What have your experiences been with Fujichrome Velvia and Ektachrome VS? Why do you use one or the other, or both? My experience is largely B&W. THanks for your feedback.

Anam

-- Anam Alpenia (aalpenia@dasar.com), March 27, 2002

Answers

IMHO, Velvia delivers an oil painting look - Ektachrome VS looks like a color chalk drawing by comparison. VS has rougher, more 'posterized' tonality.

VS has more grain - skys at high magnification show distinct magenta, blue and cyan speckles - while Velvia skies are just a smooth blend of cyan/blue.

VS tends to render all reds as lipstick red - my experience is that Velvia shows more distinctions between, say, fire truck red, brick red, chinese red, etc.

Some folks don't think either film can handle skins tones well, at least caucasian skin. I actually can get fairly good skin color with Velvia - but the exposure/lens contrast have to be just right. I've never gotten skin tones I like from 100VS (but Mike Dixon has!). For me the VS tends to render all skin with a mustard-yellow undertone in average light, and to make faces REALLY red in afternoon light.

Velvia makes people look tanned - VS makes people look tandooried!

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), March 27, 2002.

i used velvia a lot for snowboard photography. the fine grain is perfekt, but the colours are too bright, they look a little bit unreal. (my own impression) now i´m using kodak ektachrome 64 instead. still most of the snowboard photographers use velvia as their main film.

-- oliver kurzemann (moengi@zip6020.com), March 27, 2002.

I don't agree with either of the above. I suggest you invest in a roll of each and compare. For the type of photography I do, the E100VS works suberbly...but make up your own mind.

-- George L. Doolittle (geodoolitt@aol.com), March 27, 2002.

Thanks everyone - I will take both on my trip...maybe even load them in both my bodies and forget about mono for a couple of days, thus giving me a chance to make identical shots to compare

-- Anam Alpenia (aalpenia@dasar.com), March 27, 2002.

FWIW, and IMO only, I hate the colors I get with E100VS, like Velvia for landscape but not people, and really like Provia and E100s for everything.

Cheers,

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), March 27, 2002.

Yeah, I think E100 instead of VS will be my choice

-- Anam Alpenia (aalpenia@dasar.com), March 27, 2002.

"Amateur" version of VS, Elitechrome Extra Color is good for scenics, Caucasian faces go red. Velvia is smooth for scenics, many seem to prefer it at ISO 40 which would add more exposure and desaturate it a tad. I agree Elitechrome 100 or 100S are excellent general purpose slide films. Depends what look you want - ultra, super-saturated colour, or more natural.

-- David Killick (dalex@inet.net.nz), March 28, 2002.