Newbie Question: Velvia 50 MF Exposure

[allenmacaulay]

Sounds like a good idea - I'll have my S95 with me.
Especially the histogram might help a lot to see the scenes luminosity distribution in a more technical way.

Since you have a Canon this opens up yet another option.  You can load the Canon Hack software onto a memory card which then enables all sorts of options such as a live RGB histogram, clipping indicators, Zebra mode which highlights all the blown and blocked up parts of a scene, and various other fun things.

Velvia was the trickiest film I ever used. The only way I could be sure of getting an optimum exposure was to bracket.

But it gets worse, what looked to be the optimum exposure on the lightbox was often not the optimum exposure for scanning. And it gets even worse, the optimum exposure for scanning depended on the type of scanner. Flatbed scans couldn't extract anything like the shadow detail of drumscans.

Boy did I find out about that one the hard way.  After my initial struggles I finally managed to get pictures which looked great on my slide projector only to have them look like complete crap when I tried to scan them.  Then again I have a cheap consumer level scanner which is only used for sharing photos on the web, when I had the same pictures scanned by someone using a Nikon 9000ED the results were a lot better but it still flaked out on a few pictures.  I've considered having one of those frames drum scanned just to see how it turns out but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Just installed CHDK again (I had done this months ago).
The RGB Histogram looks interesting along with teh Zebra mode as well.
Now I'm just a bit afraid how accurate the cameras ISO will match my film ISO.

[MarkL]

Now I'm just a bit afraid how accurate the cameras ISO will match my film ISO.

Doesn't fix the film ISO accuracy side but with my D700 I used the true iso found by the tests on dxo and it now agrees with my sekonic meter. May be a good first step.

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Well - my holidays are over now and today I shot the last of 10 rolls of Velvia 50.
I'll know within the next days how it all worked ....

[N Walker]

Velvia was my first film choice for pro golf coverage (probably exposed around 200,000 frames) - most sports agencies used Velvia in daylight - some routinely pushed to 80 ISO.  For my E6 plot Lab 40 ISO was not over exposure, it was just right with no highlights blown for repro. Fuji's 50 ISO rating was bunkum, it was already heavily over-saturated with deep shadows and grey whites at 40 ISO - not to say that 50-64 should not be used for effect.

Scanning my library of golf images over the past 12 years using Imacon and Nikon scanners I now wish I had rated Velvia at 32 ISO as the highlights have been no where near clipping at 40 ISO. In fact with hindsight it would have been better to use Provia as its shadows are slightly kinder for scanning. However at the time Provia, in comparison to Velvia, just didn't pop on the lightbox; art directors in my industry craved for velvia for its saturated colours, especially for recording golf course greens.

Don't restrict yourself to shooting Velvia in soft light, experiment to take advantage of Velvias high contrast by using it in the harshest light; it will turn shaded backgrounds to gorgeous darker tones or black. There is a limited window of light to light subjects with no or little shadow under full sunlight and yet render uninteresting backgrounds very dark or black. After the golden hour when the sun is past its best, backlighting is normally adopted so that faces, especially under hats, can be clearly seen.


I attach a few basic examples of shooting Velvia in full sunlight.

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

I just returned to Hamburg today, but I actually shot a bunch of Velvia in quite contrasty light.
I even dared to use a polarizer on some shots.
I'll keep you updated once its all developped and scanned!

[KLaban]

Here's a couple of Velvia images shot in contrasty light.

http://www.keithlaban.co.uk/227_12_large.html

http://www.keithlaban.co.uk/241_11_large.html

Very little in the way of deep shadow to block up. It can work, but a film with 5 stops DR is probably not best suited to most subjects in harsh light.

As has been said elsewhere, use for effect.

[KLaban]

Here's another in really contrasty light, shot with pola for effect.

http://www.keithlaban.co.uk/116_6_large.html

[KLaban]

I just returned to Hamburg today, but I actually shot a bunch of Velvia in quite contrasty light.
I even dared to use a polarizer on some shots.
I'll keep you updated once its all developped and scanned!

It would be interesting to hear how you got on.

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

It would be interesting to hear how you got on.

The films are developed and look mainly good.
Some exposures failed, but not too much.
I'll keep you updated when I have scans.

Cheers
~Chris