Which Velvia for forest scenes

[Kuzano]

http://www.brucejacksonphotography.c...nting_info.htm

I don't believe I've ever heard Bruce indicate shooting anything but Velvia.

[mrladewig]

I shoot alot of different color films. Basically, if its color and currently available in sheets, I shoot it (though I'm just shooting my first Velvia 100F).

Velvia 50 and 100 have a unique rendering of greens. If your goal is to present brilliant greens in forest scenes and the light is soft enough, green and magenta are Velvia's colors. Provia is close behind, but there is a hue shift towards more red in the greens. E100G can do good greens, has extremely fine grain and scans very well. E100VS and Astia are just OK, but the green isn't as clean in these.

But I also shoot alot of color negative where the greens can be very clean. Portra 160VC and Fuji Pro160S are both good with green tones and they both scan well.

[gnuyork]

OK my order for Velvia came in today from B&H. I ended up with 2 boxes of the ISO 50 and 2 boxes of E100VS (I shoot this in 35mm with good results).

I have read about some shooting Velvia at ISO 40 and some insist on ISO 50. Why the difference?

And also what is your method for metering? I have the pentax digital spot, but I use it for B&W and use the zone technique. Would I just apply this to color? I would know to keep within 5 or so stops with slide film.

In Jack Dykinga's book he recommends picking out a medium green and using that as the middle gray point. Can anybody else advise?

Thanks,

Joe

[Drew Wiley]

My Pentax digital spot meters seem to respond to certain green tones much like 18%
gray. An example would be an ordinary lawn. But you have to differentiate this from
backlight bright 'Spring' greens (lighter) or typical conifer foliage (usually darker).
But unless you have a bunch or gray rocks available to meter, greens are often the
best substitute. Of course, the whole idea of a spotmeter is that you can easily compare different values in the scene to decide the placement of these. Velvia 50 can
be "pulled" a little, maybe 1/2 stop, but I don't see much sense in doing this. I would
use it at box speed (50) or you will risk either blowing out the highlights or blocking up
the texture in the upper values (if you pull it). Maybe someone else has gotten a little
different results, but in the past I have tried all these various tricks and generally found them useful only in exceptional circumstances. Not much latitude with Velvia.

[gnuyork]

That's the catch. I guess I don't have enough experience to tell which medium green is 18% gray. I'll have a card with me to check myself when applicable. But I guess it will be trial and error until I get some exposures under my belt.

[dave_whatever]

Any foliage green that isn't overtly light or dark to your eye will give you at least a ballpark mid tone. In practice I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[rdenney]

I would
use it at box speed (50) or you will risk either blowing out the highlights or blocking up
the texture in the upper values (if you pull it).

Drew, question for you along these lines. If you expose a gray card at ISO50, targeting the gray card to Zone V, then how many stops do you reckon you have above that before reaching, say, Zone IX? My sense is that the top five zones are compressed into about two stops with Velvia, but I'm a Velvia beginner and would appreciate hearing more.

Rick "who has long ago realized that with Velvia, you let the shadows go where they will go" Denney

[Heroique]

Here's an old forest shot w/ some Velvia-50 field notes…

It’s an Olympic rain forest (Washington state) under broken sun – shot at box speed on my calibrated gear. (And my calibrated monitor seems to approximate what my light table shows.)

Some might like this melodramatic lighting, but if I shot this scene again, I’d probably choose negative film (or perhaps Astia) to capture more texture in the deepest shadows. Usually, I avoid shooting this film at, say, ISO-25 or ISO-40, because the improved shadow textures come at the expense of the film's saturated colors which I like, and often blow the highlights, just as Drew Wiley says.

Here’s what my meter said:
— Left tree trunk in shade = 7 ev
— Central mossy-green trunk = 9 ev (shaded portion) to 13 ev (sunlit portion)
— Foreground sunlight = 13 ev
— Background forest = 8 ev (shade) to 10 ev (sunlit)

I metered for 11 ev – understanding the film would struggle to capture light values below 8 ev and above 13 ev. The left tree’s black side is a good example of what happens on Velvia-50 when the low values fall well below your exposure!

Tachi 4x5
Schneider XL 110mm/5.6
1/2 sec. @ f/22
Velvia-50
Epson 4990/Epson Scan

[gnuyork]

Heroique:

Awesome! thanks for the details.

[gnuyork]

Also did you use any filters?

That's another thing I am wondering about. Should I use any filters with Velvia. Warming to combat reciprocity? Polarizer for streams and waterfalls? Do you use circular polarizers for LF?

There might not be enough time for me to get any filters before my trip, but I'd still like to know for the future if using filters is important or not. I guess I would be doing CC in photoshop mostly.