4x5 Film Availability These Days

[jzakko]

Hi, just getting back into LF after finally replacing a piece that was missing on my Cambo for the past several years.

Shopping for films online through places like b&h and adorama has been...depressing. Apparently velvia got discontinued months after my camera went out of commission, but what's more, every single filmstock I've ever used is on backorder. I've placed an order for some provia and ektachrome but have no clue when it will come through.

Is this the state of things for the foreseeable future? Is this a temporary hump in the supply chain? If everything is on backorder, there must be outsized demand, will the market adjust for that? Can anyone explain the situation to me?

[xkaes]

Much depends on what you are looking for and where you are located. Some types of film are hard to find while others are easy to get. Some don't stay on the shelf very long.

I just grabbed some Rollei RPX25 from B&H. All they had was three boxes and I bought them all. Who knows when they will get more.

So if one place doesn't have what you want, try another place. Try again next week -- or next month.

Manufacturers make much of this stuff in batches nowadays -- not continuously -- so patience is golden. Just get your order in early.

You'll see on this FORUM (and others) emails about putting in bulk orders for FORUM members.

[Oren Grad]

Negative film is widely available in sheet film sizes. Transparency film is not. This is unlikely to change in the near future.

[MikeH]

Oren (or anyone):

In searching for 4x5 Ektachrome and Fuji Provia yesterday, with zero results, no one seems to know what is going on. Does anyone here have an idea? Is this a U.S. thing? Is the "old" Velvia available outside the U.S.?

I'm thinking I need to switch to Ektar, but it would be an entire new thing for me, because I don't have a clue on how to "read" negatives. Also, there's a post here, from maybe 2010, that says that Ektar scans to a yellowish (?) hue.

I'm doing 100% outdoor landscapes. Since I moved to western Arizona 2 years ago, and I'm only 4 hours from the Grand Canyon, that's where I've been spending most of my "shooting" time.

Any comments would be appreciated.
Thanks.

[Oren Grad]

In searching for 4x5 Ektachrome and Fuji Provia yesterday, with zero results, no one seems to know what is going on. Does anyone here have an idea? Is this a U.S. thing? Is the "old" Velvia available outside the U.S.?

In Japan, Yodobashi Camera currently shows 4x5 Velvia 100 in stock, 4x5 Provia 100F available by special order.


I'm thinking I need to switch to Ektar, but it would be an entire new thing for me, because I don't have a clue on how to "read" negatives. Also, there's a post here, from maybe 2010, that says that Ektar scans to a yellowish (?) hue.

With every negative film, you need to learn how to use the scanning software to properly adjust for the base color of the negative. Properly processed, Ektar scans shouldn't be any more vulnerable than other color negative films to a systematic color error. For those who have trouble nailing the correction within the scanning software, there are utilities like ColorPerfect's ColorNeg that are designed to make it easier to achieve proper color correction.

[Drew Wiley]

There is nothing yellowish about a properly scanned and inverted Ektar image, which removes the orange mask inherent to color negatives. But the intensity and exact hue of the masks can vary somewhat between specific color neg types, and even sometimes batch to batch, since it's part of the fine-tuning process during manufacture.

I never found Velvia a good fit to the Southwest due to its excessive contrast. I shot a lot of Provia and Ektachrome instead. In recent decades, I've been shooting a lot of Ektar and now-extinct Portra 160VC. Ektar renders by far the cleanest warm earthtones, golden tones, and greens of any color neg film. It's a realistic replacement for chrome films, but with slightly wider latitude than any those chrome varieties, which also helps. But you need to use proper filters over the lens to keep this particular film within its intended color temperature parameters if you expect optimal results; it's not artificially warmed like most color neg films intended mainly for skintone reproduction.

[Paul Ron]

color 4x5 is insane... b&w is not much better although ive got a nice stash in the freezer. i really should either start using more or just sell off some to make room.

[Alan9940]

I don't shoot color, but I do live in the southwest and I'm with Drew in that Velvia would simply be too much contrast for this incredibly bright sunny environment. I would definitely stick with Provia or Ektachrome for color. You shouldn't have any problems finding B&W sheet film from the few major players we have left. We have an active dealer on here and over on PHOTRIO--Kumar Brahmajosyula--who sells film from Japan and ships worldwide. You may want to contact him for availability of stocks you're looking for.

[MikeH]

Thanks for all the responses. The depth of knowledge on this forum is amazing.

Drew: I've always shot transparencies, and always used a polarizer. What do you use with Ektar, if you are doing landscapes? Or, is that a more complex question than I'm making it out to be?

I've been using Nichols Photo Lab in Salt Lake City for processing and scanning, so I would have them scan the Ektar. I need to call them for advise.

Again, thanks to all for your responses.

[rdenney]

Thanks for all the responses. The depth of knowledge on this forum is amazing.

Drew: I've always shot transparencies, and always used a polarizer. What do you use with Ektar, if you are doing landscapes? Or, is that a more complex question than I'm making it out to be?

I've been using Nichols Photo Lab in Salt Lake City for processing and scanning, so I would have them scan the Ektar. I need to call them for advise.

Again, thanks to all for your responses.

I'm not Drew, but I'll take a stab at the difference I notice between Ektar and transparency films.

Ektar will record about four more stops of brightness range compared to Velvia. If you want your Ektar scans to look more like Velvia, just drag the bottom corner slider on the Curves tool to the right to cut off the bottom third or so. The low tones will go black and the contrast will increase. It's really hard to give up all that shadow detail, though, and that's what makes my Ektar images look different than Velvia of old for me.

A negative film gets denser with higher subject brightness, and will eventually block up. But that's not as bad as what happens with transparency film, where the highlight turns the film clear and unusable. So, with Ektar I expose to make sure I have the shadow detail I want, and then check the highlights to make sure they are within 9 stops or so. If they aren't, I decide what shadow detail I can live without.

With transparency film, I can never really live without highlight detail, so I expose for the maximum brightness in which I want detail and just choose subjects, compositions, graduated filters, and lighting that leave the shadows in a tolerable state at that exposure. Negative film is much more versatile in that way.

Negative film was designed to be printed onto materials with less contrast than the film, so they compress the range of tones over a narrower range of densities on the film. The thickest highlights are not opaque and the thinnest parts are still given some density by the base color. That makes them easier to scan, because the scanner is limited by the range of densities it can distinguish. Transparencies were designed for direct viewing and attempt to preserve all the contrast of real life (or at least give that impression) and are thus quite difficult to scan. The thickest parts of transparencies may be nearly opaque while the blown-out highlights are completely clear. That was one of the main reasons for PMT drum scanners--they could much more closely handle the sheer range of densities of a transparency.

If your lab has any real experience with scanning, they'll know how to deal with those differences and they may (MAY!) have better equipment to do it. I have usually done my own scanning, which means I've been limited by equipment I could afford and maintain. But I know of labs that for large format would be limited to the same Epson V750 that I use, when I would hope they would have and use a drum scanner.

But except for the scanning, for me transparency film means exposing to control highlights and choose subjects that minimize contrast. It also probably means getting used to using grad filters in way that does not scream 1980's/1990's. Ektar has allowed me to expose for the shadows as I did with black and white, but then I still need to check highlights to make sure they aren't going to block up (which is about four stops less likely).

I still have several boxes of Velvia Quickloads in the freezer, but I find myself preferring the negative films for stuff I'm going to scan and print.

Rick "just my experience with it" Denney

[Drew Wiley]

No, Rick - Ektar will NOT record four more stops than typical chrome film, not unless you're willing to put up with serious crossover issues and weird colors at the extremes. Maybe about one stop either direction more than Provia or Ektachrome, for example. That's still a substantial amount of difference (two stops, but not four). But I still tell people to expose Ektar just as carefully as chrome film, and they'll be fine. People who rely on "latitude" as if they were shooting amateur Kodak Gold are going to be quite disappointed.

[Kiwi7475]

Drew is right that Ektar will start showing color issues if pushed 2 stops more than Provia or E100. And they don’t look pretty.

Also, a lot of effort usually goes into getting the right colors with Ektar, even when using specific tools. Several photography forums are full of comments like that. I’m not saying it can’t be done I’m just saying it’s more difficult and requires more steps.

I personally do not like Ektar’s blues and reds (but like its greens) and so I prefer to use Portra when using negatives. But I find it’s a lot easier to get the colors right with positives, except when the color temperature is different from daylight (e.g. Provia will turn to purples and deep blues at sunset).

It’s all about what you want and how much effort you want to put and how much experience you have dealing with adjusting colors to your taste/preferences.

[Oren Grad]

Also, a lot of effort usually goes into getting the right colors with Ektar, even when using specific tools...

To avoid confusion, it might be useful to distinguish between correcting for the base tint to avoid an overall color cast, which should be straightforward with all color negative films, and fine-tuning the color palette, which is distinctive to each film and can't necessarily be precisely matched across films.

[Kiwi7475]

To avoid confusion, it might be useful to distinguish between correcting for the base tint to avoid an overall color cast, which should be straightforward with all color negative films, and fine-tuning the color palette, which is distinctive to each film and can't necessarily be precisely matched across films.

That’s fair — correcting the base tint is a “white balance” single click step and not an issue. What comes after then inverting the negative to adjust the color palette…. That’s what takes art and patience!

[Drew Wiley]

The problem with the higher contrast of Ektar and the nature of its dye curves is that once those respective dye curves start to shoulder off asymmetrically at the top, or crossover at the bottom, it creates a kind of "mud", as I refer to it, very difficult to clean up post-exposure. It's like trying the separate the sand from the gravel in already set-up concrete. With typical color neg films, a certain amount of crossover "mud" is deliberately engineered in for sake of "pleasing skintones", but potentially at the expense of the purity of many other hues. Ektar doesn't have that characteristic, and is a good substitute for the clean saturation of chrome films. But when it does crossover or drift, it's generally not the warm hues or warm neutrals affected like ordinary CN films, but the ability to cleanly distinguish blue from cyan.

The only simply answer to solving most of this is to stay within reasonable contrast range limits and also correctly color temp balance via filtration at the time of the shot itself. That is a hundred times easier than pulling ones's hair out trying to post-correct. Overall post-shift simply won't do it. The concrete has already hardened. Of course, a number of photographers just don't want to bother either way; but then they shouldn't complain if the shadows seem to blue, or overexposed skies too cyan.

[Alan Klein]

I pretty much gave up on color-negative film. Too hard to scan and get the colors right. While chromes have less stops, I know immediately if I got the exposure right, and if bracketing, which one is the best. Scanning and editing the chrome scans are easier.

[unityofsaints]

I had to chuckle about someone complaing about 4x5" availability :D

Compare it to 7x17" or 11x14" availability and then come back to me.