Slide Film - On the Beach

Hello everyone,

<p>

I was planning a trip to Florida and was wondering if anyone had any

film suggestions for capturing very vivid swimsuits and nice sand

colors.

<p>

I have never shot in such a supposedly high UV environment before and

if anyone has any tips for making colors come out bright and vivid,

they would be greatly appreciated.

<p>

Also any tips on in-camera exposure tweaking and incident meter

tweaking to get these great colors would be greatly appreciated.

<p>

Thank You,

<br>Daniel

Made for Kodachrome 64.....

Almost any slide film will do just fine. My personal favorites include Kodak E100G, Fuji Astia 100F, and Fuji Velvia 100F. The first two are particularly good at handling caucasian skintones while still providing vivid, saturated colors.

I trust you have a suitable polariser? (but don't overdo it, bring it back a bit from max effect) Alternatively shoot late afternoon or early morning.

 

And have an assistant with a slightly goldish reflector to follow you around - if you are *really* serious..

Just curious: why slide film?

 

(Also be aware that Hans blindly recommends Kodachrome in every film thread here.)

I wanted to use slide film, because I like looking at slides, and I like the color and grain of it. I have a ton of Provia, but I was wondering if people have other suggestions.

<p>

I was also planning on bringing some 160NC & Reala to do kind of a travel log. Then If I get daring and decide to shoot like 5 rolls a day, whatever else I have in the fridge, namely 160VC, 200 max, and some 100 tmax. <p>I am very busy with school most of the time, and Omaha, Nebraska doesn't afford itself to many good people pictures, seeing how there isnt much of anything to do, and it is small. <p>I was going to use this trip as a great chance to try new films. I have a few rolls of Impressa 50 I haven't tried yet, but want to, any comments on it?<p>I have a thread going more about this trip in the "travel photography" forum, so If you want to know more, you can stop by there. Here is a URL; <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0076Ys"> http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0076Ys</a>

I'm a bit of a fan of Impresa 50 - but I always was strange..

 

Some folk don't like the fleshtones, but I think it is pretty kind to golden tans.. Does great blue skies, and acts rather like a slide film; VERY fine grained, very sharp and is quite fussy about exposure - just a *little* overexposure is good, say 2/3 stop. On the beach the low speed isn't going to be a problem, so I would say it's a good choice. Print on Kodak paper, not Fuji, according to Scott, but I have got good results on both papers - depends on your operator and whether they have a properly configured 'channel' I suspect.

<i> I wanted to use slide film, because I like looking at slides, and I like the color and

grain of it </i><p>

 

Slide film is contrastier than negative film, so think hard about whether you'd prefer

the results you'd get on the beach with slide film.

"�[� Z , jan 19, 2004; 10:35 a.m.

Just curious: why slide film?

 

(Also be aware that Hans blindly recommends Kodachrome in every film thread here.)"

 

Kodachrome does wonders with water and skin.

Would the contrast really be bad(ugly)?(honestly a question, no sarcasm).

<p>I was hoping it could be kinda contrasty to the point of 3D, I have seen 1 pic of kodachrome 64 of a girl in a swimsuit, and it was fabulous. That was what gave me the idea of using slide(nods to Hans). What would the benefits of neutral contrast film be as opposed to high contrast slide, on such an already high contrast subject as the beach? Can anyone post some examples?

<p>

-Dan

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005Bo1">Kodachrome: No Words</a>

None of those were shot on s sunny day on a beach. Add to that the well-known

problems scanning Kodachrome.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I haven't really had any problems scanning Kodachrome. In my experience, it doesn't require any more effort than scanning a consumer-level color print film.

 

Perhaps one drawback is that it won't work with infrared-based dust/scratch removal techniques, such as ICE or FARE... but that shouldn't be an issue if the slides are clean and scratch-free.

<i> I haven't really had any problems scanning Kodachrome. </i><p>

 

Posted yesterday on another photo discussion list: <p>

 

<b>(1)</b> <p>

 

<i> I came up against the dreaded blue cast when attempting to scan some

Kodachrome in my LS-2000. On Usenet, people have been fighting with this,

trying to find some easy tweak to the controls the controls to fix this. I

decided to buy a Kodachrome IT8 target and just profile the damn thing. I

found the slide at B&H, and the data file on the Kodak FTP site, and built a

profile. <p>

 

When I assigned the new profile to the scan of the IT8 target, it looked

very nice, but I was surprised to see that there was still a blue cast in

the light grays. After puzzling over this for a while, I decided to actually

look at the slide, and saw to my surprise that it actually had a visible

blue cast in that area. So the profile works. <p>

 

I also tried boosting the master analog gain on a dark slide, and comparing

the result to boosting the levels using PS Curves. I was relieved to find

that, while the former produced a cleaner result, the colors were identical.

In other words, the scanner is linear enough that the you don't need

different profiles for different master analog gain settings. <p>

 

If you want to correct for the blue cast without profiling, you can't do it

with the analog gain controls, because the problem is that the scanner is

misreading the density of the yellow dye, and there is no yellow dye left in

white areas. So if you cut back on the blue, whites will turn yellow. There

is no alternative but to apply some sort of curve. </i> <p>

 

<b>(2)</b> <p>

 

<i> Kodachrome films are unique in their processing in that they are almost

a dye transfer process. They start out as black and white films with a

number of extra filtering layers to make the color separations. The

actual color is added during the processing, with dyes. <p>

 

What that means is that the colors can be changed as "simply" as using a

different dye solution on one of more of the dye batches. Although I

don't know how many times such changes occurred, but Kodak changed the

colors in Kodachrome many times in its lifespan. Profiling will

certainly help accuracy, but be prepared for variations based upon age,

fade, and more importantly dye lot and Kodak's specs at the time. </i>

Sensia 100 is a nice, low contrast slide film for this type of work. If you're taking pictures of people, you really need fill flash and a capable camera (high flash synch) to bring down the contrast. (the same could be said for print film but for slide its an absolute necessity)

<I>None of those were shot on s sunny day on a beach</i><P>Doesn't matter to these guys. Even if you totally trash the shots with Kodachrome's typically non-existent lattitude with high contrast scenes like beach shooting they wouldn't care. Nothing speaks Kodachrome like blocked colors, hot-spots and 'wheel of fortune' at odds K14 processing.<P>E100G is probably the safest bet - even better with a polarizer. Provia will require a warming filter, Astia/Sensia might be too soft, and Velvia would require meticulous paying attention to contrast.

Scott, you're being nice again! (Well, to me anyway. For the moment. Because we

agree on one thing. ;-) )

If you happen to have an overcast day, Velvia (RVP 50) is gorgeous under these conditions. As I wouldn't want to boost colors under full sun I'd use Reala otherwise.

Scott:

 

Kodachrome 64 is the best bet for such photography. Your comments about latitude are false.

<i> Kodachrome 64 is the best bet for such photograph </i><p>

 

That's Hans's answer to every film question he replies to.

If it happens to be true (and it is), why do you object?

 

Other than for testing purposes, I have shot 1 roll of E-6 film in 20 years. I hated it. Velvia, I believe it is called.

<i> why do you object? </i><p>

 

Because you act blind to legitmate reasons for problems with Kodachrome every time

they are mentioned, and have done so from the first day (quite recently) that you

joined photo.net, and others (including one of the moderators here) have noted this

many times as well.

What 'problems' do you mean? Kodachrome has no special 'problems'!

<i> What 'problems' do you mean? Kodachrome has no special 'problems'! </i><p>

 

Like I said, you ignore or pooh-pooh known problems. Now you're just being

disingenuous, because you've discussed these issue numerous times here in hte past.

<p>

 

For anyone interested, just look at Hans's history of discussions on photo.net in the

few weeks he's been here, and you'll see what I'm saying.

<i>Other than for testing purposes, I have shot 1 roll of E-6 film in 20 years. I hated it. Velvia, I believe it is called.</i><p>I have no quarrel with Hans, but of course he thinks K64 is the best when he doesn't shoot any E6 films! I don't shoot Kodachrome and that's fine, maybe it is the best choice, but I'd place more stock in someone's opinion that has actually used a lot of the slide films out there. <p>There's more to E6 than Velvia and that would be my dead last choice to shoot at the beach on a sunny day. Unfortunately Kodachrome is on the way out...I think it will be completely dead in a few years.