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[OM] Don't cry, just do it! [was Velvia 50 replacement]

Subject: [OM] Don't cry, just do it! [was Velvia 50 replacement]
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2007 17:18:33 -0700
Michael Wong wrote:
> Wow .................. why can't I take such quality pictures with
> 160VC? (Crying) ...........
>   
Michael Wong wrote:
> Yes, compare with Fujichrome, Kodak's is warmer than Fuji's & less
> blue than Fuji's. Fuji's is more cool color balance, it's my
> experience.
Michael Wong wrote:
> E100vs is excellent for magic hour & flower shots because it's strong
> in red color performance. Its' green color performance is not as good
> as Velvia but I think it's acceptable.
>
> I agree that for normal sunny day shot, Fuji Velvia 50 is better than
> E100vs. 
>   
You have answered your own question. You rely on film and processor to 
give color balance, contrast, etc. and vary the result by using 
different films. That doesn't work with color neg films.

With slides, the whole process of working with image variables in the 
process of going from light focused on film to finished image ready for 
viewing is automated. If one is used to and happy with this model, 
scanning becomes rather simple too, with the goal of matching the 
available "correct" slide image.

With color neg film, the process is only consistent as far as the 
negative resulting from standardized processing. From there on, there is 
just the opposite of standardization. Shoot three rolls of the same film 
in cameras side by side and take it to three different brands of 
processing/printing. They will differ considerably, sometimes wildly, 
from each other. Take three different films, do the same exposure 
process and send them all to the same processor. The differences will 
usually be considerably less than those of the first test. This is 
because automated printing parameters reduce differences in the negs 
themselves. If you use Auto white balance in scanning, it will do much 
the same leveling of films.

With no standard "correct" image to which to refer, scanning and post 
processing become a different thing than for the slide shooter who 
simply wants to reproduce the look of the slide. There are many ways to 
approach this issue. Some are:

- Use a color balance reference, like the WhiBal and many others. Shoot 
it in the same light as the subject and use the eyedroppers in the 
Levels or other control boxes in your scanner or editor software to 
correct the color. This works quite well with digital cameras, but is 
less perfect with film, as differences in response curves for the color 
layers may still result in color casts in highlights and/or shadows.

- Profile your films. This is a process where an IT8 target with a broad 
range of color tones and brightnesses is shot with each film and the 
scanned film is processed to produce in international standard icc color 
profile. Use of this profile in scanner or editor corrects the image to 
neutral color balance and contrast curve. The 'down' side for those used 
to choosing image appearance by choosing film is that all films come out 
with the same color, contrast, etc. Here are some examples of simply 
scanning Portra 160NC vs using an icc profile. 
http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/Scan/VuesProf/

So if you want a different appearance, you need to do that yourself. 
There are both stand alone programs and editor plug-ins that work to 
duplicate the 'look' of various slide films.

- Learn to use a capable photo editor, which may be part of your 
scanning software, and use it to reproduce what you remember of the 
subject in a natural way that you find pleasing. It may seem like 
cheating, but really, film doesn't 'see' things like our human visual 
systems do anyway.

- Use you scan/editor software to create the image you want, without too 
much regard for color accurate reproduction of the original. More like 
"What the subject should have looked like" or "What the scene felt 
like". Our vision system has an inescapable emotional component, we have 
feelings about what we see that color our memory of things we have seen. 
To reproduce the "feeling look" of a subject seems to me to be valid way 
to create images. It's certainly what the great B&W landscape and art 
photographers of the last century did in their darkrooms.

- And one may go further - into clear manipulation of the image for 
creative purposes. Fernando's lovely recent post starts to move into 
this category. Or for didactic purposes. My alternate of Dan's big truck 
image to make the human figure clearer for scale is an example of this. 
The resulting light isn't natural unless there is a big, white building 
behind the photographer, but the image better serves the purpose for 
which it was taken.

So the answer is clear. You, Michael, CAN take beautiful images with 
Portra, or indeed any decent neg film, but you have to change your 
viewpoint on the photographic process and learn some new skills if you 
wish to do so. IMHO, you could use some of those skills even to improve 
the results of scanning your slides. I've previously posted a few examples.

This is a classic example. Whether the film was too cool or not, no one 
looking at this scene would remember it as so blue. Our vision systems 
adjust to ambient light to an amazing extent.
http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/MWong/IMG2122.htm

And our eyes 'see' tonal graduation and shadow detail differently than film.
http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/MWong/IMG1998.htm

I would even argue that someone viewing this scene would not see the 
distant hills as being as indistinct as film, especially UV sensitive 
film not protected from the UV that we don't see, reproduced it. I may 
have overdone it, as I often do to make a point, but I"ll bet the 
feeling-look when you took the sot was closer to my version than the 
untouched version.
http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/MWong/IMG1860.htm

Moose

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