chemicals for the older process.

All I'm really hearing is that Kodachrome will probably go away in the next few years just because of demand, or rather the lack of it. I'm kinda having a final fling with it right now.

I was gonna suggest that niclester just stick with Kodachrome 64 while it's still available, if it has been working OK so far. It's not as saturated as some of the newer slide films, but it does produce clean natural colors, which are brilliant if the original scene is.

I did some recent ones of Death Valley, and they did have a very deep blue sky and very good color overall.

http://www.letis.com/dmr/pics/vegas/vegas9/d061a.jpg

That's one of them.

niclester · Jun 9, 2006

yeah, I will miss it if it is to go. It's given me some great results. I love the morning/evening sun type pictures with it.

I liked yout photograph. Is that just how you remembered the colours?

Troy Hamon · Jun 9, 2006

My experience with Kodachrome came after I had shot hundreds of rolls of Fuji Velvia 50 and Provia 100...I found the Kodachrome very disappointing, and wouldn't recommend it. If you are interested in skin tones, Astia works well and has more of the Fuji color palette. I'm not familiar with Kodak's current crop of E-6 offerings, so can't say anything about those.

When I say disappointing, primarily the colors were very muted and tended toward a blue cast in relation to what I like to see. My total Kodachrome experience is about 30 rolls, all somewhat underwhelming.

FrankB · Jun 9, 2006

I will confess to being wedded to Velvia 50 for any colour work I do, and I will weep salt tears when the last roll is gone!

I've tried the Kodak emulsions but their palette doesn't appear to handle tonal variation as subtly as the original Velvia (other people may feel differently, and I'll grant you that this is probably the only subtle thing about Velvia! Lovely stuff!)

I haven't tried the new Velvia 100 yet, so can't really comment on it. Provia 100F is good stuff, plenty of punch and with a more realistic palette than Velvia 50. Provia 400F if good is the light is poor, and I've pushed it to 1600 with good results (some grain obviously, but given the speed...!). It does lack the saturation of the slower emulsions though.

Have you though of chucking in a few rolls of Delta 100 plus a red and an orange filter?!

niclester · Jun 9, 2006

To be honest FrankB, I hadn't but now you mention it maybe I should give it a whirl.. Could make for some nice contrasty scenes.. Lucky timing, just bought a red filter

dmr · Jun 9, 2006

niclester said:
I liked yout photograph. Is that just how you remembered the colours?

If you're talking about the one in the link I posted above, yes, it's a very accurate rendition of what I remember. The aqua tones, and the subtle violet tones in the rocks are vivid when you see this in real life, and Kodachrome captured these without overstating them.

The sky looks almost artificially blue ("Fuji blue") but that's the way it was, being taken early afternoon facing east. This is way out in the middle of nowhere (Death Valley) so the air is free of the haze of the city. I just compared it to some "Fuji Blue" sky city scenes, and this one is indeed deeper and more saturated, but that's really the way it was.

http://www.letis.com/dmr/pics/vegas/vegas5/830849-R1-03-32w.jpg

Yeah, yeah, I know, typical tourista shot. You can really see the haze dilute the blue toward the horizon.

niclester · Jun 9, 2006

yeah,that's the one. Kodachrome does reproduce the colours how I remember them, but I guess we are percieve things differently.

I expose K-64 at ISO 80, so maybe that's why it pulls the colour out nicely.. Must get a slide scanner!

I am a raw novice so ignore me if I am talking rubbish!

dmr · Jun 9, 2006

niclester said:
I expose K-64 at ISO 80, so maybe that's why it pulls the colour out nicely..

I expose at 64, but I'll bracket frequently, one stop each way. It seems that 9 times out of 8, though, the normally exposed one is the best. Kodachrome is tricky to expose -- it can't take a joke. I have had some slides too dense to do anything with, and some totally blown out in the highlights.

gnashings · Jun 9, 2006

dmr said:
.... Kodachrome is tricky to expose -- it can't take a joke....

I laughed so hard when I read this - that's a great way to put it, lovely turn of phrase!

Peter.

copake_ham · Jun 9, 2006

I have been using up some final rolls of Kodachrome 64. I know that Dwayne's Photo will process it. I live in NY - is there anyone else closer by?

dmr · Jun 9, 2006

copake_ham said:
I have been using up some final rolls of Kodachrome 64. I know that Dwayne's Photo will process it. I live in NY - is there anyone else closer by?

They tell me (the ubiquitous "they") that Dwayne's is the only open-to-the-public lab in North America that still does regular daily runs of Kodachrome. On "another network" it was implied that some military labs are also still doing Kodachrome. Rocky Mountain Labs, the lab of last resort, still does it as well, but they take several weeks and are ex$pen$ive!

With Dwayne's, I send the film off in the morning mail pick-up on Monday, and I almost always have it back that Saturday. They do a very good job too.

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