Island Showers (Wakani Falls) Maui

C, Longs Drugs.

 

What a fun exchange you guys had going. I will answer your question in detail a little later though. Yesterday morning I had to put my loyal companion of 14 years, Hooch, to sleep. Been quite a rotten couple of days since. Will get back soon. Aloha.

Jayme I changed a letter in a word - it wasn't a viewpoint - (-;

 

Now Steven be nice - (-;

 

Wow, sorry to hear that Vince - is there a pic of your dog here ?

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3015828

That's not Hooch Kenny. But it is a nice capture. Hooch in a word, was the perfect dog for me!

 

No Jayme, I do not develop my own, or supervise the development of my film. Many years ago I did develop, and E-6 is relatively simple to do. I've also tried smaller dunk and dip labs locally, but did have problems with consistency. Now I take my film to the local Longs Drugs (have already had this conversation with Steven) because they have the best tracking system anywhere in Hawaii. They in turn send it to Qualex, a Kodak approved/certified lab that has been very consisent. They just recently started farming it out and a few problems have followed. They are on a mini probation in my book.

 

Velvia is very important if rich colors is your aim. I still use the slowest and best for color, asa 50. As Kenny pointed out the combination of Velvia and a polarizer to remove glare does give you the best possible opportunity for color maximizing. In this case conditions were also optimal. For waterfalls like this I really prefer overcast conditions as was the case here. However, the clouds were not the dark thick variety, but a thinner, brighter type which allowed for the scene to practically glow. I noticed just how good conditions were as soon as I arrived... and then shot until all angles were covered. Hope this answers your question. Thanks for the compliments. Thanks KW too for the entertainment. Aloha.

Vincent- Sorry to hear about your dog, it's like loosing a member of the family.

 

Your response does help. Having shot film for many years, my experiences with different labs were eye opening. I learned a lot from a local photographer/ camera store owner who kind of took me under his wing. He explained the various things you can request when you develop your film. I was just wondering if things had changed much. I remember having the same print re-printed 3 times and each time it was different. It was almost enough to make you start developing your own stuff. Now with all the "color" checkers, you'd think it would have improved. It sounds as if it has not changed much, still kind of relies on the person and/or the machine doing the work. Thanks, and I really do love this image, it's fantastic, actually magical.

 

Ken

 

FYI, I'd much prefer honesty instead of "witty words" with derogatory connotations. They tend to confuse the listener/ reader. The attempt usually backfires and makes the user appear both arrogant and somewhat archaic, not that this describes you :) And besides that, I find it's kind of rude!

 

Change a letter, change the meaning. PhotoShop vs. PhotoChop? To me, you are implying PhotoShop is bad. "Chopping" or botching an image. Did I misunderstand your connotations? Most, if not all, professional film developers use some like or similar software to adjust the color, exposure, contrast, etc of your film prior to it's printing. They use names like "Perfect Touch", "VividPics" and other such things. I don't much care for them myself and never use them when printing my digital images. But I am sure others do like them.

 

Film users are not the only ones who use this new language. For example: I recently had a conversation with a former film lover now turned digital lover refer to Velvia film as the "Velveeta" of films, implying, it's kind of cheesy looking. I hate this and I voiced my strong objections then too. While sometimes humorous, these witty antonymic words benefit none of us, they may only serve to irritate and further widen the divide between film & digital users. And "yes" arrogant IS my middle name! Big, big smile :)

Post a pic of Hooch over there when you get a chance Vince - I'd like that ...

Here are my boys. Hooch is on the right. Barney (on the left) and I are sure missing him.

 

Yes Jayme Velvia can look like Velveeta, almost cartoonish if conditions are too harsh, or if even slightly over-exposed. However, when it is used correctly, there is no film, no digital outfit that I have seen, capable of duplicating it's richness, contrast, tones... and wow factor.

Hum... Vincent, I hear you, but I can't help but think that once your image is scanned to digital, it IS in fact digital and the image we are viewing is not film anymore. So... I have to say your digital image looks pretty darn good from here. My only request is that you put up some larger images, say 1200x something. We'd all like to enjoy the details of film.

I should have said, no digital outfit capable of "capturing" a locations richness tones etc like Velvia. At least nothing that I've yet seen.

 

You guys are too word specific for me. Think I'm heading out Maui for a few days. Aloha.

Vince, I'm also sorry to hear about the loss of your dog.

I would like to say that I havent shot film for 20 years. Just in the past 2, I've picked up photography again, but went digital. It's amazing...and through the wonders of photoshop, if processed properly, can reproduce rich colors equaling Velvita...oops I meant Velvia. In fact there's plug ins that are named velvia (see fred mirandas web site). I've oversaturated waterfalls to bring out the lush greens, but it inadvertantly made the water neon blue, very similar to the effect I see here in this image.

The colors here are beautiful, and though not real world (we're not talking about photo journalism here), this scene does not exist. I'm not bashing it, hell...I hear that about my images all the time so I can relate. But, we are talking about art. And put all the V Tyler fans out of the equation, this image would still have pretty high ratings.

I just wanted to counter the statement that said you can only get this rich color from a film camera and not digital. That's just not true. You must not have played much with PS and RAW files to make a statement like that...

 

Now, for my personal taste...I'd like to see just a little desaturation of the cyans and blues, perhaps 8-12% would straighten it out to my personal tastes, but that's my preference for art...

Oh yeah...there's a few hot spots which could be fixed on the closest falls. Perhaps too long of an exposure...

 

respectfully...Rick

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts Rick. I took out one point of cyan in the big file which did make a slight improvement. I did not re-size and post here because of other more pressing priorities. One day though. Regarding the hot spots; since they are so small I think they add just a little more life to the image actually. Often when shooting any type of white water, there will be a spot or two that is a bit too bright. However, i don't always like to adjust those since a little heat can add a little more dynamics to the image. Blown out highlights is another story. This was taken in the middle of the day so I don't think the exposure here was any more than a second or two... if that.

 

You said this above Rick:

 

"I just wanted to counter the statement that said you can only get this rich color from a film camera and not digital".

 

What I actually said above was this:

 

"However, when it is used correctly, there is no film, no digital outfit that I have seen, capable of duplicating it's (Velvia) richness, contrast, tones... and wow factor.

 

You mentioned using Photoshop to duplicate what Velvia can capture on its own. I was referring to the ORIGINAL CAPTURE. No digital camera, no other film that I have seen can capture a scene like Velvia. I still believe that by the way. Can you *create* in Photoshop what Velvia captures without Photoshop? I would guess that is possible, but I would still not back myself in a corner with that statement either. Thanks again for stopping by.

 

Vince,

Thanks for pulling my head out of my...

 

you are right...film and camera are different beasts in that respect. Right out of the lab or straight looking at the raw files are two different worlds.

As for the hot spots, I might have to agree that they can actually add a mood. As for a general rule for waterfalls, it is not highly sought after...at least in most forums. Now in galleries, it's up to the buyer to what they like and they can be oblivious to hot spots and even total blowouts...so how much does it matter?

Great as always Vincent!

Excellent composition, the color is amazing!

What can I say? It has already been said. Two Thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert ( and one of them is dead) Fantastic.

Keep hangin ten,

Jeff

Sublime.