Velvia Kicks A$$!

I just picked up my first ever set of slides tonight. I am in love with Velvia!!! I wish I would have tried this stuff years ago! I went out Sunday afternoon with my trusty AE-1 and shot my first roll of Velvia 50. This time of year there wasn't much color to be found in nature so I had to improvise a bit. I took another shot of one of the old tractors that I had posted before, as well as the old green Packard. I even went to the local farm implement dealer and shot a bunch of machinery. Lots of reds, yellows and blues there to be shot. I did get a couple of nice landscape shots that I'm really happy with too.

I am very happy with the exposures on all of them. One shot is a little dark, but I guess that's better than being overexposed. Considering this was my first ever roll of slides, I'm very very happy with the way they turned out. I would love to see them blown up but for now I will have to settle for the slides themselves.

I only have a cheap flatbed scanner that doesn't do them any justice so I have nothing to share with you. :( The local photo store will scan them for me for $2 per slide but that seems a little pricey to me. I will wait till I get some more and take them to the city and have them done for about 1/4 of that. Untill then, I guess I will have to enjoy them by myself. ;)

Great! I remember when I got my first roll of it back and was blown away by the results. Try shooting it at ISO80 and have the lab push it one stop when shooting on an overcast day - but make sure the lab you take it to can do this first.

I guess you deserve some good news! :D

Welcome to the club! :D

Velvia changed the way I shoot things. It was what I <i>wanted</i> all along but never got! The only things I can't do well consistently with Velvia are portraits and astrophotography.

I think we oughta create a Velvia subchapter to go along with all the camera clubs being created up here. Velvia may be the "unifier" among them all!

Well, amongst film users, anyway.

Oh, a get-around for getting slides into your computer is to pay your lab to make a print of it, which runs about a buck, then scan the print into your machine. That's how I do it.

Congrats on your first roll!
Rick

Absolutely Velvia Rocks!!! It used to be my favorite film (before Provia 100F), and for eye popping color, nothing even comes close (except for AGFAChrome RSX-50 shot at ISO 80 and processed normally). My only complaint was the slow ISO speed, even after shooting Fujichrome 50 for years (which I routinely underexposed at ISO 64 to increase color saturation). Under exposing Velvia is not something I would do unless I was planning to push process accordingly. BTW, Velvia push processes nicely to EI200, and Provia 100F pushes well at EI400, and is acceptable at 800. If you really get into slides, think about investing in hand tanks and film spools for developing (and other sundries, like a changing bag, chemistry bottles, a water bath, etc). Then you can learn about push processing and pull processing (not recommended) you film and it will give you a new dimension to explore in photography. It's not hard to develop and mount your own slide film, but finding the chemistries is getting harder with everyone going digital.
A suggestion for scanners-EBAY. I'm sure there are film scanners out there with 75% of the photography world going digital. I'd sell you mine but I'm not done archiving 13 years of slides and negatives, and at the rate I'm going I probably won't get done in this lifetime.

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Originally Posted by mjs1973

I just picked up my first ever set of slides tonight. I am in love with Velvia!!! I wish I would have tried this stuff years ago! I went out Sunday afternoon with my trusty AE-1 and shot my first roll of Velvia 50. This time of year there wasn't much color to be found in nature so I had to improvise a bit. I took another shot of one of the old tractors that I had posted before, as well as the old green Packard. I even went to the local farm implement dealer and shot a bunch of machinery. Lots of reds, yellows and blues there to be shot. I did get a couple of nice landscape shots that I'm really happy with too.

I am very happy with the exposures on all of them. One shot is a little dark, but I guess that's better than being overexposed. Considering this was my first ever roll of slides, I'm very very happy with the way they turned out. I would love to see them blown up but for now I will have to settle for the slides themselves.

I only have a cheap flatbed scanner that doesn't do them any justice so I have nothing to share with you. :( The local photo store will scan them for me for $2 per slide but that seems a little pricey to me. I will wait till I get some more and take them to the city and have them done for about 1/4 of that. Untill then, I guess I will have to enjoy them by myself. ;)

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Yes it does. My only complaint about Velvia is the slow speed. Doing landscapes isn't a problem, use a tripod. But handholding in anything but sunny conditions...

But Velvia definitely rocks! Provia 100F is another great slide film, and you might even want to give Sensia 100 a try. It's a "consumer" grade film, but it's great stuff.

Welcome to the slide club!

PS: There's no hope for you now - you're hooked! ;-)

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Originally Posted by Speed

PS: There's no hope for you now - you're hooked! ;-)

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You are right, I am hooked!!! No just on slides, but photography in general!

It's funny you said that, cause I'm kind of regressing. I had a film rebel for a couple of years, then I got the itch to take a step backwards and bought my AE-1 and a few lenses to go with it. Then last summer my film Rebel got trashed when my canoe tipped over, so I stepped up to digital. I fell in love with digital and I still love it! Last fall I took my first photo class which was all b&w film and I ended up putting a darkroom in my basement. Once class was over, it was back to digital. Now it's back to film with slides. One step forward, two steps back...

I have never tried to push film before and I'm not real clear on why or when I would want to do that, but I'm willing to learn.

I just found out that we have a film scanner in the area that I'm working in so hopefully I can get some of my slides scanned tomorrow. Tomorrow is my last day in this dept. before going back to what is left of my home dept. but it's good to know that I have people here that can get them scanned for me!

Congratulations on the good results! As indicated by Speed, the Sensia 100 is not bad either and much more affordable here in Europe. I love Velvia too but the price prevents me from using it as my standard film. I'm looking forward to see your results.

Cheers,
Frank

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Originally Posted by mjs1973

You are right, I am hooked!!! No just on slides, but photography in general!

It's funny you said that, cause I'm kind of regressing. I had a film rebel for a couple of years, then I got the itch to take a step backwards and bought my AE-1 and a few lenses to go with it. Then last summer my film Rebel got trashed when my canoe tipped over, so I stepped up to digital. I fell in love with digital and I still love it! Last fall I took my first photo class which was all b&w film and I ended up putting a darkroom in my basement. Once class was over, it was back to digital. Now it's back to film with slides. One step forward, two steps back...

I have never tried to push film before and I'm not real clear on why or when I would want to do that, but I'm willing to learn.

I just found out that we have a film scanner in the area that I'm working in so hopefully I can get some of my slides scanned tomorrow. Tomorrow is my last day in this dept. before going back to what is left of my home dept. but it's good to know that I have people here that can get them scanned for me!

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Regessing, hehehe. Me too. The wife tried to get me to buy a K1000 to start out with, so I would "learn" photography. But I knew I'd outgrow it (OK, I'd want more) in short order. I bought an N80 because of it's capabilities, including manual mode. Later, as I got into night landscape photography and astrophotography, I bought a K1000. The N80's shutter is battery operated, so long exposures kill the batteries. The circle of life, and photography.

As for pushing film, the main reason I've read for doing it is to get shutter speeds up to handholding levels. Shoot 50 speed at ISO 100 (or even 200) for the faster shutter speeds, then have the lab push process it to properly expose it. The caveat is, you have to shoot the whole roll like that. From what I've read, the latest emulsions are capable of being pushed a couple of stops and still give good results.

The second reason I've seen for push processing is for the artistic effect. This usually involves pushing the film by two or even three stops, to ensure the final result has a grainy look to it. Different strokes for different folks.

I've never had any of my film push processed. Never had a subject where I shot a whole roll in the conditions where I needed to. That, and I don't mind lugging my five pound Bogen up and down the mountains. ;-)