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[OM] Re: A question about film preference

Subject: [OM] Re: A question about film preference
From: Gary Reese <pcacala@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 03:50:31 -0800
Hi folks:

I reckon I'll test the waters and see if my posting ability has been 
re-established. It looks like off-topic is unfortunately still alive and well 
here. Here are a few musings from doing a read-only of the OM List. 
Ironically mostly off-topic contributions.

I've been digitizing lots of my photography for stock sales and exhibits. 
Some observations:

Astia 100F (RMS 7 grain) is a great choice for film capture/digital printing. 
This is the fine grain leader, not ProviaF 100 or "Velvia" as I've seen 
posted. You just boost Saturation and Contrast digitally until you get the 
effect you like. If you use a high saturation film to start with, you loose 
subtle hues and you maybe hampered by excessive film contrast. It is also 
super neutral in color rendition. Change the color digitally to your heart's 
delight. The stuff is like Play Dough and you can get by with extra high USM 
levels before the grain gets objectionable.

Velvia 100F (RMS 8) is the choice if you want to knock the socks off someone 
looking at your images on a light box or projection screen, if that is what 
your audience is still doing . . .
Its way more accurant color than Velvia 50 (RMS 9), esp. time exposures which 
drive me nuts color correcting.

I'm unable to pick out a Kodak E100G (RMS 8) tranny from a Fujichrome Provia 
100F (RMS 8) as to just about any image characteristic. They seem identical. 
Nice general purpose choices, esp. if one is allergic to Photoshop tweaking. 
  Kodak E100VS is pretty darn grainy at RMS 11. While it makes stunning red 
rock shots, I can't live with the limits the grain imposes on USM'ing the image.

I recently saw "new" on a Sensia box. I can't keep up with what emulsion it 
actually is now. When someone recommends "Sensia," its hard to know what they 
actually shot on.

I'm sure glad I switched to Fujichome 50 early in the 80s. They got 
perfectionist E-6 processing and require little or no color adjustment upon 
scanning. Kodachrome 25 and 64 require lots of picky color balancing because 
the Kodak processed trannies were always color cast to some extent. They are 
also quite flat in saturation.  Not at all the current market preference when 
printed to their natural saturation!

Anyone else find the grain in scanned 35mm Scala to be annoying? Typical Agfa 
grain. The tonality rocks, though.

Something to chew on for scanning option comparisons, all other variables 
held constant: a 2700 ppi Nikon Coolscan LS-2000 image of a Olympus OM 35mm 
original is about the same in image detail as one gets with an Epson 3200 
scan at 3200 ppi of a Bronica ETRSi 6x4.5 image. But, the 3200 really rocks 
with 6x9cm and 4x5" images, now my favorite formats. (I won't ever try a 35mm 
scan on a 3200).

When I taught Advanced B&W Darkroom last summer, I was an XTOL fan weaning 
myself from FX-50 which has a too short shelf life opened. XTOL has now given 
way to Ilfotec DD-X, in part due to the inconvenience of mixing and keeping 5 
liters. No one mentioned the derivative of ascorbic acid that is one of the 
developing agents in these. That modern discovery is what makes these so 
good, as does the substitution of a superior form of Phenidone, which 
elevates the toe curve and gives a boost to film speed. Ilford Delta 100 in 
DD-X is pretty easy to print, but intellectually I'm biased to the higher 
tech duo of Fuji ACROS in DD-X.

We just had a student B&W competition here at the Community College of 
Southern Nevada. My students who did split filter printing ended up with work 
which really stood out print quality-wise.  It is worth it.

Looks like:
http://www.taiga.ca/~gallery/
is now off-line?

Finally, I started using mirror + diaphragm prefire after the OM-2S was 
released. Boy, can I see in my old slides the performance difference between 
it and an OM-1 shot with only mirror lockup. I'm sure glad I discovered it, 
albeit out of laziness over carrying a cable release.

Gary Reese
Quiet Places Photography
Las Vegas, NV



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