Learning to shot Chrome film??

[stradibarrius]

When shooting film like Velvia or Provia what is the best method to get the correct exposure? I know B&W and color neg. film has more latitude when setting exposure.

[vinny]

spot meter is how I always do it and 95% of my exposures are right where I want them. or a good slr (slr won't teach you much)

[Preston]

As Vinny says, a spot meter is a good choice for metering your scene. Velvia has a useable dynamic range of about 4 stops, and Provia's is about 5 stops. The main concern is to keep the significant high values from blowing out. So, you'll want to expose for these.

In terms of a procedure, here's the method I use with a spot meter...

1. Meter your significant high values.
(I normally will place these between Zone VI-1/2 and Zone VII. This ensures I'll have good detail. Small, very bright areas will blow out)
2. Next, meter your significant low values to see where they fall on the scale.
(I have found that with transparency films, I can get decent detail at Zone III. Small, very dark areas will block up with no detail.)

I found that the response of transparency films is best when the scene's overall brightness range is on the low side. If the brightness range is too great, your best bet would be color negative. Provia is a little more forgiving than Velvia. Also, you'll need to pay attention to reciprocity with these films.

My best advice is to follow the general guidelines I've given above and then see what works best for you.

--P

[timparkin]

As Vinny says, a spot meter is a good choice for metering your scene. Velvia has a useable dynamic range of about 4 stops, and Provia's is about 5 stops. The main concern is to keep the significant high values from blowing out. So, you'll want to expose for these.

In terms of a procedure, here's the method I use with a spot meter...

1. Meter your significant high values.
(I normally will place these between Zone VI-1/2 and Zone VII. This ensures I'll have good detail. Small, very bright areas will blow out)
2. Next, meter your significant low values to see where they fall on the scale.
(I have found that with transparency films, I can get decent detail at Zone III. Small, very dark areas will block up with

--P

I've done a bit of digging with results below. This is for Velvia 50. This depends on your light meter but for me I now rate velvia at 40 for this scale

http://www.timparkin.co.uk/2008/02/updated-pentax-zone-sticker/

This is for a typical non drum scanner.

I also think you can probably push the shadows another stop and a half with a good drum scan or just a half or so with an modern, well set up Imacon

If you're cibachromeing then you'll probably get a stop less in the shadows.

Reciprocity acts on shadows only so less dynamic range by up to a stop for shots with reciprocity.

Provia is similar but you can get a bit more out of the shadows with a desktop scanner (but drum scans don't get the same amount extra as the dmax is less i.e. shadows for provia aren't as dense)

Astia has a bit more highlight tolerance.

Interestingly, these dynamic range figures are 'working' values. If you test velvia 50 using sensitometry, you get about 8 stops of dynamic range. It's just that your one degree spot meter for the shadows will be picking up a probable texture with a couple of stops of brightness itself hence the discrepancy.

Tim

[Preston]

Tim, your results pretty much tie in with my experience using a pro-sumer scanner (in my case a Microtek 1800f). I've also had drum scans of V-50 and 100, and again, your observations and mine agree.

It's true that Astia has better tolerance in the high values, but its palette tends to give blue skies a slightly yellow cast and it is quite sensitive to yellows, like fall foliage, dry grass, etc.. Careful scanning and Photoshop work is called for. Harley always gets on my case about my "Astia Yellows" (smiley face) so, I'm trying to be careful with that.

Thanks for your comments on this subject, Tim.

--P

[Eric James]

Check out this thread - it's loaded with great advice. Pay particular attention to Eric Leppanen's contribution.

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?19634-How-do-YOU-meter-for-transparencies

[Heroique]

What I’ve learned about exposure choices comes from a major source & a minor source.

The major source is hitting the field, taking notes about metering (always more detailed than I think necessary), bracketing if it makes sense, comparing final results back home w/ field notes (that never seem detailed enough), writing down “lessons learned,” then hitting the field again – to begin again this eternal cycle. Let’s just say I treat every trip as a “training mission” of sorts for the next trip.

The minor source – also helpful – is reading “how others do it” in threads like this.

[Alan Gales]

A spotmeter, as previously recommended, would definitely help. I used to shoot Kodachrome almost exclusively with my Contax 35mm camera using the in camera center bottom weighted meter. I also used to print using Cibachrome which is contrasty and adds to the problem.

If you shoot a lot of chromes you eventually learn what is too contrasty a scene to shoot. Bracketing helps until you learn but large format film is expensive to bracket. Spotmeters are not cheap but can pay for themselves with less wasted shots when shooting slide film.

[ShawnHoke]

I don't have a spotmeter, just a little Digisix meter. I've always, if I'm able to in the situation, used incident metering. It rarely lets me down, but I always consider the range of contrast in the scene when using transparency film.

I've just moved up to 8x10 from 4x5, so I think I'll be WAY more choosy about what to shoot. :)

[ignatiusjk]

Try using a Luna pro or spot meter and double check your exposure with a digital camera.Don't meter with the digital just use the digital to check exposure.If your meter says f16@125 shoot the digital at f16@125 if it's to dark or light then adjust from there. It's worked for me.

[Daniel Stone]

Problem when shooting chromes is this, btw, its usually something NOT mentioned ;)

Shutter speed ERROR(aka, timing is off)

The advantage of having a built-in shutter like on a 35mm or MF focal-plane bodied camera is that if the shutter is slow, all your lenses will be able to compensate the same amount. With LF, most people are using lenses that have INDIVIDUAL shutters, so every one is DIFFERENT. That means; to get the best results, you'll need to test EVERY lens you use to know where your exposure time is with each lens. Sounds complicated, but in all reality, it really isn't. Having a little card for each lens, so that you know that say for instance: 150mm lens @ 1/30(marked on shutter) is actually running @ 1/20, you know you'll need to compensate 1/3 of a stop with aperture for that lens. Same idea for every shutter speed, on every other lens you have in your kit.

There can be workarounds, such as using the Sinar DB shutter system with barrel lenses. This can also mean that lenses can be CHEAPER, and potentially more plentiful :D vs they're shuttered counterparts. The DB shutters are a CENTRAL shutter system, that means 1 shutter for all your lenses. Having a backup of these is also important too btw ;)!

Since transparency shooters are generally not 'spray and pray' type shooters, and more careful with exposures than those who shoot b/w or color negatives(at least that I've found), it behooves one to know EXACTLY how each of their lenses/shutters is running. This leads to less "surprises" post-development(and back home from a trip), and can allow one more ease of mind that their equipment is doing its job correctly, and that YOU, the operator, are the "weak link" in the chain...

Just some little things I've experienced in the past 2 years of shooting primarily transparency film.

-Dan

[ImSoNegative]

i use the spot meter as well, for me the trick is timing, either early morning or late evening or better yet an overcast day, its very easy to blow the highlights out or have blank shadows if you're not careful.

[Drew Wiley]

I learned photography with chromes and almost never goofed an exposure, even when I had a relatively primitive meter. Spot metering is preferable. In bright sunlight it is generally
wise to retain high values and just let the shadows block out in some pleasing sense
relative to the composition rather than blow out the highlights, but this is really an esthetic
decision. But after awhile one just gravitates toward the kind of lighting ratio which works. Here we get a lot of fog, which is a wonderful natural softbox. But I can shoot chromes
successfully anywhere.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Daniel Stone mentions something important above about the vagaries of metering for LF if you don't know the amount to compensate with your shutter timing. It's rarely as accurate at the high speeds with LF shutters, while modern SLRs have quartz oscillators to keep it in close specification (some pro level small film format cameras test the exposure each time the shutter is fired and report out if not within spec. At least my Nikon F5 did). Even with a very close spot meter in large format the exposure can be complicated by things like filter factors with ND grads and bellows extensions.

That said, I can get good chromes, within the realm of when the light will allow (Subject Brightness Range). That's often not going to be the case in outdoor settings, however, especially whenever there is strong specularity. I carry both neg and transparency films with me for when the light is fast changing and I want to nail the shot anyway.

It's about a gazillion times easier to shoot color neg materials like Portra with LF. Valid reasons for shooting chromes are you want a nice positive original. Ilfochrome (nee Cibachrome) is now kaput, so there really isn't much reason to learn the ins and outs of transparency. If the workflow of the lab you outsource your scans to can't handle neg films-- find another with a 16 bit scanner software that can!

At $7 a pop nowadays for 4X5 color... I'm shooting transparency less and less, squeaking by for the last couple of years of what remaining stocks I have of Astia for those scenes that I KNOW are within subject brightness ratio bounds, etc.

[stradibarrius]

How do I judge what scenes are within the bounds of the film? Is there a rule of thumb for the number of stops spread that transparency film can handle?

[Frank Petronio]

When people shot chromes for professional work - back when there might have been a useful reason to use E6 at all - all of the experienced and successful pros I assisted did brackets of six chromes, a third stop apart, at least one stop up and down. Or they did clip tests and push-pulled. The only people who assumed they could do the best exposure in one shot were amateurs. If you handed a client only one frame they'd be pissed.

Why do you think bracketing controls were some of the first "computerized" features built into 1980s cameras? And they had much more accurate electronic shutters than our mechanical large-format shutters.

There is no such thing as correct, perfect exposure anyways, so looking at a range reveals a lot of subtle details you'd never see if you only shot one.

All of the above is a huge argument for negative film ;-)

[John Brady]

I switched to color negative film recently for my 8x10 work, but I spent a lot of years shooting Velvia and Astia. My advice has mostly been mentioned but here is what I learned.
Use a spot meter, avoid mixed light. Meter for middle gray in the scene, soft lit grass or leaves will work.
Avoid blowing out the highlights.
Shoot in soft balanced light only, early morning or late day. Overcast works too.

My experience has been trying to use chromes in anything other than optimum situations is a waste of time and money. Shooting chromes will make you a better photographer but it's a frustrating way to get good.

Unless you have a very compelling reason to shoot chromes, negative film is a better choice.

www.timeandlight.com

[Leigh]

When shooting film like Velvia or Provia what is the best method to get the correct exposure?
Shoot at box speed. Use an incident light meter correctly and do what it says.

The film manufacturers have done far more testing than you would ever have the time or money to do.

The idea of using ZS makes sense for those few who have actually gone through the extensive testing and
system calibration required to do it right. Most of the folks advocating it are just trying to show off.

If you are really interested in using the ZS, start out as I suggested. Take spot meter readings of the various
scenes as you shoot, and keep copious notes of actual metered points and readings. Compare your results
with the developed chromes. Once you understand what zones VI and VII are you can start using the ZS.

- Leigh

[biedron]

How do I judge what scenes are within the bounds of the film? Is there a rule of thumb for the number of stops spread that transparency film can handle?

Once you determine the mid-tone, use your spot meter to measure the important highlights and shadows, and judge those measurements relative the mid tone.

A very broad rule of thumb for transparency film is roughly 4-5 stops total - roughly 2 stops above mid-tone, and 2 stops below. Again, that is a rough range. It will vary with film (Velvia 50 is probably close to 4 stops usable range), while Provia might be a little more. And the highlight end probably exhibits sensitivity to the color - e.g. blue may "blow out" with less exposure than red.

Assuming you are going to scan the transparencies, the type of scanner used will play a role in how much of the shadow detail you can eke out - drums scans giving the most shadow detail.

Split neutral-density filters are your friends for keeping highlight tones within bounds, but they aren't appropriate for every scene (need a more-or-less straight line demarcation between bright ad dark regions)

Bob

[Drew Wiley]

Frank - anyone who has to bracket a chrome is what I'd call an amateur. I've never bracketed in my entire life, and I've shot chromes in all kinds of cameras for decades in all
kinds of conditions, with almost never an exposure error. Who would want to hire a "pro"
who guesses exposure, or who racks up the budget machine-gunning LF film? I've never even wasted 35mm film like that. Maybe a backup chrome in a real dicey commercial shoot
if you didn't trust the E6 lab. But there were plenty of reputable E6 lines around here to
choose from.

[vinny]

Frank - anyone who has to bracket a chrome is what I'd call an amateur. I've never bracketed in my entire life, and I've shot chromes in all kinds of cameras for decades in all
kinds of conditions, with almost never an exposure error. Who would want to hire a "pro"
who guesses exposure, or who racks up the budget machine-gunning LF film? I've never even wasted 35mm film like that. Maybe a backup chrome in a real dicey commercial shoot
if you didn't trust the E6 lab. But there were plenty of reputable E6 lines around here to
choose from.
I've never known of a "pro" commercial photographer who DIDN'T bracket chromes. I guess you are the exception. Congrats.

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh ... must have been regional customs. Kodak must have loved you guys. Mr Brother
did commercial photog and graduated from Brooks. At that point, if you couldn't bag a chrome you didn't graduate from the program... and that was when gear was pretty primitive compared to now. I don't know what all the fuss is about. I mainly printed on
Cibachrome, which is itself high-contrast and intolerant of bad originals. Never occurred to
me that there's anything difficult or spooky about exposing chromes. Maybe everything
is intimidating to the cell phone generation (but then, I've never taken a photo with a
cell phone, nor do I know how to!). Check you shutter speeds and light meter for accuracy (true for all types of film, unless you're deliberately sloppy), don't trust gray
cards either unless tested ... then just go shoot and practice. Find a reliable lab for the
E6. No sasquatch or polar bear is going to come eat you just because you want to shoot
chrome. It's not all that difficult!

[Frank Petronio]

Drew, I got curious about your authority on all of these color matters, given your professed expertise with making Cibas and Dye Transfers and other challenges... so I looked up your website at http://www.drewwiley.com. After looking through your galleries, I agree, it would be pointless to bracket chromes, your images convinced me, Kudos.

[Drew Wiley]

Thanks Frank, but I'm really a beginner at dye transfer - that will be a bit of a retirement
hobby with thawed materials. In the meantime I'm going to be doing big poly C-prints from
the newer Kodak neg films, mostly 8x10 Ektar. Ciba days are mostly over. It's just that when I grew up one could buy Kodachrome in every little country store and bait shop around. Every farmer's wife knew how to do a slide show of their vacation. And the best seat in the house was way back in a dark corner where you could snooze thru the ordeal!
My older brother was selling Pentax, Linhof, and Rollei to pay his way thru school and got
me a very early Pentax SLR with an outside-coupled meter, and it just never occurred to
me that there is anything difficult about chromes. I've even got an old dye transfer pamphlet from even earlier days touting how easy the process is for home darkroom hobbyists! Then Ciba made it even eaiser. There was never a question about how to obtain
a good chrome itself. Early Agfachromes were higher contrast than even Kodachrome and gave lovely color, if very grainy by today's standards. Ektachrome 64, by comparison, was
a piece of cake latitude-wise.

[Greg Miller]

Nice one Frank ;) Is that the response you were expecting? :p

[vinny]

Drew, I got curious about your authority on all of these color matters, given your professed expertise with making Cibas and Dye Transfers and other challenges... so I looked up your website at http://www.drewwiley.com. After looking through your galleries, I agree, it would be pointless to bracket chromes, your images convinced me, Kudos.

someone hit the nail on the head.

[Drew Wiley]

So what "exactly" is the implication? I'm not interested in knucklehead web surfers trying to compare cell phone and DLSR images. There's a world of difference between a web JPEG and a real Cibachrome when someone is nose to nose with it. And if some of you think I'm bluffing, I could care less. Your loss. I give good throroughly tested information. And I never have bracketed anything. And I still don't understand the value of discouraging
anyone from shooting chromes by making them sound difficult. Outdoor photographers have
shot LF chromes for decades, under conditions much trickier than in the studio, and probably damn few of them could afford to duplicate shots, even if the wind and lighting allowed it. After awhile one just understands what a specific film is good for, and what it
is not, and begins to subconsciously select appropriate compositions and natural lighting
ratios. It becomes second nature.

[Preston]

Outdoor photographers have shot LF chromes for decades, under conditions much trickier than in the studio, and probably damn few of them could afford to duplicate shots, even if the wind and lighting allowed it. After awhile one just understands what a specific film is good for, and what it is not, and begins to subconsciously select appropriate compositions and natural lighting ratios. It becomes second nature.

This statement gets my vote. I rarely shoot more than one chrome of a scene--I can't afford to. In rare circumstances I may do a second shot if there's wind, I accidentally bump the camera, or the light changes for the better, but bracketing is out of the question for me.

Using chrome film is not rocket science, in my opinion. It simply takes a considered approach (like all photography) and having a mental and physical system in place that reduces the margin for error.

--P

[Drew Wiley]

I like the fact that I learned chrome even before black and white. That taught me not to
be sloppy or to rely on "latitude" even when using color neg or b&w. Now that I'm edging
toward geezerhood it gets even more important not to waste an extra shot - I lugging
around an 8x10 and Ries tripod most of the time, often on steep hills. How many film holders can I also carry? I might have three or four holders at the most for an outing -
two for b&w film, one with color neg, and one with tranny film. I ration myself one color
shot a week at most. Sometimes I do have to use my reserve sheet - it get's real windy
around here and once in awhile a gust shakes my camera at exactly the wrong moment,
or I might see a better composition and kick myself for needing the extra sheet. Of course
the lighting can suddenly change with a cloud moving over the sun etc - but I'm more likely
to gamble with that scenario with less expensive black and white rather than color.
or maybe I've done

[John Brady]

Shooting chromes is simple, just load it in a film holder and pop the shutter. Not having the finished image look like vomit is another story...

[Drew Wiley]

That's a ludicrous argument, John. I sell a lot of very expensive wooworking machinery among other things. Sure, there are guys out there that can take those things and build
a kitchen that looks like it was made with a chainsaw, double-bit axe, and horse rasp.
But there are plenty of other guys who routinely do splendid work. Don't blame the tools.
Incompetence is not the fault of the film or the printing paper.

[E. von Hoegh]

For what it's worth, I used a lot of transparency film when I was 13-14-15 years of age, in the early 70s. It was cheaper than color prints( I didn't have a darkroom); I could project the images. I was using a Kodak 35 with an f 3.5 lens and a pre WWII Weston 735(?) meter.
I still have those slides, Kodachromes and High Speed Ektachromes indoors. There are very few bad exposures, 5% or less. Moving forward to 1998, when I spent a month in Germany with a Nikon F and a LunaSix... maybe 3 or 4 bad exposures out of the 7 36 exp. rolls of Agfachrome I used.

Meter carefully, think about the lighting and you get a properly exposed chrome. It really is that simple. I don't bracket unless for some reason I cannot meter the scene, regardless of what film I am using. I really don't see what's so difficult; if you are properly utilising B&W film there's no latitude either. Maybe y'all are just a bit sloppy?

[Ivan J. Eberle]

If you don't know what it was like to shoot professionally for publications back in the days of optical color separations, or even early PMT scanning, you may never have felt the pain of rudely discovering just how exacting the needs of the print industry once were, versus what looked good--or amazingly good--to the hobbyist and slide projectionist.

We shot chromes because they were the only acceptable form of submission to publications, agencies, and print pre-press shops--that's why pros used the stuff. It wasn't particularly because we enjoyed the challenge of getting it right to within 1/3 or 1/6 of a stop of middle gray (bracketing), neither blocking up shadows nor blowing highlights with emulsions that might hold 10 stops on the light table but that couldn't/wouldn't be printed.

Print-house requirements, depending on the final use in print, sometimes meant as few as 3 or 4 stops to a maximum of 5 stops range. And the printshop wasn't about to eat the considerable added pre-press expense of USM masking. No, unless it was a once-in-a-lifetime or unrepeatable shot, you were expected to provide very tightly controlled exposures on transparency film. (If you submitted >5-stop transparencies, and particularly if the publication had a monthly deadline, you could expect your shadow detail to be lost when printing to a 133 line-screen web press).

But even among amateurs it was also a mostly unspoken canon that you could only shoot in near-perfect light with chromes. Much of the learning curve for proper exposure was spent discovering what range of subject brightness was best scrupulously avoided. Or conversely, how to turn these scenes into opportunities for silhouettes of your subject ;-)

[C. D. Keth]

Gosh ... must have been regional customs. Kodak must have loved you guys. Mr Brother
did commercial photog and graduated from Brooks. At that point, if you couldn't bag a chrome you didn't graduate from the program...


It's not about being able to do it first time or not. It's about having a safety. If you're hired to do a job, you had better do it well. Bracketing is very cheap insurance compared to pissing off a big client by needing a reshoot.

[Drew Wiley]

In the studio there were ways to easily balance the lighting ratio, and if you were still paranoid, you could do a Polaroid proof. Garden-variety magazine work did require tight lighting ratios, and I learned that lesson the hard way early on. Reflectors and diffusion tents simplify that for some outdoor work, or else you timed the natural light correctly.
Interior arch shots were more about lighting setup than the final shot itself. But in my
little niche, clients simply demanded me to supply the print - that's what I charged them
for, not the shoot per se. They didn't want anyone else printing it. Nowadays people just
don't have time for that kind of quality and want everything yesterday. You either have
to have quick access to a drum scanner or shoot digital to begin with, and the result is
mainly shared either on the web or on a laptop presentation. Fortunately, I can forget all
that nonsense now and concentrate on printing my personal work.

[Drew Wiley]

Ivan - you just stated it yourself. Aren't you a wildlife guy? Just how many retakes or
brackets do you get on a roving or running critter? Probably zero. You anticipate the light
and composition intuitively, and generally with the luxury of only a key meter reading or two. That's it. Shutter speeds and meter checked and calibrated in advance. Forget gray
cards - none of them are even close to 18%, except perhaps the correct patch on an
unfaded MacBeath chart. In fact, with lots of non-studio applications there is no second
chance. The lighting, clouds,or shadows change quickly.

[David_Senesac]

The most difficult task for anyone considering shooting large format color transparency film outdoors is setting exposures. Especially dimmer landscapes. It is not a mechanical process as some make it sound. Film and developing is too expensive to usually bracket unless one is stupid rich. Many outdoor landscapes have a rather wide range of exposure values often with extremes beyond the dynamic range of film. And only grays are accurate as zero exposure metered even values with other hues balanced at either higher plus values for light colors like yellow or minus values for dark colors like blue. Decifering all this standing in front of a complex landscape is more intuition than again a mechanical process. One thing for sure, I don't ever have to worry about many photographers ever being able to do it well.

Preston posted good advice. My background before shooting sheet film was similar to Alan G. During 80s into 90s when most 35mm SLR camera users had moved on to autoexposure metering, I stayed with a manual spot metering system which continued to teach me how to expose film by evaluating outdoor landscapes. Although I have 5 degree spot metering on my Shepherd Polaris Dual 5 Flash Meter, probably 90% of the time I use the incident dome sensor. Cost is much below 1 degree meters and the latter overkill since large format is really not telephoto oriented where that has more value.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/247140-REG/Shepherd_Polaris_SPD500_Polaris_Dual_5_Flash.html

When I first began exposing sheet film, the ratio of acceptable to mediocre exposures was poor. Finally after a few years preferring to continue shooting 6x7, I got serious, took a notebook with me I religiously recording information and in surprisingly short time synchronized the skill I already possessed evaluating exposures to results.

[Frank Petronio]

Other than making Cibas or some other dead print process, what advantages are there to making transparencies? Please educate me because I only see negatives to using chromes, pardon the pun.

I mean after shooting large format professionally for going on 29-years perhaps I missed something?

Right now we are finally at the peak of being able to make, control, and print color photographs thanks to the excellent films and workflows developed within the last 5-6 years. And it ain't got anything to do with using 1990s-era transparency films.

And yes, the notion that shooting outdoors is somehow more critical than studio work is laughable and a disservice to any newbies who stumble upon this thread. Some people declare themselves experts - check their work out before assuming verbiage equals results.

[Leigh]

Although I have 5 degree spot metering on my Shepherd Polaris Dual 5 Flash Meter, probably 90% of the time I use the incident dome sensor.
Same here. My Sekonic L-558 has both incident and 1° spot capabilities. I normally use the incident function.
I use the spot meter if there's an unusual situation or subject, or to confirm my assessment of the SBR.

- Leigh

[Heroique]

As a zealous proponent of field notes, I’ll use a spot meter whenever I can, which is by far most of the time.

And not just for the specific readings – varied or flat, steady or changing, easy or difficult – but for the deliberation it inspires. Call it a personal psychological issue. Overall, slowing down allows me to “catch-up” to more good shots than speeding up. It’s the opposite for some, and I understand and appreciate this, but it’s difficult for me to believe. ;)

Besides, the spot meter readings I write down usually surprise my expectations. As we all know, the relationship between light and surfaces is tricky. Especially in the forest.

[Heroique]

Here’s a woodland scene on Velvia-50.

It’s in Olympic Nat’l Forest (Wash. state), shot at box speed w/ my calibrated gear. (And my calibrated monitor seems to approximate what my light table shows.)

Some might like this melodramatic lighting – I do if I’m in the right mood – but if I shot this scene again, I’d probably choose negative film (or if E6, perhaps Astia) to capture more texture in the deepest shadows. On this day, however, I had only Velvia-50 to work with.

Usually, I avoid shooting Velvia-50 at, say, ISO-25 or ISO-40, because the improved shadow textures come at the expense of the film’s saturated colors which I like, and often blow important highlights.

Here’s what my Pentax digital said:

— Left tree trunk in shade = 7 ev
— Central mossy-green trunk = 9 ev (shaded portion) to 13 ev (sunlit portion)
— Foreground sunlight = 13 ev
— Background forest = 8 ev (shade) to 10 ev (sunlit)

I metered for 11 ev (using ISO 50) – understanding the film would struggle to capture textures below 8 ev and above 13 ev. I felt no need to bracket – I had enough time to meter carefully, and the lighting was constant. I knew what I was going to get. BTW, the left tree’s black side is a good example of what happens on Velvia-50 when shadow values fall below its narrow range!

Tachi 4x5
Schneider XL 110mm/5.6
Velvia-50
Epson 4990/Epson Scan

[Roger Cole]

Other than making Cibas or some other dead print process, what advantages are there to making transparencies? Please educate me because I only see negatives to using chromes, pardon the pun.

I mean after shooting large format professionally for going on 29-years perhaps I missed something?

Right now we are finally at the peak of being able to make, control, and print color photographs thanks to the excellent films and workflows developed within the last 5-6 years. And it ain't got anything to do with using 1990s-era transparency films.

And yes, the notion that shooting outdoors is somehow more critical than studio work is laughable and a disservice to any newbies who stumble upon this thread. Some people declare themselves experts - check their work out before assuming verbiage equals results.

For large format, which admittedly is the subject of this forum, I agree with you. I do have some 4x5 E100SW in the freezer but I bought it slightly expired and I'm shooting it for fun. In general for LF I want prints, and that means starting with negatives nowadays.

But there is a reason I shoot chrome film in 35mm and some in medium format, and that reason is projection. I need to get a MF projector, then I'm sure I'll shoot more in 120. As it is, I mostly shoot it in 35mm. Nothing really beats the impact of a nice projected slide.

[dave_whatever]

Everyone always seems to pipe up with this theory that there's no need to shoot slide film anymore, but I remain unconvinced that you can get decent colour (i.e. what a velvia shooter calls decent colour) out of scanned neg film. I've certainly never managed it. I often think colour neg embodies all the disadvantages of film (inconvenience of handling and processing, and cost per shot) with all the disadvantages of digital (poor colours unless you dedicate half your life to hamming each shot in post).

[Frank Petronio]

Maybe you should learn how to scan it? People seem to manage quite well with it, sales numbers certainly reinforce that.

[dave_whatever]

Sales numbers also state that mcdonalds is quality food. There's no accounting for taste.

I'm also not encouraged when I see the colours everyone else gets out of neg film for landscapes. The closest thing to my idea of acceptable I've seen is Ektar.

[Frank Petronio]

OK, to each their own.

[Preston]

OK, to each their own.

True enough. I have shot chromes for a long time from 35mm to 645 to 4x5. I really like the look. Having said that, I also like the look of photographs from color neg film. In fact, I just loaded a pile of holders with Portra 160 and Ektar to go along with my pile of Astia for a trip to Yosemite. They each have their place in my work.

--P

[Drew Wiley]

I think there are still significant advantages to shooting chrome. You can quickly evaluate
your work on a lightbox and accelerate the learning curve. LF chrome is still the standard for outdoor stock photography - I see lots of its still being published. It can also be readily
printed via scanning. I'm a darkroom printer myself, so have largely switched over to Ektar
now that Ciba is gone, though I am also in the process of refining Portra internegs for printing. And overall, it's none of my business pontificating how a studio chooses to hedge
its bets with bracketing etc - but on the flip side of the coin, wilderness LF photog is also
a legit business to some, and I'd just like to see some of you studio guys lug around an 80lb pack of LF and camping gear thru the mtns or deserts for ten days and see just how much extra film or holders you want to pile on top of that just for the luxury of bracketing!
And for us 8x10 shooters at fifteen to twenty dollars a pop for film and processing, the
sheer economics of it dictate getting things right the first time. Obviously, those of us who
have shot chrome for many years aren't either spooked by it or prone to scare others away
from experimenting with it. Learning how to correctly meter is just like any other acquired
skill like driving a car.

[rdenney]

I've made tens of thousands of chromes. They all represent a slice through the tonality of the scene. Generally, if the mid-tones read realistically or even a bit dark, the slide will project well, even if some highlights are blown. I can well imagine that commercial clients would be very picky about which slice they wanted.

But making chromes for printing have to achieve a different standard. The dark areas will drop through the floor, if the print is made to hold the highlights. The little bit of underexposure that added saturation to projected slides would turn against me, and I found myself needing the mid tones to be a bit high to print well. Sure, there are highly sophisticated and laborious ways of dealing with this, but how much effort is one willing to endure? Again, I can imagine that commercial clients would be sensitive to that in far different ways than landscape photographers. I'm sensitive to it because time is a precious and limited commodity for me.

I find from looking at a lot of landscape work done on Velvia that one has to be pretty fearless about letting portions of the image just go black, and compose accordingly. Don't hire a cat to do a dog's job.

I have Velvia photos, even some made recently, that lost a bit of shadow detail noticeably because I want the saturated colors to remain so, even in very flat scenes. It's what seems to me the Velvia trade off. I bet I burned half a dozen Fujiroids trying to nail the exposure for one of them, but Velvia is so sensitive to small exposure differences that the 'roids just weren't precise enough.

I've never been a fan of grads, because most of the time they announce their presence rather loudly.

I can't say that I struggle less with chromes than with negatives, once scanned. But I struggle more with getting scans of chromes that don't clip the histogram. Again, dollars can be supplied for drum scans that do better; dollars many of us don't routinely have. The problem with negatives for me is restoring the mid-range contrast without getting color crossovers.

Negatives present more choices when it comes to making prints. More tonal range is available and therefore more decisions are required as to how to render that range in the print. Trying to capture the whole range necessarily leaves some parts of it rather flat, which is anathema to the Velvia point of view. For me it's like the programming I did decades ago. I could produce work much faster using Pascal, which provided only one or two ways to accomplish any given need. Then, I started programming in C, and everything took ten times as long, because there were ten times as many ways of doing things, all of which had to be explored before a choice could be made. Velvia is easy to adjust in Photoshop for some, perhaps, but you get what you get.

Rick "whose freezer has plenty of each" Denney

[sanking]

The best advice I ever got from an old photographer who really knew his stuff was, "quit wasting your time shooting transparencies."

Sandy

[Drew Wiley]

Why not quit printing carbon, Sandy? Isn't THAT too tricky for a WalMart printing booth
to get correct too? Apparently thousands of photographers over decades ever since the
advent of Kodachrome just didn't know their stuff, according to your definition.

[Drew Wiley]

Rick - the challenges with color neg mostly affect gamut, and they're pretty serious unless
one is just aiming for skintone (no- you geeks, I'm not referring to viewing screen gamut!)
How chromes are to be precisely exposed depends on the application. Back when there
were serious slide show contests among pros with real career reputations on the line, it
was a common habit to underexpose the slides about half a stop. Then for garden-variety
halftone repro, the overall latitude had to be curtailed at both ends. I did largely advanced
Ciba printing for years, which needs a little different exposure and film choice. An editor
would want a chrome that looked good to the eye on a standardized lightbox. But this is
all about fine-tuning technique. Basic technique with chromes isn't all that difficult.

[Alan Gales]

There is no such thing as correct, perfect exposure anyways, so looking at a range reveals a lot of subtle details you'd never see if you only shot one.

Amen!

When I first starting shooting 35mm slides I would shoot my correct exposure, plus over and under expose for one and two stops making a total of 5 exposures. I ended up coming to the exact same conclusion as you, Frank.

After I got better at understanding exposure I would only occasionally bracket on really important (to me) shots. Of course I was just an amateur and only had to worry about pleasing myself.

[sanking]

Why not quit printing carbon, Sandy? Isn't THAT too tricky for a WalMart printing booth
to get correct too? Apparently thousands of photographers over decades ever since the
advent of Kodachrome just didn't know their stuff, according to your definition.

Drew,

Let's try to avoid silly comparisons.

I merely quoted an old photographer who was commenting back in the early 80s about my color prints from slides. He did not like the tonal qualities of my color work and was suggesting that I could improve by using color negative film. And in retrospect he was certainly right, at least as far as I am concerned. In fact, the best prints I made in that period were made from in-camera color separations on B&W film, not from slides and not from color negative film.

Chromes are nice if a color transparency is the desired final product. But if the final product is a print, color negative film has many advantages over transparency film, IMO.

Sandy

[Roger Cole]

Chromes are nice if a color transparency is the desired final product. But if the final product is a print, color negative film has many advantages over transparency film, IMO.

Sandy

Dingdingding - winner. (Especially with Ciba gone now. When it was an option it wasn't always better than C-41/RA4, but when it worked with the subject and light it was stunning.)

[Roger Cole]

I'm reading a lot of references to Velvia here and not being able to get color negs to look like Velvia - to which I say, "thank goodness for that."

Don't get me wrong, I like Velvia (and the now lamented E100VS which I always found a little easier to deal with) for some subjects in some light, mainly subjects that could use some color boost in light that starts out rather flat. But I think Velvia and now digital saturation control has...well, let's say it's moved the common aesthetic to one I often don't personally care for. If you want cartoons, learn to paint cartoons.

[Drew Wiley]

Sandy - both of us probably have a lot of respect for Richard Kaufman's contribution to
both color pigment and dye transfer printing. He was one of those guys adamant about the
superiority of color negs from way back. I know a few other well-known folks. But for every
one of them, there are plenty in the opposite camp which favors transparencies. Each has
his own reasons. At the moment, I've got one foot in both, and I know why. And for where
each counts, I think I can pull a color print as well as anyone alive. But certainly in terms
of exploiting the wonderful scale potential and richness of a quad carbon, it would be hard
to beat tricolor separations directly onto black and white film.

[Drew Wiley]

Roger - Ciba isn't quite gone yet - some of it still lies lurking in secret, along with
even more classic color materials presumed extinct. If they can clone a mammoth from frozen DNA, no telling what kind of monstrosity might emerge from my freezer along with some forgotten rancid potstickers and maybe an extra Thanksgiving turkey from some previous year!

[Roger Cole]

Roger - Ciba isn't quite gone yet - some of it still lies lurking in secret, along with
even more classic color materials presumed extinct. If they can clone a mammoth from frozen DNA, no telling what kind of monstrosity might emerge from my freezer along with some forgotten rancid potstickers and maybe an extra Thanksgiving turkey from some previous year!

Well yeah - presumably the information on how to make it is still there. Kodachrome could be resurrected too. I think the Mammoth is more likely, though. :( (Not that a cloned mammoth wouldn't be a very cool accomplishment...) As for your freezer, well yeah, of course some people still have it. I don't think it keeps well for very long times, though.

[Drew Wiley]

My bet is that it kept better than the turkey did. Besides, expired printing paper can always be donated to the pizza parlor down the road. Anything would be an improvement
on their current crust.

[Preston]

Besides, expired printing paper can always be donated to the pizza parlor down the road. Anything would be an improvement on their current crust.

Wouldn't that be called indecent exposure, Drew? :-)

--P

[sanking]

Sandy - both of us probably have a lot of respect for Richard Kaufman's contribution to
both color pigment and dye transfer printing. He was one of those guys adamant about the
superiority of color negs from way back. I know a few other well-known folks. But for every
one of them, there are plenty in the opposite camp which favors transparencies. Each has
his own reasons. At the moment, I've got one foot in both, and I know why. And for where
each counts, I think I can pull a color print as well as anyone alive. But certainly in terms
of exploiting the wonderful scale potential and richness of a quad carbon, it would be hard
to beat tricolor separations directly onto black and white film.

Drew,

Yes, we agree about Richard Kaufman's contributions.

As for the superiority of color negatives or color transparences when the final product is a print, I will also agree that both camps have their reasons, as you say. I have seen many good prints, and many bad and mediocre ones, made with both types of film. And I am personally responsible for many of the bad and mediocre ones I saw.

Sandy

[David_Senesac]

One of the issues with transparency film is there are many photographers basing their experience on high saturation films, especially Velvia which is rather contrasty. Of course many love the film because it can make even boring colored subjects rich. But that is also why this person and many others eventually went to Provia and Astia. Not only more dynamic range but also more accurate color. Still not nearly as dynamic as negative film but if one picks their subjects within the range of the film, results are fine. And like Drew I really value being able to look at a transparency on a lightbox instead of trying to recall what a scene looked liked days later on a computer monitor with my memory. At that point its mostly imagination.

So to the OP, if you are considering using chrome film, stay away from the favorite contrasty choice while if prints are your primary goal, negative film may be a better choice to become familiar with especially if you have an expensive scanner available.