Velvia: What Conditions Yield Good Skin Tones?

[bwcolor]

I just shot my first roll of Velvia 50 and I like the results. I like the saturation, but honest colors of the Velvia 50, but it gets panned in many post when discussing skin tones.

I'm trying to get an idea of when and when not to shoot people and looking for tips regarding using this film with people. So, good and bad results would be appreciated, especially if you have some sense of what went right or wrong.

These test images are shot at EI:50, spot metered off the highlights, or skin. So, I conclude that low contrast mid-day indirect lighting works. What other conditions work, or don't work?

Any Examples and a description of the lighting conditions/metering/EI?

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Having other great slide films around, why use precisely Velvia for portraits?

It can be a horrible film even for scenes without skin...

And although it can be used under soft light sometimes, it can give color casts easily depending on light's color temperature...

If you use Astia (metered incident at 100) and use a warming filter, skin tones will be as great as they can be on slide film, both under direct sunlight and under soft natural light...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[aad]

Young people will look better than those of us of a certain age- Reala does/did the same thing. People with light skin over 40 seem to turn red/purple-maybe some IR sensitivity.

The answer is as Juan says-Velvia is not the film to use for portraits, unless the subject is young, or has darker skin.

 

[bwcolor]

Juan:

Prior to shooting this roll, I would not choose Velvia 50 for portrait. I have lots of expired Astia..(first version) I agree with your representation. I fully expected to prefer Portra over Ektar for skin tones, but I really like Ektar. My first and only roll of Velvia 50 has me reacting the same way, so I'm thinking that I'm really missing something here. I purchased Velvia for a trip to Disneyland in a couple of weeks. I was simply testing it so that I would not come back with poorly exposed film, but have been surprised with the results. Hoping my other roll gets back before I go. It has was shot outside under varying lighting conditions.

 

[bwcolor]

Young people will look better than those of us of a certain age- Reala does/did the same thing. People with light skin over 40 seem to turn red/purple-maybe some IR sensitivity.

The answer is as Juan says-Velvia is not the film to use for portraits, unless the subject is young, or has darker skin.

Well, that certainly rules out self-portraits.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Juan:

Prior to shooting this roll, I would not choose Velvia 50 for portrait. I have lots of expired Astia..(first version) I agree with your representation. I fully expected to prefer Portra over Ektar for skin tones, but I really like Ektar. My first and only roll of Velvia 50 has me reacting the same way, so I'm thinking that I'm really missing something here. I purchased Velvia for a trip to Disneyland in a couple of weeks. I was simply testing it so that I would not come back with poorly exposed film, but have been surprised with the results. Hoping my other roll gets back before I go. It has was shot outside under varying lighting conditions.

Your examples above are unusually nice for Velvia... The soft, indirect, middle day, neutral light helps as you and I said, but that film, apart from high saturation and excessive warmth, is too sensitive not only to light's color temperature (too cold or too warm results) but also to reflections: bounced light coming from colored surfaces reaching people's faces affect drastically their skin tones... That's why in general it's a better idea to use other films. With Ektar I feel totally different: to me it's the best film for green foliage and yet it produces beautiful, natural skin tones, so it's a great film for nature portraits... I meter it incident at 50, and if camera metered, depending on which camera I use, I meter it at 50, 80 or 100...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[NLewis]

Velvia is notoriously bad for skin tones. Typically the touchy reds can bloom on cheeks rendering them blushed and blotchy. One tweak to Velvia 100 was to remedy this slightly, although it is still rather touchy stuff. NOTE: There is also a Velvia 100F, which is quite a bit different than Velvia 50 or Velvia 100. Velvia 100F is a lot like Provia 100, much more neutral on skin. It has the name "Velvia" but doesn't perform the same.

 

[bwcolor]

If you were to bracket with this shot, one over and one underexposed, would the red sensitivity remain the same?

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Basically it doesn't depend on exposure, but on film's design. Apart, being one stop up or down with Velvia's contrast and short tonal range makes no sense from a tonal point of view...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[deirdre]

Velvia is notoriously bad for skin tones. Typically the touchy reds can bloom on cheeks rendering them blushed and blotchy.

In other words, it makes everyone look like me.

(I've been using Velvia, but not for portraits, so reading this with interest.)

 

[bwcolor]

So, it seems that the primary issue is Velvia's limited ability to handle variations in light temperature. If you hit the sweet spot then portrait and skin tones appear as above, but other than this sweet spot, color rendition isn't sufficiently accurate to render skin. This would be the same issue with any other subject, but our brains are wired to be more critical of skin. This is what I'm understanding from the above. It is a given that it has a limited dynamic range and all those issues.

 

[sper]

Taking LSD before viewing your slides will actually allow Velvia to yield fantastic or 'far out' skin tones.

 

[kbg32]

When I was an editor at the Image Bank stock agency many years ago, before they were bought by Getty, we had representatives from Fuji Film come in to speak to us. There were a lot of complaints about Velvia's rendition of skin tones within the photographic community and by big name photographers at the time - early 90s. A lot of photographers were complaining that skin tones were too red. People looked sunburned. The reps from Fuji explained to us that Velvia was originally intended for the Japanese market only. The reds in the skin were intentional, to add color to Asian skin, as Asian skin is very white to yellow.

 

[bwcolor]

The reds in the skin were intentional, to add color to Asian skin, as Asian skin is very white to yellow.

Since my kids are half Asian that might explain why it works at least half the time. Another California film.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Cool info, kbg32!

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Gumby]

Since my kids are half Asian that might explain why it works at least half the time. Another California film.

In bi-racial solidarity, I laugh with you half-heartely. 😀

 

[tomnrides]

Only think I can add to what have already been said, is Look into Fuji site where published film guides can be found.

 

[bwcolor]

Now the Bad.. or not

Now the Bad.. or not

I wanted to test both my New Contax Astia Matrix metering and Velvia 50 under less than ideal conditions. Here are the result:

So, I'm still liking it, at least for open shade.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

The last one is under the right light... The first two are different... The third one, even if there's backlight (just a bit) is in the right soft light too... Have you ever used Astia?

Cheers,

Juan

 

[bwcolor]

I have used a lot of Astia prior to 2002. Still have many rolls of the first version .. expired. Shot some along with these, but it is way underexposed. The colors look good, but I'm guessing EI 25.

The backlighting was more to test the Astia Matrix which works well, as long as the subject occupies a rather large portion of the frame. Tossed most of the shots from this roll, but that was the idea behind shooting the test roll.

Do you, by chance, have any Astia shot in similar lighting. If you, or someone else has some Astia examples, please post. Also, Velvia 100 seems to occupy a middle ground between Astia and Velvia 50.