Boris Grigorov wrote:
.................Now, when it comes to grainess, I went to Moose’s website and
looked at his comparison of the two pix. If this is the grain you get when you
enlarge it that much, it is not bad at all.
I think it's very good, especially for 400 speed film. However, if I
wanted to make a 20x30" print and didn't want grain to be visible in the
sky/cloud area, it wouldn't be fine enough and I would need a finer
grained film.
If this small area is really what he enlarged to that size, it is not bad at
all,
Well, you can see the whole frame in the other image and judge for
yourself, there are plenty of unique features to check.
but still, how much grainier the print films are, can anyone comment?
The examples I posted ARE print film, Kodak Gold 400 is a color negative
film.
I also wander if he used tripod.
Almost. Light was fading and changing fast and I didn't want to lose the
ray of late afternoon light that happened to be illuminating the little
col at the top of the far wall of the valley. So I turned off the
engine, to eliminate vibration, and rested the rubber part of the lens
barrel on the car window. With more time, I could have pulled the tripod
out of the trunk, but this was not a planned shot, just a grab when I
saw it. I think sharpness is quite good using the window.
Which film (and be specific, please)would you recommend?
You haven't given a crucial bit of information. How do you like to view
and display your pictures? If you want slides to view, the first choice
is simple, use slide film. Since slide films vary greatly and you have
no time to experiment, try something fine grained and punchy like
E100VS, or whatever the Fuji equivalent is, to make those colors 'pop'.
Grain at the same speed is pretty similar between slide and print film,
no point in going with one or the other for grain alone, there are more
important diferences. The first big difference for me is in contrast and
color rendition. Since the reversal process from neg to pos in slide
film is part of the rigidly controlled development process, any given
slide film will give quite consistent results from roll to roll (given
consistent exposure). With print film, creation of the negative is
consistent, but printing can go all over the place. I've taken 2 rolls
and sent one to Kodak Royal Gold processing through a photography shop
and the other to Kodak Picture Processing through a drug store. The
'pro' prints were fairly true to the subjects. The drug store prints
were much more highly saturated and contrasty, almost cartoony. Seeing
the 2 sets of prints, you would never think they were from the same
film. Fuji 'pro' prints from the same photo shop are different yet, also
fairly realistic, but somehow a bit cooler. So part of getting good
results from negative film is selection of process/printer.
So the advantage of slides in this area is consistency - within the same
film. However, all the slide films render color and contrast differently
than each other. So if you ask someone what is the best slide film
without knowing anything about their taste in pictures, you could easily
get a film you won't like. Velvia is a classic example. Some people love
it and others hate it. That should be enough to tell that it has a
strong character of its own, separate from the subject.
The second big difference is in latitude. Slide films tend to have a
maximum range from lightest to darkest parts of the subject of about 3
stops. Print film has a latitude of about 5-6 stops. With slides, it is
often the case that the range of brightness in a scene is greater than
the latitude of the film. In that case, the photographer has to choose
between losing detail in the highlights or the shadows (the source of
the unexplained "shoot for the highlights" comment you got). With neg
film, this is virtually never the case. One can expose for the shadows
with confidence that the huge overexposure latitude will hold highlight
detail. Although caused by a different problem, the difference in
sky/cloud detail in the samples I posted is typical of results from lack
of latitude. The scanned print has very poor detail in the highlights
compared to the film scan.
For most of my photographic life, I shot everything 'serious' on slide
film. Once I switched to scanning, I switched to neg film because it is
more forgiving of exposure errors and captures so much broader a range
of brightness. Since the color balance, brightness and contrast are all
going to be effected by both the scanning process and any subsequent
processing, questions of inherent color accuracy in the film itself
become fairly minor, except as they interact with particular scanners.
My favorite film is Portra 160NC, a relatively low-contrast, wide
latitude film, but I can't recommend it to just those who get 4x6 prints
because some shots will be very blah looking (but might look good with
the 'drug store' processing I tried once). On the other hand, it
captures everything and allows me to control all the variables later in
PS. I've put an extreme example of this here
<http://www.geocities.com/dreammoose/Portra160NC/index.htm>. The image
on the right is roughly how the 4x6 print came back, sure doesn't look
like a keeper. This was shot on a heavily overcast day (the ripples from
a few raindrops just add to the image) with the cloud cover maybe 40
feet above my head on Portra 160NC. Now, I could just say oops, I should
have used Portra UC or some other really punchy film. But the info is
there in the neg, as you can see in the left-hand image.
Shooting fall color in New England, I'd likely use Portra 160NC and
Supra 400 (now High Definition 400, I think)
Moose
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