Fugi Velvia, How i love thee

[fightheheathens]

i just have to say that every time that little slide box comes back from the lab full of recently developed velvia 50 i am newely amazed at the brightness and pop of the colors. I just have to say that i will probably go digital in the next year, but i can say for shure, that my trust film body will always have a location at my side filled with some nice velvia or b&W


..and ill post some pictures once i can get some good scans of them...



end rant

 

[fmw]

I wouldn't call it accurate color, but Velvia does have a lot of color saturation. Try the Velvia 100. It is even better.

 

[terri]

Velvia is the film lover's answer to hitting the "saturation" button too hard in PS.

That said, I've always loved the stuff. Fuji has always been my first choice for color slide film. Quality stuff.

 

[Alex_B]

it depends on what you actually photograph ... velvia is certainly not the choice when you want accurate colours, but for many occasions in nature and wildlife.. or in pop&punch (whohaa, invented a phrase here ) architectural photography.

I love it too ...
.. my personal favourite is the Velvia 100 F ... I tried the 100 and the 100 F and found the 100 F way better, in particular when you scan it. The 100 F seems to be closer to the 50 ... and the grain is just as fine.

 

[selmerdave]

Velvia is the film equivalent of a very hot chick...

Dave

 

[fightheheathens]

^ hahahahahahaha......hahahahaha...

 

[jwkwd]

Velvia ( 100 ) is one of the reasons why I have not jumped onto the digital bandwagon, not that I was going to anyhow. In many articles you may read, slide film is still the one format that digital tries to compare itself to. Keeping in mind that this is my opinion but, there is still something about a properly exposed slide that digital just will never be able to duplicate. Of course if you spend hours and hours in PS...........

 

[Alex_B]

there is still something about a properly exposed slide that digital just will never be able to duplicate. Of course if you spend hours and hours in PS...........

to my experience (but then again I am not an expert anyhow), exposing digital properly is just as hard as exposing say a Velvia 100. Dynamical range appears similar to me in both cases. So if you have a PROPERLY exposed digital image, it hold well against a properly exposed slide film. It is only that there are more newbies shooting digital these days, so the fraction of poorly exposed digital images is larger than the fraction of poorly exposed slides IMHO.

Again, if you have a decently exposed digital image, it does not require much time in Photoshop, if any time at all. And something like the velvia characteristics in saturation and contrast you can get rather quickly when tweaking the curves in your RAW converter or in PS a bit. .. or when you use a velvia-profile in the RAW to image conversion (never done that myself though).

In principle the characteristics of the image as the sensor gets it is rather flat / linear .. then, either in camera or in your RAW converter, this image is translated into an image worth looking at (not always ) by applying characteristic curves for brightness and colour to the histogram. And these curves are arbitrary, depend on the camera, on the software and often you can select among various profiles. Some of these profiles can mimic the charcteristics of a certain type of film, like velvia.

Don't get me wrong, I like velvia a lot and I shoot in velvia. But I also shoot digital and I have the feeling that reproducing good results is equally hard, and to make the two look similar is rather easy.

Just MHO. Would not count too much on me being right in this matter

 

[fmw]

Keeping in mind that this is my opinion but, there is still something about a properly exposed slide that digital just will never be able to duplicate. Of course if you spend hours and hours in PS...........

Unfortunately that opinion isn't really borne out by the facts. Back in the 1 megapixel days (only a few years ago,) it was certainly true. Now, with 5 - 10 times the resolution and 16 bit depth, digital actually has more "something" than film ever did. It is really obvious if you view things objectively.

The other reality is that digital has less exposure latitude than film does. It requires more precise exposure control because post processing invoves side effects. Correcting a poor exposure, as an example, introduces noise to the image. People think Photoshop is a free ride to correcting any bad imagery. It isn't.

I truly do understand the emotional appeal of good old film. I use it myself and enjoy it like I have for 1/2 a century. Velvia 100 was always my choice for 35mm transparency film. I use Provia in my new medium format camera and always did in the past. I could have papered my walls in green with the film boxes. But I don't scratch my head and wonder why everyone is abandoning it and moving to digital. I understand that very clearly.

 

[Alex_B]

People think Photoshop is a free ride to correcting any bad imagery. It isn't.

I agree, it is good to correct minor flaws in exposure though ... and it is a great tool to push nicely exposed images in complicated situations (light-wise) to the better end.

 

[ironsidephoto]

i use velvia 100F for my cross-processed shots.
(you can see some on my site if you'd like)

 

[Flash Harry]

fuji film as far as I'me concerned was always superior, both slide and neg, and the paper is the business too, I also use their digital pro cameras, a fuji man through n through.

 

[fightheheathens]

Now, with 5 - 10 times the resolution and 16 bit depth, digital actually has more "something" than film ever did.




-to be fair, i have never seen a digital print more then 3-4 feet across...why? 12 mp is not enough to make that large of an image.
however, i have seen 35mm slide film enlarged to 3x2 meters with grain only visable at about 1 foot viewing distance.

in my experience, digital is better then any color film ISO 200 or above. But i have yet to see results from digital that surpas in color rendition sharpness, and smoothness, something shot on Fugi slide film or Kodachrome.

 

[LifesMirror]

Im in LOVE with the Digital Bandwagon and hype, it makes my film equipment more affordable,lol.

 

[ksmattfish]

slide film is still the one format that digital tries to compare itself to.

My peers who shoot slide film (mostly 4x5 Velvia) are all complaining that the new Velvia has the saturation cranked up even higher than "old" Velvia. Too high in their opinion. They feel it's Fuji trying to compete with digital output.