Kodak 100VS vs Velvia, Report

[Roger_235]

A friend gave me a Kodak 100VS roll of 35mm film which I put in the G1 last summ er and took pictures with. I misplaced the film and just got it developed, about 9months later.

I don't have a scanner, but am I ever impressed with the slides. Such clarity, c olors, saturation, sharpness, great skin tones even in the shadows plus a lot mo re shadow detail in 12:00noon to 2:00pm direct sun in the middle of July, at wha tever latitude Chicago is at. Sunset pictures are not exhibiting any blue shift and people standing in the shadows behind buildings at near sunset look great wh ile the background buildings and sky are georgeous.

Beats the pants off of my old reliable standby: Velvia. I'm sold completely!

Now, to get some Kodak 100VS sheet film....! 8-))

[Nigel Turner]

Each to his own Roger.

But this isn't a test is it?

Personally, I feel both films are very good. Others will disagree.

I use both depending on the conditions, but I know both films inside out.

[Steve Gangi]

Kerry Thalman had a nice write-up on slide films in View Camera last issue. Velvia and E100VS look different to me, but both are good.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

The (published) reciprocity failure guidelines with Velvia are enough to drive any large format user to E100VS.

[Kerry L. Thalmann]

Roger,

I too "discovered" E100VS a little over a year ago. As Steve kindly mentioned, I wrote an article on color transparency films that was published in the Jan/Feb 2002 issue of View Camera. I won't go into all the details here, but I basical ly agree with what you and everyone else has stated so far in this thread. E100 VS is (for my needs) a truly wonderful film. It is now my film of choice for 80 - 90% of my shooting. I really like the colors for many subjects and lighting conditions. It is at least a full stop faster (more like 1 1/3 stop based on my testing), and has WAY better reciprocity characteristics than Velvia. That sai d, Velvia is still a very good film (it was pretty much the ONLY film I used for a decade) that I still prefer for some specific subjects and conditions. It's nice to have choices.

If you have a chance, please read the article. Film choice is a highly subjecti ve and personal matter. I knew that going into the testing for the article, and tried to state that clearly. So, feel free to use my results and comments as a baseline, but by all means do some testing of your own with a variety of subjec ts and lighting conditions. In the end, you may agree with my opinions, or you very well may not. That's not important. What is important is that you end up with the film that gives the results you find most pleasing. I spent over seven months testing films for that article. I now know which films I prefer based o n subject and lighting conditions. It sounds like Neil has done similar testing and arrived at his own conclusions. I urge you to do the same. Now that E100V S is available in single sheet Readyloads, it is a very simple matter to carry m ultiple films in the field and pick the "best" film for any given subject on the fly. We really are blessed to have such options.

Kerry

[Scott Atkinson]

I too have been using primarily E100VS (about 500 sheets so far) for my shooting this spring--mostly deserts. After testing it against Velvia last fall, I was not only impressed with its speed and saturation, but especially its ability to separate colors and show both improved detail and color in shadows. I found myself, to my surprise, carrying only yellow Readyload boxes on the road for the first time in years.

[Scott Atkinson]

I too have been using primarily E100VS (about 500 Readyload sheets so far) for my shooting this spring--mostly deserts. After testing it against Velvia last fall, I was not only impressed with its speed and saturation, but especially its ability to separate colors and show both improved detail and color in shadows. I found myself, to my great surprise, carrying only yellow boxes on the road for the first time in years.

However, I'm now reconsidering. Despite the above plusses, I've been experiencing a nasty yellow bias in many scenes and a questionable warm/amber cast overall. I'm also seeing some truly electric reds that seem slightly bizarre. I just reconfimed this on my latest trip by running E100VS, RDP III (Provia), and Velvia side by side by side on all exposures. Does anyone else have a take on this? Or an E100VS batch that seems more balanced? Thanks...

[kthompson]

In E6 processing sometimes Ektachrome films will shift to a yellow bias if the color developer pH is too alkaline. Fujichromes will go to a green-cyan color. To me, I don't think you can accurately judge a color balance by comparing different manufacturers films to one another or even one lab to another...there are other inconsistencies as well with those newer, saturated emulsions over the more neutral ones too...they all like to be tweaked in a different way in the chemistry...your best bet is to stick with one film, use a good lab & standardize on that. MY opinons only.

[Leigh Perry]

For users of Imacon and other high end non-drum scanners, there may be another advantage to 100VS.

Nick Rains, the Australian landscape photographer, discovered that this type of scanner picked up some form of particle in the Fuji film base, which gives the appearance of accentuated grain.

It appears that Kodak does not have this problem.

You can find his article on the subject here.