Fashion: Why print film?

[mark liddell]

Just got the book "Outdoor lighting: fashion and galmour" which has

some great fashion stuff in it. Almost every shot is done on print

film, in particular kodak portra 160VS.

 

Since most fashion photographs are retouched and all enter the

digital domain before printing, why is print film favoured since

slide scans much better?

[Ed_Ingold]

Why do you say reversal film scans better? A lot of people may disagree.

[beauh44]

Hi Mark, I would think for two reasons: skin tone and wide exposure latitude. I do believe the best skin tones I've ever seen have come from Portra film. Best wishes . . .

[mike dixon]

Just because one particular lighting book you have was shot on print film doesn't mean that all fashion is shot on print film. What you see in fashion mags may well have been shot with digital or slide film.

[sauerwine]

Darn; I thought I liked Agfa for flesh tones best on color print film, but there's a marked loss in image sharpness.

[igord]

Neg gives you just different look, more "flat", paintery. Slides are more realistic, something like NG look or Playboy stuff.

[mark liddell]

Thanks for the answers guys.

 

The book is more a collection of work from over 24 different big name fashion photographers so I guess it is a pretty accurate representation of film/gear.

 

Tried Fuji 160NPC and that scanned poorly and my experiences with scanning b&w are even worse. Scanning the neg as slide seemed to help but not much.

 

Might give portra 160VS/VC a good and see how that fairs.

[ilkka_nissila]

Negative film is more optimized (through decades of application) towards people photography. The skin tones are better and neg film does not accentuate skin problems as much as slide or digital do. Also, there is less worry about the color of the light source (flash gives bluish results on faces when slide film is used). The overexposure latitude of negative film allows TTL flash to be used with good results (slide film needs to be exposed more precisely and high-contrast light often produces too high contrast results).

 

Negative film is difficult to scan with many scanners but not all. It depends on the software and the light source of the scanner. The grain is mostly the problem when scanning negatives with today's high-res scanners. The solution to that is to shoot medium format film where it doesn't matter so much.

[igord]

Try any 67 neg.

[blakley]

Any 67 neg will look nicer than any 35mm neg, but for all the reasons already cited above,

a lot of fashion pros use Portra 160 in 67. I prefer the NC to the VC because I like the

lower saturation, but either version gives really beautiful skin tones. Another reason

fashion pros use this film is that it reproduces certain colors, especially light pinks and

purples (which are often used for example in bridesmaid's dresses) more accurately than

many other films.

 

Having said all this, I really like Astia 100F too, but it's less forgiving and more contrasty.

[mark liddell]

For those of you that shoot kodak portra 160vs or nc in 6x7, what kind of size can you enlarge before you get visible grain when you go the scanned film route?

 

Got a few rolls of both on order to try out with my RB67

[igord]

Any size you want. I did 70x80cm with superb quality.

[olivier_koning]

Patrick Demarchelier (Vogue, Vanity Fair, Bazaar) assistant told me that they shoot almost exclusively negatives for on-location, actually Portra 400VC. Other advantages are slower battery drainage and shooting at faster speeds hand-held. On an full page, the grain difference compared to 160asa is minimal.

[aristotelis_grammatikakis]

I have yet to see a digital shot that does not have ungly skin tones. Models look like plastic store front dolls. Just because of that the quallity has dropped tremendously even on the highest budget fashion magazine, let alone the smaller ones.

[olivier_koning]

I tend to think the same, but I have been very impressed with the skin tone colors I'm getting with the Nikon D-70 with published work so far. I'm getting more pleasing results than some competitors using far more expensive digitals, in my humble opinion. I also think that the D-70 "noise" is closer to film grain characteristics, as opposed to that super-sharp, almost clinical look I'm seeing from other digital models.