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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