I am wanting to buy a 405 film back for exposure tests and am worried because I am most often shooting at very low light conditions where my exposure time is a few seconds. I will be using Velvia mostly and want to know if the color films for the back can handle at least a second or two of exposure time. I have heard that the Polapan might work, but I am afraid it may be hard to judge color work from a B&W test print in the flat light I am working in. I would like to hear what others have top say about this. Thanks in advance.

-- Ken Dunn (kendunn@haz-uky.campuscw.net), June 25, 1999

Answers

Color Polaroid has bad color reciprocity & exposure failure once you get out past 15 seconds or so, and it fails differently from film. The ProVivid is better than the 669 however. For the exposure times you are talking about you should be okay. You'll need to run your own tests however. The ProVivid is evidently made by Fuji and is a better color and contrast match for theie films. strongly encourage you to try it. The b&w Pro100 is good, but once you get past 15 to 20 seconds of exposure, you will start to see failure.

-- Ellis Vener (evphoto@insync.net), June 26, 1999.

Polaroid puts out detailed spec sheets for each of their films which may be available thru a pro dealer. If not, by mail, or perhaps off their website. Use this information as a starting point only, and follow Ellis' advice..run your own tests. Be especially wary of using Polaroid color materials for color comparison tests with other films...especially if you are showing the results to a client for approval

-- C MATTER (cmatter@riag.com), June 29, 1999.

Ellis,

I've never been able to get reciprocity data out of Polaroid for ProVivid (although I haven't asked in a while). Do you have any data for this film?

-- Larry Huppert (Larry.Huppert@mail.com), July 01, 1999.

Polaroid technical support says you should use ProVivid at speeds greater than 1/10 sec. They say they haven't been able to achieve repeatable results at any slower speeds.

As mentioned in previous replies, it is rumored that ProVivid is actually a product made by Fuji and sold by Polaroid in the US. There is a published technical data sheet for the Fuji product called, "FUJI INSTANT COLOR FILM FP-100C" on the Fuji UK website at: http://www.fujifilm.co.uk/technical/ (and follow the "film" threads). The promoted characteristics of this Fuji film appears to be very close to what Polaroid promotes for ProVivid.

As an aside, Fuji FP-100C is also sold in 4x5 format in the UK. No doubt there is some legal/patent thing which prevents Fuji from selling this film in the US under their own brand name. How can we get Polaroid to OEM the 4x5 version as well?

-- Larry Huppert (Larry.Huppert@mail.com), July 07, 1999.