Slide film recommendations for a trip

[javimm]

Hi.

I'm traveling to Russia on August for 8 days. I'll visit Moscow and St. Petersburg.

I'm going to carry my M6 with a 21, 28, 50 and 90 and lots of HP5+ rolls.

I now have the chance to be able to bring a Bessa R2M body too, and think it'd be great to shoot some color film.

I scan my negatives, and I've had a hard time scanning negative color film. I have an Epson V700. I can't get rid of the tint that negative color film has and spend a lot of time trying to get one picture right and even then it looks ugly, so I think I'll try some slide film instead.

I've never shot slide film before (maybe a couple of rolls like 15 years ago), and I'd like to know what slide film is better for my situation. I've seen a lot of slide film work from my father and the color looks gorgeus.

I know that slide film has very narrow dynamic range, maybe the same as digital, and I've read that exposing digital and slide film is the same process. Measure the highlights so they doesn't blow up.

I've narrowed my decission to two films. Fuji Provia or Fuji Astia (both 100 ISO).

Which is better for a trip?. For what I've read, Provia is more saturated, more contrasty than Astia. I plan to project my slides too apart from scanning them.

Thanks,
Javier.

 

[jonmanjiro]

If you haven't used slide film before, I suggest using Provia 100F and see how you go. Its my default choice for slide film, unless I'm after a specific look. I would have suggested Astia if your travel destination was anywhere near the equator, but since Moscow is 55' 45" north Provia should do well in the softer light in the morning and late afternoon.

 

[kully]

Provia recommended by me too. But do try all you can to shoot a couple of rolls before you go.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

Souinds like the trip of a lifetime. Without a doubt I'd shoot Kodachrome.

Chris

 

[nuckabean]

As a fellow v700 user, I suggest you stick with color negative film. Slides are the biggest pain to scan and they don't look anywhere near as good as my negative scans. YMMV. They are great to project though.

 

[joachim]

Hi.

I'm traveling to Russia on August for 8 days. I'll visit Moscow and St. Petersburg.

I'm going to carry my M6 with a 21, 28, 50 and 90 and lots of HP5+ rolls.

I now have the chance to be able to bring a Bessa R2M body too, and think it'd be great to shoot some color film.

I scan my negatives, and I've had a hard time scanning negative color film. I have an Epson V700. I can't get rid of the tint that negative color film has and spend a lot of time trying to get one picture right and even then it looks ugly, so I think I'll try some slide film instead.

I've never shot slide film before (maybe a couple of rolls like 15 years ago), and I'd like to know what slide film is better for my situation. I've seen a lot of slide film work from my father and the color looks gorgeus.

I know that slide film has very narrow dynamic range, maybe the same as digital, and I've read that exposing digital and slide film is the same process. Measure the highlights so they doesn't blow up.

I've narrowed my decission to two films. Fuji Provia or Fuji Astia (both 100 ISO).

Which is better for a trip?. For what I've read, Provia is more saturated, more contrasty than Astia. I plan to project my slides too apart from scanning them.

Thanks,
Javier.

Hi,

I have used Fuji Provia, Astia and Kodak E100G, E100GX and E100VS quite a lot in the past months in my Rolleicord. I scan the slides with an Epson 4990 for printing. After having profiled it with a set of Wolf targets, colour "out of the box" is very good.

I feel Astia is not as sharp as I like and Provia has very little highlight roll off and I often end up with blown highlights and blocked shadows. I tend to get back to E100G and GX all the time. With E100GX being discontinued, E100G is my recommendation. It can be a bit blue during the day, which can be adjusted after scaning or by using a 1A or 81A filter at exposure.

 

[Matus]

I have used Provia 100F as the only film in my Rolleiflex for for my New Zealand trip. It was fine, just the sky turned often more magenta than I would have liked, but this could also have been processing. I have not experienced this before.

E100G is a fine film too (I had some 4x5 on that trip too). Based on my experience (and the recommendation from the lab) when exposed at EI64 instead of 100 and developed accordingly it has more latitude. I would still like to make comparison with the Provia 100F though.

 

[javimm]

Thanks for all replies.

Seems like Provia is a favourite here.

@ChrisPlatt: Kodachrome is awesome, but living in Spain is impossible to get it in a physical store, and totally impossible to get it processed unless I send it to the US, so it'll end costing me a kidney 🙂

@nuckabean: That scares me a bit. I don't know how scanning slides can be more difficult than scanning neg film, as neg film is a real pain to scan. I've been looking through your images and I can recognize the footprint of the V700 on your B&W and I can get similar results, but I can't get that tonal accuracy in neg color film. Any quick tips for scanning color negs?.

I'm really want to project them. I wasn't aware of how much digital has washed my brain until I projected some 20 year old slides against a wall. Huge image (2 meters long), and the detail and color was mindblowing.

How good is Provia 400 against Provia 100?. Is the grain much more prominent?. How about detail and color differences?.

Thanks again for your helpful replies.

 

[Andrew Sowerby]

Like Kully said, whatever you choose, shoot, develop, scan and process a few rolls before you go.

 

[kully]

javimm - Provia400X is fine grained, albeit expensive. I shot 21 mixed rolls of Velvia50 and Provia400 in October at a grape harvest in France and although there were some mistakes in exposure it is not as bad as digital and as you say - it's worth it when you see the projection.

With Provia400X you have the added benefit that it can be pushed to 800 easily and upto 1600 if needed.

 

[nuckabean]

I have no real secrets. I scan my negatives at 4800dpi, 24bit color (about a 74mb file). Then I open them in photoshop, size them down to around 20mb so I can put them on flickr, then open curves, use the grey eyedropper on something neutral in my picture, and adjust levels. That's it.

As for slides, maybe I was a little dramatic, I just spent the past couple days scanning 2 rolls of expired Kodak e200 which was no fun, but I've had better results from other films (including provia 100f)
Here's the difference:
Expired E200
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47269693@N00/sets/72157621513895470/
Provia 100F (also expired)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47269693@N00/sets/72157617489422160/

Think of it this way though, with slides, you'll have them for a long time, and can always re-scan if you chose with different equipment.