First experience with Velvia 100f / purple shine

[brunomorez]

<p>Hi all,<br /> <br /> <br /> this summer I took my Nikon FE with me to the mountains (French Alps). I tried to get my hands on Velvia 100, but had to settle for Velia 100 f because that was the only Velvia available where I live (lots of contradicting info here, one salesman says they don't make it anymore, another one says they do, etc).<br /> <br /> Anyway, I read up a bit on landscape fotography and slide film, and tried to expose my slide film as accurately as possible.<br /> <br /> When being confronted with a lot of snow/glacier, I overexposed 1 stop.<br /> <br /> The slides look great! Very vivid colors, lovely blues, etc. Then I looked at the scans (done at the lab, so I can't tell you anything about the scanning procedure) and there's a very strong purple glare in a lot of them. Blues look great, but grey (rock), snow/ice have a purplish shine. Greens (trees, grass) look pretty flat. In general they look pretty cold.<br>

I have to say, the scenes contained hardly any yellow/orange/reds, so it's normal they aren't there, but still...</p>

<p>Did I do something wrong? Is this just the Velvia 100f? The scanning?<br /> <br /> Here are some examples:<br /> <br /> The purple shine (pretty ok in this one, some are much worse)<br>

<img src="http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/4085/000005r.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Flat greens<br>

<img src="http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/2593/000016a.jpg" alt="" /></p>

 

[charles_wood]

<p>I shot some Velvia 100F at high altitude in the Wind River Mtns in Wyoming and got a similar type of result although to my eye there was not much difference between the film on the light table than on the screen in terms of overall color balance. I also had a bit more magenta cast in my images. I assumed that I possibly had some heat exposed rolls because the look was similar to the results from some 4x5 sheet film that I shot and later found out it had gotten 'cooked' in a UPS truck.</p>

 

[charles_wood]

<p>Sorry, accidental double post.</p>

 

[brien_szabo]

<p>My experience with film (<em>because i experienced this as well</em>) was that when you got to high elevations, a UV filter took care of the color cast. That's what I was told and it worked. </p>

<p>But if the slides look great, then I'd have them redo the scans or at least get an explanation. A drum scan is a better scan but the cost is more. And sometimes you get guys who aren't "scanners". Scanning is its own art. In this digital age, the art of scanning is going the way of the dinosaur, so I'd check up on exactly who and how it was scanned - this kind of cast looks like it was a stick it in, scan it, here you go job..,</p>

[brunomorez]

<p>Thanks for the replies so far.</p>

<p>I'm going to get my own negative scanner in the nearby future, to take that step of the process in my own hands as well.</p>

<p>The film sustained some considerable temperature differences on my trip (stored them in a coolbox for a while) but nothing drastic (say between 10 and 30 ° C), I made sure my camera was in the shadow most of the time.</p>

<p> </p>

[brunomorez]

<p>Here's an example of a more 'serious' case of purple shine</p><div></div>

[david_littleboy__tokyo__ja]

<p>"The slides look great! "</p>

<p>If the slides look great, then the scans should look great too. Period. On a Nikon 8000/9000, Velvia 100F scans very nicely; fine grain, great detail, snappy colors. Very snappy colors. It's very fussy on exposure, but if you get it right, amazing.</p>

<p>Fuji claims that Velvia 100F has much more accurate color rendition than the other Velvia films, and it has noticeably finer grain than Velvia 50 (classic Velvia) when scanned. Classic Velvia 50 was discontinued and then reintroduced. All three Velvias are in production and available (in Tokyo, the last time I checked).</p>

<p>By the way, Nikon in Japan has discontinued both the Coolscan V and 5000, and only offers the 9000 as a special order item. There may be some new V/5000 units still in stock, though. If you are even vaguely thinking of getting a new Nikon film scanner, I'd recommend not waiting and grabbing one if you find it.</p>

 

[david_henderson]

<p>Slide films all vary in how they render colours and this as quite different from an overall cast. For neutral greys, Velvia 50 often looks a little yellowish; Velvia 100 can be close to neutral, and Velvia 100F seems often to appear a little magenta, which is what you have here. Similarly blue skies with Velvia 50 often seem to veer more to cyan than either Velvia 100 or 100F. Equally all velvias have a tendency to exaggerrate tiny hints of colour found especially when the light is low, but they will vary with their treatments with Velvia 100 in particular rendering reds particularly strongly in these circumstances. I don't like Velvia 100F very much at all</p>

<p>The bottom line is this. You have to choose a film that has an effect that you know and like. This might mean changing films for different types of scene. For example I would not use Velvia 100 for photography around dawn or dusk. Second the scans should in theory be the same colour as the original, but depending on how much you've paid for them this may or may not be completely realistic and a low cost scan is unlikely to include significant efforts to colour match the original slide. Many people seem to prefer to pay less and colour correct themselves in Photoshop or whatever on a calibrated screen. </p>

<p>Incidentally two of the shots you show here have skies that are , near the skyline at least,close to blowing out the colour altogether and also have very dense black shadow. Asuuming that this is true also of the originals, the dynamic range/contrast of the scene is at or beyond what you can successfully use this film to capture. Your "flat greens" may well be being worsened by this. There are a number of techniques and other film media you can use to improve what you've achieved. If its not true of the original slides then your lab is doing far worse things with your scans than making the greys look a little magenta . </p>

[leif_goodwin8]

<p>Yes, if the slides are fine, then the colour cast was introduced by the scan. Scanning is not easy, and if you get the wrong profile, there will be a cast. The shop might have used one standard profile for all film, or auto-profile for each file. Either way that is not as good as a custom profile for each film, be it slide or print.<br>

I seem to recall that most Kodak slide emulsions (not Kodachrome) can be scanned with a generic Kodak profile, and Fuji Sensia and Provia can use the same Fuji one, but Velvia needs its own.<br>

It is slightly odd that the clouds and snow look white, and do not show a cast.</p>

[benbangerter]

<p>There is an overall magenta cast. I little work with the Color Balance sliders in PS CS2 yields this. Not too hard to overcome, I think.</p><div></div>

[brunomorez]

<p>Thanks for the adjustment.</p>

<p>I've been doing the same this in CS2. Sliding the the colour balance slider for yellow-blue towards yellow elliminates the magenta cast and adds warmth to the greys and greens. The only problem is that it makes the sky less blue, which can be solved with a layermask.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[brunomorez]

<p>And the corrected version</p><div></div>

[Stock-Photos]

<p>Sometimes a cast on the original film will not be so evident when projecting that slide (very bright image)</p>

<p>A cast in the original is likely to be more noticeable in the scan (not so bright)</p>

<p>Also, more UV at high altitudes.</p>

[peter_hovmand]

<p>I would definitely recommend Velvia 100 (non F) for the high mountains - especially in the early morning, late afternoon. The F easily gets too cool under these conditions. And I can recommend any newer Nikon film scanner, they are excellent. But you have to callibrate your system for it - even if you get your scans from a company.</p>

[Mary Doo]

<p>The purple cast, and duller colors in general, are known issues with the Velvia F. I love the original Velvia 50. Velvia 100 is good too. They show their best when the subject has beautiful green, yellow, and blues.</p>