Which Velvia for forest scenes

**Drew Wiley** · 13-Apr-2010, 12:25

A good way to learn is to carry a small trusted gray card and place it in representative
areas of green to take comparison readings. You'll learn quickly. In terms of reproducable highlights, it depends how the print is made or scanned or whatever.
But by two stops over with Velvia, you've basically blown everything out. Usually in the
Zone System, Zone VIII is the threshold of detail. In many case this will be around
VII-1/2 in Velvia. The shadows crash even faster, although with high-end scanners you
can recover quite a bit more. Velvia 50 actually has quite a bit of linearity in the shadows, but noise and color crossover will be the issue. I personally prefer to use
Velvia only for short-scale scenes or when it is pleasing to let the shadows go black.
But it is a film which can sometimes test your metering skills. I like to take my first
reading for the most important hues which I want correctly saturated, then compare
this to the critical high and low threshold values to see if there's enough wiggle room.

**Drew Wiley** · 13-Apr-2010, 12:28

Sorry, made a typo above - I should have said, by the equivalent of Zone VI-1/2, or
ceratainly by Zone VII, it gets difficult to hold detail or saturation in Velvia. But again,
this depends on the exact method of curve recovery.

**dave_whatever** · 13-Apr-2010, 12:57

Originally Posted by Bob McCarthy

Shirley! ??

You're supposed to say "I am serious....And don't call me Shirley".

**gnuyork** · 13-Apr-2010, 13:47

yup Drew, I will be bringing a gray card with me to check myself. I will try to get it right first then check to see how I did. I'm sure Velvia will be a challenge, but I look forward to it.