Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 8:29 PM -0300 9/24/99, Robert G. Stevens wrote: >Harrison: > >I was shooting some outside portraits at a seminar last weekend and I >happend to have ahlf a roll of E100VS in the camera. Although the images >are mediocre, it does give an idea of the skin tones on E100VS. They are >on the bottom of my misc page of my website. The fox picture was also on >E100VS. BTW, the fox was shot with the 105-280 at about 280 and the girls >were shot with the 400 F2.8 at F2.8 or F4 with a fill flash. > > I liked the E100VS so much when I tried it in Calgary a few months ago >that I ordered in a 100 foot roll of it. I think it deals better with the >shadows than Velvia. In the fox picture, you can see some detail in his >dark den behind him. With Velvia, this would be inky black. That's exactly it. Velvia (and most other Fuji films) have a steep toe, which translates to poor shadow separation. On the other hand, they generally have a gentle rolloff on the shoulder, which gives very good highlight separation. As a result, you can't overexpose Velvia as easily as the Kodak films, but you can underexpose it easily. This in turn means that while you tend to rate Velvia 1/3 or 1/2 stop lower than its nominal 50ISO, Kodak 100VS can be rated at 100 with similar metering technique. Also, while 100VS is hardly the best film for people, it's not quite the disaster that Velvia is. As a result, I now use 100VS when I need extra saturation, and switch to 100SW or 100S when I don't. These three make a good family. I haven't tried RDP III yet, but good as it may be, I doubt it complements Velvia as well as the Kodak offerings complement each other. Still, great to see the continual significant improvements in film. * Henning J. Wulff /|\ Wulff Photography & Design /###\ mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com |[ ]| http://www.archiphoto.com