Just wondered what people's preference was regarding the choice of Velvia 100 or Velvia 100F - I'm looking to use a film for landscapes. What do people rate these films at? TIA
Just wondered what people's preference was regarding the choice of Velvia 100 or Velvia 100F - I'm looking to use a film for landscapes. What do people rate these films at? TIA
Definitely Velvia 100. Experiment with exposure at EI 100 and 125 to decide what you prefer. Great reciprocity characteristics for low light photography.
Between the two, I much prefer 100. I bought some 100F and did not like it all. That said, I like 50 better than either.
Another vote for 100
I choose between Velvia 50 and 100, and Provia 100F depending on the situation and color palette. They are all exceptional films, but each has its strengths and weaknesses.
I have also found little use for Velvia 100F where Velvia 100, 50, and Provia serve my needs, but I am sure Velvia 100F serves some niche and I'm always interested to hear from anyone who uses it for their work. Skin tones, blue/violet, where does Velvia 100F fit in to actual workflows, exactly?
I haven't used the 100, so I can't compare. I've used the 100F and 50, and it seems I have to rate them at 80 and 40, respectively, using an incident meter. Provia 100F, on the other hand rates at 100 for me.
Tim
p.s.- I haven't used alot of it yet, but I can say I prefer the 50. So, I guess the 100 (non f) would probably look better to me also. I have a bunch of the 100f because i bought a bunch 2nd hand when no 5x7 color sheet tranny film was available...... The one shot I have that I really like looks excellent on the light table, but when I scanned it in (V750) I had to add a bit of yellow to reduce the blue cast. So maybe I'd use it for scenes with alot of blue, but not alot of green (hard to do in the landscape....). Or you can do what I did- color correct in PS and make it look however you want!
Paul,
I'll toss in a vote for V100f. Not necessarily because I think it's a better film - frankly, it's not; as usual it depends on the situation. I spent about a year and a half carrying V50, V100, V100F, Provia 100 and Astia 100. Nothing scientific, but I would sometimes shoot the same scene with at least two of the films, but never all five at once. In the end, I concluded that each and every one of these films had some issues, but also performed beautifully, depending on the scene, exposure range, etc., etc.
Both V100 and V100f have a magenta cast. Provia can go funky in the blues and of course we all know about V50's lack of shadow detail/range. The Astia I had was outdated film (as is most of the film I buy,) and I found it was "brown" and lacked any punch that I was used to the Velvia films (any of them.) I may have had a bad batch and will probably try it again.
To make a long story short, there isn't one film that will give us everything we want in a landscape/nature film. So, having said that, I settled on V100f as a good overall film that is excellent in grain size and better than V50 in terms of shadow detail. As I've become better at scanning and PS, the magenta cast can certainly be adjusted.
As far as rating the film, I personally wouldn't go with anyone's speed rating of a film. You should test it yourself. Everyone has slightly different metering tendancies and not unlike calibrating monitors and printers, you should "calibrate" your film and lens combos and settle on a rating that works for you.
Regards,
Lon
Thanks for the advice/suggestions!
Bookmarks