Velvia colour shift questions

[jools-french]

Hi there

I'm new to the forum and was wondering if some kind soul could help out with some nagging questions on the use of Velvia.

My camera is usually loaded with Velvia but all I am really trying to do in the first instance is get my exposure right when using it. However, I want things to get a bit more creative than this and that is where my questions come in.

There is a shot by Joe Cornish of some rocks at a place called Dunraven Bay. The image is, I believe, in his first book First Light. In it, Joe explains that when he took the image that it was the middle of the day with not a cloud in sight. When he took the picture he knew that the Velvia would have a blue cast to it owing to the midday sun reflecting off of the rocks.

My question is therefore, so how do you know what colour cast your Velvia is going to do? I know that throughout the day the colour temperature of the light is changing. How can you equate this into your use of film?

Is it the case that if you were to shoot at midday each day then Velvia would leave a blue cast or is it not the case? What would it do early in the morning? In the evening?

Are my questions way to out there?

Thanks for any help. I look forward to reading the responses.

[rguinter]

Jools:

Others may have some good suggestions for use of filters at mid-day to help you adjust the color palette of Velvia. Me personally I have never had much luck at mid-day in the summer due to the effects you noticed. So most of my color work I do in the mornings or late afternoon/evenings.

But the reason for the effect you are noticing is actually related to the angle of the sun above the horizon. When the sun is high the thickness of atmosphere that light rays have to penetrate is minimized and less blue light is attenuated. As you well know, at sunrise and sunset the thickness of atmosphere is maximum and much of the blue wavelengths are absorbed leaving lots of yellow, orange, and red.

Use of color compensating filters can certainly help. I use a skylight filter sometimes and I often use a graduated neutral density to darken a bright sky against the foreground.

The photo I attached was taken many years ago on Velvia at mid-day in the winter. Even with the lower sun angle in winter you can see the overwhelming blue cast. If I had used a skylight or 81A filter I could have toned down the blue a bit and made a better photo.

Cheers. Bob G.

[jools-french]

According to Joe's take on the photo he didn't use any filtration. That's what I need to know. What colour cast can I expect when using Velvia without colour compensating filters.

[roteague]

According to Joe's take on the photo he didn't use any filtration. That's what I need to know. What colour cast can I expect when using Velvia without colour compensating filters.

None. Unless you are using a long shutter speed.

Joe's photo took advantage of the colors of the rock and the fact that the color of the sky would be strongly reflected on the rocks. Add to that the saturation of Velvia, and you get the results he comes out with. It was the color cast of the situation, not the film. I am familar with the photo you are describing, I have the book.

FWIW, I shoot Velvia almost exclusively. The only filters I use are the 81 series (A or B), but rarely.

[Joanna Carter]

If you are using Velvia 100, then you definitely need to use a 2C (UV) filter if you plan on shooting in high UV situations. Velvia 100 has the happy knack of being very "strong" on blue and red in high UV. I have never used Velvia 50, but, from looking at the tech sheets for all Fuji trannie films, they do seem to recommend the same filter for them all.

[rguinter]

None. Unless you are using a long shutter speed.

Joe's photo took advantage of the colors of the rock and the fact that the color of the sky would be strongly reflected on the rocks. Add to that the saturation of Velvia, and you get the results he comes out with. It was the color cast of the situation, not the film. I am familar with the photo you are describing, I have the book.

FWIW, I shoot Velvia almost exclusively. The only filters I use are the 81 series (A or B), but rarely.

I agree with Robert. I don't think it is color shift you are experiencing... just the infamous super saturation of RVP50.

Bob G.

[jools-french]

None. Unless you are using a long shutter speed.

Joe's photo took advantage of the colors of the rock and the fact that the color of the sky would be strongly reflected on the rocks. Add to that the saturation of Velvia, and you get the results he comes out with. It was the color cast of the situation, not the film. I am familar with the photo you are describing, I have the book.

FWIW, I shoot Velvia almost exclusively. The only filters I use are the 81 series (A or B), but rarely.

Thanks for that. May I still ask though, if you shoot at sunrise what kind of colour cast in any do you get. The same goes for the end of the day.

[Policar]

The photo I attached was taken many years ago on Velvia at mid-day in the winter. Even with the lower sun angle in winter you can see the overwhelming blue cast. If I had used a skylight or 81A filter I could have toned down the blue a bit and made a better photo.

The reason you're getting that blue cast is not because of the bluer light at noon (granted, that may be a small part of it) but because the snow is reflecting the extremely blue sky. The blue rocks at noon were probably due to light reflecting off the water.

To be totally honest, this seems like a silly question to me. Go out and take some photos. Or just use your eyes! The color cast you will get on film should be fairly obvious because it's the same color cast that's there naturally.

Velvia (and virtually all slide film) is calibrated for 5600K, blue light. (Read up on black body radiation if you are unfamiliar with color temperature, but what it boils down to is the lower (e.g. 3200K, tungsten lights) the more orange/red, the higher (e.g. 8000K, shade) the more blue/violet. Green/true white is around 4100K. The color temperature is not the exact color of all light emitted, but the average of a broad-spectrum light source and so the reference point for "white" on a given medium.

Noonday sun is about 5200K, so you should get a fairly neutral look at noon. Shadows may be blue because the sky is 20000K, they may also be whatever color the scene itself is primarily composed of because shadow areas are a mix of skylight and bounced light. Shooting at noon sucks, though! The contrast is very harsh and hard to work with.

Overcast days are around 6000K-8000K and should look rather blue, but velvia does very well with overcast days because it's magic. Greens will really "pop" when it's overcast and it's good for waterfalls or shooting in the forest. Overcast light is safe but boring to shoot in. The light halfway between overcast and sunny can be great.

"Magic hour" light (just before sunrise/sunset) varies between 3600K and 1800K (first light). But it's not strictly black-body in terms of how it looks so you may get nice colors, orange/red/purple in the case of alpenglow. That's the direct sunlight; the areas of shade will be quite blue while the sun is in the sky in late day or early morning.

"Blue hour" is when the sun has set and the entire sky is lit by skylight (20000K). You will get a very blue look. This can look cool with snow or something, a whole blue wash. I would hate to filter this, but some do.

Then there's tint imparted by reciprocity error. Velvia 50 should go green/blue and velvia 100 will go magenta with very long (8 seconds or longer) exposures. Longish exposures of velvia 100 at sunset can look nice; the extra magenta tint will really show up. This is also because velvia 100 is highly IR-sensitive and that shows up as an additional purple tint, which can either be distracting/inaccurate or very aesthetically nice. I still prefer velvia 50 but not for sunsets as it doesn't go purple in that nice way and the extra stop matters.

Imo, color filters are pretty pointless except for black and white contrast filters. Just try to have multiple colors or ideally complementary colors in frame as reference points against each other--or even just go for a wash of one color and let the natural tint fall where it may. (And then fix it to where you want it in photoshop.)

[roteague]

Thanks for that. May I still ask though, if you shoot at sunrise what kind of colour cast in any do you get. The same goes for the end of the day.

Velvia has a strong color cast if you shoot with a long shutter speed - over 2 seconds. In those cases you may want to use Velvia 100 or Provia F100.

[John Brady]

Are you scanning your film? Is so just color correct during the scan or in phot shop. I take some crazy long exposures and that's how I deal with it.

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