Well, I've been shooting the 100F and Provia 100 and Velvia 50 set at
50, and Astia which is also 100. And I'm not one to lug lots of
filters around and tweak every shot with those warming filters and
color polarizers. On this trip to the White Mountains I finally
consistently got into situations where I needed a 2-stop grad.
Around here on Cape Cod the horizon is so obstructed with trees and
houses and irregular shorelines and towers that a grad is a bit of a
dilemma.
And if your film is so cool that you need a warming filter, it's my
personal opinion that you need to complain to the film manufacturers
that they've gone too far with the exaggerated color palette.
Especially if you're using that filter on roll after roll.
Now, Velvia surely isn't very accurate in color reproduction. It's
the standard for the subject I shoot but I've never really been happy
with it. The world is contrasty enough without aggravating it with
Velvia 50.
So the Provia 100 has been somewhat better, except that it seemed
grainier than Velvia.
Now the Astia seems to be very appealing. The grain is really fine,
the color is more accurate and the speed is a big help, compared to
Velvia 50.
But this Velvia 100F is also very fine grained and, somehow, it
doesn't seem to punch the colors up so desperately as Velvia 50.
So I think I'll continue using both Astia and Velvia 100F and
finally, and gratefully, give up on Velvia 50.
By the time I'm done with this cycle of Fuji films, the world will
have gone completely digital and it will be a whole new set of
questions.
Testing? Well, it would be nice to have the budget and consistency
of processing to actually do the Rowell test shoot, but I can't
afford it yet. So when I can, I'll let you know what I figured out.
--
Emily L. Ferguson
mailto:elf@cape.com
508-563-6822
New England landscapes, wooden boats and races, press photography
http://www.vsu.cape.com/~elf
