which neg film for landscapes?

[uniB]

It seems I'm going to be grad filterless for the next few weeks, just sold all my cokin and the Lee filters I've ordered aren't in stock for a while.

So I was thinking the only way I can get out and do any meaningful landscape photography is to use some neg film with a greater exposure latitude.

Which film would people recommend for landscape work (I'm new to neg shooting). Ideally good saturation and exposure latitude (to get round my lack of filters), I was looking at Fuji 160c or 160s, what's the difference, which one would be best?

How many more stops am I likely to get compared to Velvia or Provia? I've also got some Astia which I guess may give me more latitude?

thanks for any recommendations.
Dav

[David Rees]

Dav,

I find PRO160S works well, esp. on sunny days. Slightly lower colour saturation than the "C", but printing digitally one can always tweak that a little before output if you wish.

I'd estimate you would get a get at least a stop more latitude than with Astia, which in turn gives about 1/2 stop more than Velvia 50.

Note that scanned at 3200dpi, the grain with the colour negative is visible on the screen, but doesn't translate to prints I make (17"x25").

One final point -- I expose the nominal 160ISO film at 100ISO, just to ensure good shadow detail. This works for me, with my elderly Pentax analogue spotmeter, but you would be well advised to experiment yourself to find the optimum approach for your equipment.

[Ron Marshall]

I agree with David. The 160S has good saturation and grain charecteristics.

[Bruce Watson]

It seems I'm going to be grad filterless for the next few weeks, just sold all my cokin and the Lee filters I've ordered aren't in stock for a while.

So I was thinking the only way I can get out and do any meaningful landscape photography is to use some neg film with a greater exposure latitude.

Which film would people recommend for landscape work (I'm new to neg shooting). Ideally good saturation and exposure latitude (to get round my lack of filters), I was looking at Fuji 160c or 160s, what's the difference, which one would be best?

How many more stops am I likely to get compared to Velvia or Provia? I've also got some Astia which I guess may give me more latitude?

thanks for any recommendations.
Dav

The biggies are Fujifilm 160S (the C version is harder to find and isn't in Quickloads if memory serves, which it often does not ;-), and Kodak 160PortraVC (either sheets or readyloads). 400PortraNC is an amazingly excellent film, but I only use it when I need the speed because of the price.

For the Fuji films, the S version is somewhat less saturated than the C version. For Kodak, the NC versions give somewhat less saturation than the VC versions.

I personally use mostly 160PortraVC for color work. I tried the Fujifilm 160S and just didn't like it as well although I can't figure out exactly why. Some subtle rendering of hue and tones probably. Both films are excellent, both fine grain with excellent dynamic range.

I did a test on 160PortraVC's dynamic range a couple of years ago. A picture of a white flower in full mid-day summer sun (http://www.achromaticarts.com/big_image.php?path=flowers&img_num=2). My meter recorded an 11 stop range (9 stops of texture plus a pure black and pure white). The film was as linear as you could want -- no shouldering that I could find, no color shifting, no bad behavior at all, just excellent hues, tones, and detail. Lovely stuff, this film.

The performance of modern color negative films is just outstanding, and you don't have to use (or carry) any filters to use them. So be careful. You shoot much of this stuff and you may find you don't want to return to trannies.

[SamReeves]

Another vote for Portra 160VC. It's the way to go if you're printing your own color.

[Wilbur Wong]

I have to agree with Bruce, I have been shooting Portra 160 VC exclusively for at least a half a dozen years. When I used to have a motor drive, I (kiding) loaded from 50 sheet packs. I have come to shoot solely with Ready Loads. Nice to not introduce dust and lint on the film.

The results I get are very consistent, and in my usage, I have seldom blown out a highlight (usually a waterfall or whatever) or have blocked up in shadows. I do use a Lee system ND grads from time to time but I tend to use them more with balancing water reflection shots than to tone down the sky. In most situations, I think you can pull out clouds under the enlarger or whatever post workflow you use.

Of course when you get your new ND grads, you'll gain with less post work in extreme cases. Anything inside of 7 stops or maybe a bit more should be a piece of cake. Can't do that with a tranny for me.

[uniB]

thanks for the great info, looks like it's 160S and Portra 160 VC then. I'll have a go at some 160S quickload and some Portra sheet.

So would I be best to meter for the lightest areas with neg film with no filtering and let everything else fall into place? I guess if I meter for midtones, as I would if shooting trannies I'm still likely to blow out the highlights, even with the extra latitude.

[Michael T. Murphy]

Another vote for Portra, 160NC in my case.

I standardized on that 10 years ago. You can always **add** contrast and saturation after scanning. Try to back down and you get combing.

When I wanted slide I used Astia. Same reasons. I know they released a newer version of Portra that is better for scanning than the older stuff. I compared the older version to Fuji 160 whatever (lower saturation version). I could not really see a difference in the scans. A little bias toward greens in Fuji, reds in Portra.

Ther only real complaint about transparency is not seeing what you have right away. With 4x5 that shouldn't be a problem - we don't take that many shots. With 6x7 that was more of a pain.

Good luck!

[Narcissist]

Note that scanned at 3200dpi, the grain with the colour negative is visible on the screen, but doesn't translate to prints I make (17"x25").

Sorry to derail this but I'm having a hell of a time with grain from colour neg film and inkjet prints. Absolutely any visible grain viewed at 100% seems to come out in the print. I'd like to know how you print.

[JimmyB]

The biggies are Fujifilm 160S (the C version is harder to find and isn't in Quickloads if memory serves, which it often does not ;-)

Freestyle sells Pro 160C in Quickload:

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_prod.php?cat_id=1104&pid=1000001512

They are the only place I have found that sells it. I've used both 160C and 160S, and gravitate towards 160C. There is a slightly higher contrast in 160C but print 160S on a nice Fuji Type C paper and you'll have plenty of color saturation.

Jimmy

[David Rees]

Sorry to derail this but I'm having a hell of a time with grain from colour neg film and inkjet prints. Absolutely any visible grain viewed at 100% seems to come out in the print. I'd like to know how you print.

A 3200dpi scan of a 5x4 yields me 14800x11700 pixels. I use an Epson 3800 for printing, and I invariably print at 360dpi, which would result in a 41"x32" print. Since I can only print to 17" wide, I downrez the image first, before sending the file to the printer.

First step -- which algorithm are you using to downrez, if you do so? If sharpening is included in the downrez, then grain can be emphasized -- so Bicubic, rather than Bicubic sharper, might be a better algorithm if grain is visible at 100%.

Second step -- I sharpen in Lab mode, on the lightness channel only. I tend to use a fairly high amount for V700 scans (300 to 500), with a radius which depends on how much I've downsampled. If I didn't downsize, I'd likely use 1 to 1.25; if I have reduced file size by half, then I'd likely go with 0.8, or even 0.6. I'd also keep threshold as high as I can, to reduce the inevitable emphasis sharpening can give to the grain. Try a threshold of 5 as a starting point.

I prefer to use a paper such as Harman Gloss AL, but if the image is too grainy for that, I might opt for a matte paper like Epson Velvet Fine Art, which is kinder to such images. It's rarely needed with scans from 5x4.

Hope this is of some help -- I take it you are using an emulsion such as PRO160S or Portra 160, and scanning with a recent flatbed scanner?

David.

[Baxter Bradford]

Colour neg offers opportunity to get images not achievable with Velvia etc through the use of ND grads. In addition to E6, I use Fuji Pro160S and get great results.

However it does provide a couple of hurdles. When scanning, it is hard to get colours right without some fairly attentive tweaking to Levels in each colour channel. That said you can create a wide range of colour styles, from near Tungsten to Velvia-like if you so wish. Also I find it suffers from grain Aliasing, enhanced grain visibility compared to E6 in the scanning process. To remove this, I use Neat Image software; Noise Ninja is an alternative.

First shot I had no time to place grads, so this is with no filters. Have selected sea and given equivalent of a 2 stop burn. Once I'd got this shot, I then tried staggered ND grads diagonally to shoot with RVP, but could easily see their placement in the sky. Second image couldn't have placed ND grads over sun in middle of frame. Extended dynamic range enabled the picture to be made.

Other advantage is that you don't have to bracket. I have another shot I've just made by moonlight with spotmeter not getting off 0, so guessed at 2 mins - has come out fine.

[Michael T. Murphy]

having a hell of a time with grain from colour neg film


I agree, it is probably a sharpening issue. Are you using USM?

You might try one of the packages for sharpening. There is nikPro and PhotoKit, I am using Photokit.

The other potential problem would be scanning at far too high a ppi, like 8000 or more? At a certain point you don't gain detail, but do gain grain.

I am using a V700 to scan 4x5 at 2400 to 3200. I have an Epson 7880. I have made a number of prints at 22"x28" that look great.

There is a slightly different "feel" to the images than from slide film. But I would not call it grain. There is also much wider latitude and more subtelty. The "pop" of slide film can seem a little too obvious and one dimensional at times, if that makes sense.

Good luck!

[Narcissist]

A 3200dpi scan of a 5x4 yields me 14800x11700 pixels. I use an Epson 3800 for printing, and I invariably print at 360dpi, which would result in a 41"x32" print. Since I can only print to 17" wide, I downrez the image first, before sending the file to the printer....
<snip>


Scans are 3200dpi from an imacon and film is portra 160 or 400NC. Having spent some more time playing around things are working a lot better now but care needs to be taken for big prints:

1. Using autoprofile after selecting a uniform area in neatimage makes a large difference, it seems to looks at the whole image and does a much better job.

2. For downsizing I now use imagemagick and use lanczos algorthm to downsize, which is significantly better than any of photoshops options. Bicubic gives soft results and bicubic sharper seems to unnaturally sharpen.

3. I have always used photokit for capture and output sharpening but now mask any areas where sharpneing isn't required. The main sharpening comes from optipix's 'refocus' which uses some deconvulsion filter and so doesn't increase grain or create halos. A very impressive plugin.

4. I reset the closed loop calibration on my printer (HP B9180). Much of the 'grain' I was seeing in prints wasn't so much grain from scans as printer miscalibration. I didn't realise that this could have been a cause! I'm also using Harman Gloss FB AL.

For b&w, darkroom prints still seem to have a wow factor I can't get with an inkjet.