Back in my earliest days of shooting 35mm colour film - mainly slide film - I came across an article in a popular photo magazine comparing slide film to colour print film. The subject was a fair lady whose head-and-shoulders portrait was compared between a slide and a colour print film. I distinctly remember seeing the two photos as very different. The colour slide showed every hair and freckle and the colour print was much more 'diffuse' with respect to the details like individual hairs.
Can I say that this might be a 'local contrast' issue ? Or is it a granularity issue ? The ability to go from a blonde hair to a darker shadowed area only a few microns away.
I see in the Fujifilm datasheet for Fuji Velvia 100 that its Diffuse RMS figure is '8' (page 8 section 19). I see in the Fuji 160S Pro datasheet the Diffuse RMS figure is '3' (page 7 section 17). Has colour slide film changed that it might be on an even par with slide ??
I'm still not certain I'd like to buy colour print film because of the lack of punch but that may be an historical issue on my part.
What am I going to get with colour print film as compared to slide nowadays? The reason I ask is because I'm thinking that it might be better to shoot colour print in landscape work in particular to take advantage of the wider latitude. I don't want this wider latitude to stuff up details in my shot though. I do understand the suitability of the print film to portraiture where smoothing out the smaller and finer details is more pleasing for many.
And 'yes' I am thinking that little details in my photos are needed and desired. I'm not chasing a diffused landscape.
Your thoughts, especially relating to the film you can buy today, would be appreciated.
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