Originally Posted by
Drew Wiley
Neither you nor I have any idea of what those chromes actually look like prior to digital tweaking. Besides, the web is fairly worthless for making such assessments. E6 is a standardized process - or is supposed to be - just as the speed of the film itself is tightly controlled in manufacture. Since Burke's main objection is that the processed chromes look too dense, and he's the one doing the processing with a home kit, as well as overexposing it, well, that does point a finger a different direction than the film itself. And you've got the reasoning all backwards. If he's rating the film lower, at 64 or 80, that means he's overexposing it, and automatically getting less highlight control, not more. You also totally misunderstand the role of densitometry. Film exposure is 100% bound to its actual sensitometric characteristics. And in this case, you can't fiddle with the tonal range like with black and white film more than a tiny bit before there's a serious penalty to the color reproduction itself. Yeah, all kinds of colors and things can be dubbed in using PS afterwards, even a giraffe on an iceberg if necessary; but that's not the same thing.
He provides one nice desert shot resulting from use of a Tiffen 812 filter. That's kinda nuking the subject to remove blue; so while it works to achieve the look he wanted, it hardly belongs in any allegedly objective film test. I'm not implying it's wrong esthetically; but in this case it lies outside basic color temp correction and says more about his taste than the film itself. Likewise all kinds of comments in that brief article. And if he thinks E100 is neutral with broader scale, guess he's never used Fuji Astia.
As far as "real pictures" and "real results", I've shot almost every variety of chrome film that has been made during in my lifetime, and I've printed quite a few to very high standards. And a long time ago I learned there's a huge difference between getting something to look good on a light box or during a slide projector show, and getting it to look good on a wall or in a magazine spread. I wan't born yesterday. I do have actual results, decades worth, and have shown a number of them. That's why I also have my own picture framing facility. Nobody goes to the web to appraise nuanced qualitative issues. We might discuss those, or provide certain practical illustrations, or how-to stuff. The web can be a good educational tool, but has very serious limitations in terms of accurate and detailed visual presentation like that essential to fine printmaking.
And if someone's "technical analysis", as you phrase it, were not spot on in the first place, then you'd never have any kind of reliability to a particular film. Why would you buy it?
Kodak knows what it is doing, has the necessary instrumentation and protocols in place, and has a valid reason for marketing E100 with a speed rating of 100, and prescribing it as such in their tech sheet as well. That's what hard objective tests using standardized procedures are capable of verifying. In my case, I was personally verifying Kodak's own specific claims to actual film speed, color temperature, and also affirming their high standard of quality control. But web jockey opinions are a dime a dozen. I prefer to let Kodak do the heavy lifting, and will stick with their own tech sheet. All I did is confirm it.
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