Velvia 50 4x5 and 8x10 and Fujicolor 160NS Professional 120 discontinued

[Moose22]

Dynamic range is not a problem at all if you are using the right technique, and having good equipment. I am often using reversal film in high-contrast situations.
For example in landscape photography using a polarizing filter, neutral gradual filters and / or pulling Provia gives me more than enough additional DR to get excellent results.
And for asthethic reasons we should be aware of the fact that too much DR is often reducing the quality of a picture, as it becomes too flat and lifeless. Deep(er) shadows and brillant highlights quite often add "power" and impact to a picture.
I do also quite a lot of portrait and fashion photography outdoors. And have to deal with harsh light. No problem at all with reversal film using diffusors and reflectors, and my modern film cameras (like the F6) with fill-in flash. Which gives outstanding natural results in high-contrast situations when you reduce the fill-in power additionally by about 1.7 to 2 stops (for Provia, a bit less for Velvia).

The problem is today that most photographers - including those using film for decades - simply don't know the incredible possibilities modern film camera and flash technology offers. You can expand your creative possibilities so much. And it is so easy. But 99% of film photographers simply don't know it. I permanently see that in the workshops I offer.

Best regards,
Henning

I do ALL of these things. I have filter holders and a whole stack of filters, and I have always been into fill flash where appropriate. All the way back to the early 90s when I used to take people's photos in difficult light at a job I had.

But I have recently been trying to do street photography and music photography. I want candids, I cannot control the lighting and framing much of the time, and I very often do not want to use flash. Portra (or B&W films, I've been using Delta recently) let me fire off a shot and not worry too much about how precise I am with the exposure. It's more important to catch the scene at exactly the right moment than it is to be technically as good as possible. In fact, if I want technically perfect I can always shoot digital.

One of my favorite street shots I was using Provia. Girl holding a puppy, the puppy was desperate for me to pet it and squirming, she was laughing. I centered the puppy and got the girl's smile in the upper right corner of the shot. She was backlit, the dog was in her shadow, and he was a dark brown color, so to get the dog well exposed I had to blow out the background and even some of the color in her shirt. When Provia blows, it is done. Completely. Were it Portra I'd have gotten all the color in her shirt and the blown highlights in the background would still have been there.

Now, I don't care. Again, technically perfect doesn't matter to me if it means I don't get that shot and that shot was that instant, only. No time to try and attach a flash, which would have made it technically perfect, it was a stranger who wasn't open to being posed, and the instant with the puppy squirming and the girl laughing was just that, an instant. I barely had time to add a stop then take the shot before the dog squirmed out of her arms, how am I supposed to arrange a reflector?

I still say Portra would have been easier and the extra dynamic range would have made a technically better shot.

Though the real thing that matters is that I got puppy kisses afterwards.

 

[halfaman]

But I neither use it or Portra 160 in 120 anymore, because with Provia 100F I get much better results at much lower costs:
Provia 100F provides:
- much better sharpness than PRO 160NS and Portra 160
- much higher resolution
- finer grain
- all the above also when exposed at EI 200/24° with push 1 processing (Provia is brillant at that speed, too, and also pulled at EI 50/18° or 64/19°)
- much better colour brillance
- the unique "3-D" and "real-life" effect only transparency film can offer in projection and on the lighttable under an excellent loupe
- much much better reciprocity characteristics; it is really a league of its own for color film in that regard, no other film comes close
- the much better flexibility in usage / end results / imaging chains reversal film generally offers (negative film can only be printed or scanned, with transparencies you have more options)
- much lower overall costs, as the film itself is significantly cheaper, and no expensive or time consuming scans are needed with Provia compared to 160NS, Portra etc.

Best regards,
Henning

And some cons for me that comes to my mind.

• Very narrow exposure latitude compared to negative film. Not the film for any situation.
  
• Not possible to do optical elargements. Even doing a good Cibahrome print was a difficult art to master.
  
• Tricky development for home processing. E-6 does not tolerate well mistakes, specially in FD, as C-41.

And I add a pro: Slide film is easier and faster to scan than negative. Even it has higher density, color adjustement and scanner calibration is much easier.

I dropped slide film years ago even I do 95% color and I know that you can get pretty unique results when shot and develop properly.

 

[Henning Serger]

But I have recently been trying to do street photography and music photography. I want candids, I cannot control the lighting and framing much of the time, ..........

Well, for that very special purpose / situation I agree that negative film is the better suited tool.
Horses for courses. In such situations I am using negative film, too.
Just a little tip / recommendation: If you are using BW in such very spontaneous street photography, Ilford XP2 Super is hard to beat because of its flexibility. Set the EI at 250/25° and you have much range both for the shadows and highlights, as XP2 works very well in the EI 50/18° to 800/30° range.

Best regards,
Henning

 

[Photomultiplier]

@Henning Serger: Do you think that de discontinuation of RVP50 in LF has any negative impact on the 135 and 120 formats? As i understand, sheet film and roll film emulsions are different, so it should be possible that this
raw material situation is specific to RVP50 in sheet film. Combined with the low volume of LF, one single missing compound would make it uneconomical for Fujifilm to reengineer sheet film RVP50 while in 135/120 the sales are much higher
and therefore also the budget for product maintenance.
Usually i am not very pessimistic, but the recent events do worry me slightly to say the least.

I do have 2 boxes of RVP50 but i think in LF i will be using RDPIII and RVP100 much more. RDPIII primary because its more universal, in my opinion, the decision to use RDPIII is never a wrong one.
But in 120 i use RVP50 quite a bit and have a decent stash of it in the freezer.

Chris

 

[Lachlan Young]

And some cons for me that comes to my mind.

• Very narrow exposure latitude compared to negative film. Not the film for any situation.
  
• Not possible to do optical elargements. Even doing a good Cibahrome print was a difficult art to master.
  
• Tricky development for home processing. E-6 does not tolerate well mistakes, specially in FD, as C-41.

And I add a pro: Slide film is easier and faster to scan than negative. Even it has higher density, color adjustement and scanner calibration is much easier.

I dropped slide film years ago even I do 95% color and I know that you can get pretty unique results when shot and develop properly.

Neg/pos processes are also inherently less 'lossy' than pos/pos - and unless you are purely viewing the transparency as the final object, neg origination will transmit more useable information. Nevertheless, transparency has aesthetic uses - however people need to be realistic about how many transparency emulsions in sheet formats are sustainable - and that the coating package adjustments may be non-trivial. Worth noting too that Provia in sheet form is still coated on triacetate (hence manually compositable with suitable solvents) and that when Kodak did the 120 & sheet versions of E100, they engineered them both as coating packages for Estar bases - in both cases this potentially helps with sustainability as it lessens the risk of orphaning a particular product should technological/ environmental changes need to be made.

 

[Henning Serger]

And some cons for me that comes to my mind.

• Very narrow exposure latitude compared to negative film. Not the film for any situation.

Honestly, that is probably the most overrated and exaggerated point in current film discussions. Because for more than 30 years now we have really excellent built-in exposure meters (and of course excellent hand-held meters), several built-in metering modes in cameras, very precise shutters, semi-automatic or automatic modes and so on, all of that making it so extremely easy to get a correct exposure. Even for total beginners with no knowledge about film and correct exposure.
I started shooting reversal film at the age of 14, with my first own camera, a Nikon FM (still have it). It has a quite simple 60/40 weigthed metering. Nevertheless even for me as a beginner it was easy to get 95% correct exposed transparencies.
Now with my F6 I get 99% perfect exposed shots, and the 1% rest is only 1/3 to 2/3 stop away from perfection, but still very good and usable.
My Mamiya 645 Pro TL has also a very precise metering, and with my TLR I just use my Gossen Digipro F2 hand held meter.
So no problems at all to get perfect exposure in medium format either.

With all these excellent metering tools we have today it is really extremely easy to get perfect exposures.

Not possible to do optical elargements. Even doing a good Cibahrome print was a difficult art to master.

Well, you can do optical prints on Harman Direct Positive paper, and reversal processing of RA-4 paper is also a possibility. But besides that, there is an excellent alternative to former Cibachrome / Ilfochrome: Scanning of the transparency with a real drum scanner (they deliver outstanding results with colour reversal film; you can get 10-11 stops of usable dynamic range with them: They show details in shadows and highlights which are barely visible with the naked eye), and then exposing onto RA-4 silver-halide paper. E.g. with Fujifilm Maxima premium gallery paper (new highest quality RA-4 paper introduced in 2018) you get absolutely outstanding results! And I say that as a real Ilfochrome fan.

When you are in Germany next time let's meet, and I will show you some examples. You will be very impressed, promised .

• 
  
  

  [*]Tricky development for home processing. E-6 does not tolerate well mistakes, specially in FD, as C-41.

Sorry, but that is wrong. E6 home processing is not tricky at all. Especially not if you are using the original 6-bath process. With that you can even choose the processing temperature in a range of 36°C to 39°C. You just have to adapt the first development time accordingly. You can easily develop your transparencies according to the look you want.
And the process is much more "error-tolerant" than you think. Just an anecdote about that topic:
I was developing my reversal films with my JOBO CPE-3 and the the Fuji Hunt E6 kit. A family member came in and asked me something. By that I got distracted / diverted and forgot a washing step. After I realized that (too late of course) I was shocked and thought the films are ruined. I finished the processing, looked at the results and was very surprised: They looked fine and normal. After a more detailed evaluation on the lighttable I found that they only had a bit lower Dmax compared to properly processed films. But it was only visible in direct comparison. I have showed these transparencies to other photographers in a blind test, and they thought that they were properly processed.

And I add a pro: Slide film is easier and faster to scan than negative. Even it has higher density, color adjustement and scanner calibration is much easier.

That is correct.
And as most scanners (real drum scanners being an exception) enhance grain by scanner noise, colour reversal films with their finer grain offer also an advantage in that regard.
And you always have the original as a colour reference: So you know how the scan result have to look. That is impossible with colour negative film. That is also one of the reasons why in professional photography before digital the whole product, fashion and advertizing photography, as well as travel, landscape and wildlife photography was done with colour reversal film (as the end result was presented in catalogs, on product packagings, in books etc.).

Best regards,
Henning

 

[Henning Serger]

@Henning Serger: Do you think that de discontinuation of RVP50 in LF has any negative impact on the 135 and 120 formats?

Chris

Chris, no, I don't think so. It will most probably don't have any negative effect on demand for 35mm and 120 Velvia 50. As these markets are quite different and separated.
Velvia 50 in 4x5" has not been available outside Japan for some years now (with the exception of film distributors who did a direct timport from Japan). But that has not caused less demand for 35mm and 120. Some 4x5" users have switched to 6x9 roll film backs and used 120 Velvia 50 in it.
Look, a majority of film types on the market is not offered as sheet film at all. Not neccessary for them to "survive" as the demand for 35mm and 120 is huge and big enough for a sustainable production. Large format photography is a very small niche of the total film market.
And Fujichrome Velvia 50 in 4x5" has its own special problem: The light sensitivity of ISO 50/18° is relatively low for usage in large format: Because in 4x5" LF you are using smaller apertures mainly in the f5.6 to f32 range. That can lead to relatively long exposures times with that film sensitivity. And can cause problems with object blurr, vibrations caused by wind, coming in the range of reciprocity failure etc.
That are also the reasons why ISO 400/27° BW film is so popular in LF.

Best regards,
Henning

 

[Photomultiplier]

Henning, thank you for your reply. I also experienced the issues with slow speed and high reciprocity failure. Especially in LF, this was often a big headache for me, so it makes sense to use faster emulsions like Provia.
Or photograph rocks and stones like i often do because they dont move even with strong winds

My concern with the recent discontinuation was more because of the raw material problem mentioned by Fujifilm (not because of the sales). But as i understand, the LF and roll film emulsions for RVP50 should be different and those
hard to get raw materials do not neccessarily have to impact the 135/120 formats.

Chris

 

[Henning Serger]

I know these films havent been available in North America for quite a while now, but it seems Fuji is discontinuing it all together for all markets.

It was discontinued on all global markets several years ago. Japan was the only remaining market in which it was offered.

Looks like Kodak might be the last one standing when it comes to color films in 4x5.

No, as Provia 100F is offered in both 4x5" and 8x10".
And Velvia 100 is offered in 4x5".

Best regards,
Henning

 

[Henning Serger]

My concern with the recent discontinuation was more because of the raw material problem mentioned by Fujifilm (not because of the sales). But as i understand, the LF and roll film emulsions for RVP50 should be different and those
hard to get raw materials do not neccessarily have to impact the 135/120 formats.

Chris

Well, film formats of the same film type can have indeed certain differences in the raw materials used.
But as to the Fujifilm statement: If I got it right it is more of a general statement, and we don't know whether it is referring to PRO 160NS or Velvia 50 4x5" (or both). But my Japanese skills are quite limited.........

But nevertheless: The best we as photographers and film community can do is to just to buy and use Velvia 50 in 35mm and 120. It is absolutely worth it!
There is a reason why this film has become such a legend. It was the starting point for Fujifilm to become market leader in the colour reversal film market.
Sufficient - and even better - increasing demand is no guarantee that a product can be kept in production. As the lack of raw materials can impact any film on the market.
But at least it can avoid that a product must be stopped because of insufficient sales and profitability.

Best regards,
Henning

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I just started LF last year and shoot Velvia 50. So I'm disappointed they will be discontinuing it. However, I still have my MF equipment and could shoot that in Velvia 50. But what do I do with my LF equipment then?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Ektachrome.

It's not Velvia 50.

 

[Photomultiplier]

Alan, i am in a similar situation. I plan to use Provia and Velvia 100 as my main film in 4x5. Provia with an 81B filter yields very nice results too. See the film selection blog post on Alex Burke's page for example.
But i am mostly an MF shooter and my freezer is chock full of RVP50 in 120. Everytime i order something, it became a habit to include 1-2 boxes of this wonderful stuff that most people say i am addicted to


Nevertheless, i would be more than pleased if Kodak would reintroduce E100VS. I looked into my archive and found some frames on E100VS and i would take it any moment if it became available again.
With the non-availabilty of RVP100 and RVP50 in LF and the 100 in all formats in de US now, it would be a very smart move now for Kodak in my opinion. Altough its no replacement for RVP50, i kinda liked
the results.

 

[lantau]

I just started LF last year and shoot Velvia 50. So I'm disappointed they will be discontinuing it. However, I still have my MF equipment and could shoot that in Velvia 50. But what do I do with my LF equipment then?

Are you really using rvp50, only, for LF? That would seem a little odd. No bw at all?

I got into LF in the beginning of 2020 and bought a box as part of a lens order from Kumar. I just mailed him about getting two more boxes, which may be my last. Unless it's going to be available for some time, as announced. But I guess I and the other hoarders will clean it out quickly and the last stock will be priced too high.

RVP100 is available, locally. It'll have to do, and Henning is right, E.I. 50 is sometimes too slow for LF. In medium format Velvia 50 is just great, and I'll continue using it. Just big enough to enjoy it with my eyeballs on a light plate and I can optically enlarge it onto my 2m x 2m canvas.

Last month I took pictures of the colourful houses on Burano Island, in the Venice Lagoon, using my Rolleicord and RVP50. That is what they made it for, very gauche

I still have a few rolls of Pro160NS and a box of 4x5. Used only one sheet, so far, and have not reversed the negative, yet. As much as I like it in 120, my budget is used up right now, and I won't order more. Rather ask Kumar for a few rolls of Fujicolor 100, which has really fine grain.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Are you really using rvp50, only, for LF? That would seem a little odd. No bw at all?

I got into LF in the beginning of 2020 and bought a box as part of a lens order from Kumar. I just mailed him about getting two more boxes, which may be my last. Unless it's going to be available for some time, as announced. But I guess I and the other hoarders will clean it out quickly and the last stock will be priced too high.

RVP100 is available, locally. It'll have to do, and Henning is right, E.I. 50 is sometimes too slow for LF. In medium format Velvia 50 is just great, and I'll continue using it. Just big enough to enjoy it with my eyeballs on a light plate and I can optically enlarge it onto my 2m x 2m canvas.

Last month I took pictures of the colourful houses on Burano Island, in the Venice Lagoon, using my Rolleicord and RVP50. That is what they made it for, very gauche

I still have a few rolls of Pro160NS and a box of 4x5. Used only one sheet, so far, and have not reversed the negative, yet. As much as I like it in 120, my budget is used up right now, and I won't order more. Rather ask Kumar for a few rolls of Fujicolor 100, which has really fine grain.

I have a box of Velvia 50 4x5 from Kumar. Of course, I can still, shoot BW in LF and Provia. But Velvia 50 in 4x5 is just spectacular.
Velvia 50 in 4x5 https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort...s=velvia504x5&user_id=55760757@N05&view_all=1
Provia 100 isn;t too bad. https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort...1&tags=provia&user_id=55760757@N05&view_all=1

 

[AgX]

Worth noting too that Provia in sheet form is still coated on triacetate (hence manually compositable with suitable solvents) and that when Kodak did the 120 & sheet versions of E100, they engineered them both as coating packages for Estar bases - in both cases this potentially helps with sustainability as it lessens the risk of orphaning a particular product should technological/ environmental changes need to be made.

Well, at the moment it is PET which is the pet child of industry and politicians when it comes to plasitcs.

 

[lantau]

I have a box of Velvia 50 4x5 from Kumar. Of course, I can still, shoot BW in LF and Provia. But Velvia 50 in 4x5 is just spectacular.
Velvia 50 in 4x5 https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort...s=velvia504x5&user_id=55760757@N05&view_all=1
Provia 100 isn;t too bad. https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort...1&tags=provia&user_id=55760757@N05&view_all=1

I'm glad to hear it. I like trying pretty much everything. Provia, of course. I used it with a 4x5 pinhole and hence I used that with my Sinar before I touched the Velvia box. Great stuff. For the pinhole I had the lab pull Provia to E.I. 50 for better dynamic range. And in 35mm I had it pushed to 400 to see what it does. If you scan and, hence, don't mind a reduced Dmax it's a no brainer. But I still have 400X, so no practical need, yet.

I'm looking forward to printing 4x5 C41 negatives, when I'll finally get back into RA4 printing. I love slide, but wet printing is nice, too. So Velvia will be missed, sorely, but there is a life, after.

 

[braxus]

I wonder why Fuji just doesn't reformulate the films instead of just cancelling them outright? Kodak has done it. Fuji did it with Acros. Certainly it sells enough to warrant reformulation. And why is it sheet films are discontinued and not roll films, for Velvia 50? They say its because of lack of certain components, but certainly the emulsion is the same on sheets as roll films, wouldn't it be? By that logic, all of Velvia should be discontinued, not just sheet sizes. The 50 is my favorite slide film, so it going away doesn't make me happy. A 4x5 slide really looks impressive on a light table.

 

[Helge]

As Henning wrote, with a rating of 50 you’ll very quickly run into shutter times where the film is mainly usable for studio stills.
If you are really gung ho about that kind of photography you could just do tri-colour separations. Then you’d have much more control and flexibility overall.

Even landscapes need reasonably shutter times to not have especially wind, but also water, insects and birds affect the shot.

Provia is exceptional, so is Ektachrome in its own ways.

Sure, a large Velvia 50 sheet looks exceptional on a lighttable. But so what? Can you exhibit it? Can you project it?
Not likely, and not for long if you tried.
You could once make a small contact print dye destruction print, but that option is long gone.
For anything useful you need to scan it.
For that Provia is better suited.

Provia has exceptionally good reciprocity characteristics and superb DR for a chrome.
10 stops at least. More than you need in most situations.

 

[Lachlan Young]

superb DR for a chrome.
10 stops at least

More like 5 stops (maybe a bit more if you are really lucky) of straight line, about 7-8 stops visually viewable under normal circumstances, getting anything more requires pumping light into the Dmax in a scanner/ repro situation & hoping you get enough information to reconstruct somewhat meaningful colour. Astia was overall probably Fuji's best transparency material (though nowhere near as sharp), but most of the people its sensibilities appealed to in terms of contrast, colour and latitude seem to have gone for colour neg instead (which gives you all of those, plus better sharpness for making prints).

I wonder why Fuji just doesn't reformulate the films instead of just cancelling them outright? Kodak has done it. Fuji did it with Acros. Certainly it sells enough to warrant reformulation. And why is it sheet films are discontinued and not roll films, for Velvia 50? They say its because of lack of certain components, but certainly the emulsion is the same on sheets as roll films, wouldn't it be? By that logic, all of Velvia should be discontinued, not just sheet sizes. The 50 is my favorite slide film, so it going away doesn't make me happy. A 4x5 slide really looks impressive on a light table.

A lot (vastly) more transparency is sold in 135/120 than in 4x5 and up - and far more people who shoot LF in meaningful quantities today use colour neg as they perceive it to be a more 'serious' medium than transparency which is seen (especially in terms of the once ubiquitous Fuji emulsions) as something that has connotations of either twee landscape work or blandly commercial/ advertising stuff. The irony is that the Portra 'look' is now quite popular for fashion/ advertising etc that wants to at least somewhat pretend to be art. E100 also benefits from not fitting those hardened (and not entirely accurate) categories. Away from those who want to spend their time drooling over light tables, the ability to relatively easily make a good print from the neg or transparency without lengthy/ painful complications is what matters - and in that game, modern colour neg gives you a much, much easier time than transparency, unless you work in extremely controlled conditions with the biggest format you can afford/ make separations/ internegs etc.

You are also seriously underestimating how much work has to be done to make a film work on different substrates and look identical across multiple formats - most users don't care what has to be done to make a film work in multiple formats, but they'll sure as hell complain if the 'look' of the material differs between 135 and 4x5. Kodak's choice to manufacture E100 on the PET/ Estar base in 120 and sheet formats means that they aren't having to risk the costs of polyester base coating package alterations on just one format - and they can make the film base next door, as opposed to having to deal with the very high levels of demand for triacetate base of a suitable quality.

 

[AgX]

As Henning wrote, with a rating of 50 you’ll very quickly run into shutter times where the film is mainly usable for studio stills.

You both are seemingly to young to know, but there were times when a 50 ASA film was called a fast film. And people were not stuck to studio stills.

 

[Lachlan Young]

You both are seemingly to young to know, but there were times when a 50 ASA film was called a fast film. And people were not stuck to studio stills.

Give or take 1/3 stop, it was about the upper speed limit of most acceptable-for-publication transparency film until the use of T-grains and the like really got going.

 

[MattKing]

You both are seemingly to young to know, but there were times when a 50 ASA film was called a fast film. And people were not stuck to studio stills.

Well, a significant portion of those times were before the time when the ASA standard was revised and a 50 ASA film became a 100 ASA film!

 

[AgX]

Yes I know, but I guess Helge would not call a ASA 100 film a fast film either...

And for people with current cameras both these ASA values and this whole discussion seem obsolete. What I mean is, approaches vary.

 

[Helge]

You both are seemingly to young to know, but there were times when a 50 ASA film was called a fast film. And people were not stuck to studio stills.

We’re talking large format here.
To get a good DoF you need to stop down quite a bit. Even if using tilt/swing.
Otherwise in 135 and 120 I can shoot handheld at lowish apertures acceptably down to EI 6 in good light.