which one is the slide with most natural colors?

I vote for EPN if you can get some. Then EPP if you can get some. Then E100G if you can't get either. If you like the look of E100G, but want a warmer color balance, try to find some [discontinued] E100GX. If you can't, try an 81-series filter on the E100G.

Provia is pretty neutral, and I have shot a $hit-ton of it (used to be my go-to daylight transparency film) though now I find the Kodak emulsions to look more attractive over all, in a subjective aesthetic sense. Astia is pretty neutral as well, though I think it actually subdues saturation, as opposed to capturing it naturally.

If you really want neutrality and accuracy at its finest, try some Fuji T64 in tungsten illumination. The only thing I like just as much for these purposes (though daylight balanced) is EPN.

Depends how you light and expose.

I've seen very natural and lovely looking portraits done on a Velvia.



Astia 100f is definately one of the favourites though.

Apparently Rollei Digibase CR200 has the most neutral greys though, apparently.

ntenny said:

When my dad was in the camera business, he saw some actual research---I think it was published and everything---that found that, in (very) general, Fuji's colour films were deemed more realistic than Kodak's by Japanese viewers, and the reverse by American viewers. (I don't remember if it was specific to either print or slide.)

So I think you're saying that the British are more Japanese than they are American?

Personally, I find Provia 100F to be nicely realistic, but everyone has their own taste in these matters. People really do perceive colours differently.

-NT

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Well at one time slide films were aimed at different markets, and Fuji messed up when they launched a film for the US market that was very poorly received.

I think there was a different perception amongst the US population as a whole about what was "good colour", but this came more from expectations because of what people saw in magazines, on the TV etc, often of a poorer quality to Europe and Japan, and not forgetting films were much worse in the pre E6/C41 days.

In Europe and Japan it was the Fuji E4 films that really made big inroads, less contrasty than Ektachrome with an ability to handle greens well which Ektachrome struggled with.

It was Fuji 50D & 100D that really set the modern standard of colour fidelity.

Ian

Ian Grant said:

I think there was a different perception amongst the US population as a whole about what was "good colour", but this came more from expectations because of what people saw in magazines, on the TV etc, often of a poorer quality to Europe and Japan, and not forgetting films were much worse in the pre E6/C41 days.Ian

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IMHO TV has a lot to answer for in forming people's perception of what represents "good" colour. With the advent of colour TV in the UK, the public were stumping up a lot of extra money for a) the receiver and b) the license, so by God they wanted their money's worth out of that "colour" control. When I used to do occasional domestic TV work for friends and relatives, they would usually be grateful for the fact that I'd resurrected their dead set but often qualify their gratitude with a comment along the lines of "shame about the colour", which I'd previously set to "natural" using the facial tones. Next time I'd see the set, there would be Reginald Bosanquet or Parky with a face like a beetroot and the colour control hard against the endstop.

.....All of which is a long way round the houses of saying that we have to be careful when considering any opinions of what is "natural" colour ... including mine!

Steve

ntenny said:

When my dad was in the camera business, he saw some actual research---I think it was published and everything---that found that, in (very) general, Fuji's colour films were deemed more realistic than Kodak's by Japanese viewers, and the reverse by American viewers. (I don't remember if it was specific to either print or slide.)

So I think you're saying that the British are more Japanese than they are American?

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Or maybe that the lighting in Japan is more similar to that in the UK than that in the US. At least if we are talking about the Western US, with its bright sunshine and low humidity.