Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/10/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Some time ago I asked for some colour film recommendations for a trip to Uluru in central Australia. Last night I went through my slides in a single sitting and what follows are some impressions of the 5 film types I used. As I am a novice chrome user and have not done any colour printing (yet), my theoretical knowledge is limited so be warned that these evaluations/comparisons are entirely subjective and non-technical. Buyer beware. Regards, Rob. ------- Kodachrome 64 - Rich and well balanced. Saturated at a third to 1 stop under it can be a little surreal and intense. Glorious blues and reds at these settings though. At normal exposure its ability to handle shadows (eg at sunset) makes it a forgiving film for 1st time users. Give me more. Kodachrome 200 - Don't know if I'm talking through my hat here but this film does nothing for me. The contrast range and colour saturation of the K64 seem to have gone. I would go to the extent of saying that this film is lifeless if I didn't suspect that my inexperience with colour and chromes was a contributing factor to my relatively poor results. K200? Count me out. Agfa RSX 50 - If it was still the 70's and brown was the fashionable avante guard colour of the moment this film could be king. The colour is well balanced but seems to excel in the brown/yellow-gold range. It is a bit cantankerous with under exposure - I'd tend to use normal exposure with this film and stay out of the shadows. I suspect that below 1/15s reciprocity failure becomes significant. My best results were with well lit general landscapes where its trueness of colour comes to the fore. My favourite shots were of Uluru after rain with the sun out. The rock looked like a glistening bar of Cadbury's chocolate and the bleached grass seed heads were wet gold. Spring gum leaves overhead transmitted a pure green to form a foreground frame and a bright red walking track leads into the distance following the receding line of mist enshrouded Uluru. The RSX 50 looks you in the eye and says that if you want sunlit brown, gold, green and red together in the one shot it will deliver and still have the energy to sprint home. Exposure was at 1/3 stop under. Agfa RSX 100 - Comments similar to RSX 50 but washed out in comparison. Use RSX 50. Fuji Velvia - I was determined not to hop on the Velvia bus. I had the impression from what I had read that this film was a bit green and I was travelling to the red, brown and blues of central Australia. Well, it rained for my first week at Uluru so the wild flowers screamed colour and the bleached golds became the greens of the best spring seen in the area for 8 years. My favourite slide of my trip is with Velvia. A mass of silvertails, a 2 foot high plant with a flower head like a greenish-white 3 inch long test tube brush were sidelit by the setting sun. One stop underexposed and the shadowy background lost its detail with the flower heads glowing against it like light bulbs. The Velvia green is phenomenally transparent and pure. A novice's fluke. The rest of my shots with Velvia equally impressed me with their liveliness. It handles the pure colours of flowers and sky amazingly well and understands what responsiveness to beauty means. It has a good exposure latitude and so is forgiving to clowns like me. No problem for use in shadows. I'm glad I took it along and would swap my rolls of RSX100 and K200 for it any day. Book me a seat on the Velvia bus - we'll form a convoy. Conclusion - For an orgy of landscape photography I would be content if I had a mix of K64 and Velvia with me. Their colour, liveliness and contrast latitude are great, and a third to one stop underexposed make you sit up and pay attention. For a peppering of people shots I would add some Agfa RSX 50, but would not be upset if it wasn't in my bag. ---------- > From: Garbutt, Robert > To: 'LUG' > Subject: Film recommendation please > Date: Friday, 5 September 1997 10:46AM > > I'm about to have a holiday. Does someone have a favourite > film (neg & chrome please) that can handle bright blue and > bright red side by side? > > Regards, > Rob.