Metering for Velvia

abdoujaparov

abdoujaparov

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Keith
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The film images I've taken so far have mostly been of the "point my digicam at the scene, read off the settings that the matrix metering chose, transfer them to the film camera, press the shutter" variety. Now that I've bought an incident meter, I feel like I should put some more effort in and really understand metering - especially as I'd *love* to take some shots on Velvia, and understand that it's pretty fussy about who its friends are, unlike that brazen hussy Portra.

So, does anyone have any tips for metering for Velvia 50? Bronica SQ-A, mostly landscapes or seascapes, probably overcast conditions (I'm not going to waste all that expensive film on contrasty light when I don't have a clue on what I'm doing), and to be scanned on a v500. Assume I don't really know what "expose for the highlights" actually means in terms of using the meter :P

Cheers!
 
stevelmx5 said:
I don't want to ruin the magic of Velvia and the art of shooting it but I metered these with my iPhone and shot in midday sun in Fuertaventura ;0)

[...]
Is suggest just giving it a go and see what you get.

Cheers
Steve
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Nice photos! :D

I'm just trying to avoid wasting £10+ on the film and developing - that sort of education gets expensive pretty quickly!
 
Don't waste it on overcast light, one of the things Velvia does so well is blue skies. Overcast skies will just blow out on Velvia.

Velvia has a notoriously small exposure latitude, about 1/3 to 1/2 of a stop IIRC, which is as unforgiving as they come, but that's also one of the reasons why I shoot it, because it's a challenge :D

Best thing to do is just go and waste some of it, maybe you get along with it, maybe you don't. There isn't really a single way to meter for it, sometimes metering for the highlights may work, other times the highlights will always blow so it's best to go for the mids.

Basically, just go shoot it and take time metering.
 
Point the meter at the sky and take a reading, then point it at the ground / sea and take a reading. If the difference is more than 2 stops then use the appropriate filter, but always expose for the brightest part of the scene and try not to underexpose the shadows by 2 stops. This is how I do it, not that it is probably the right way but it works not too bad in practice. Mind I haven't used any for 4 months so maybe I am not the best to give advice!
 
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Well as you know reversal film is more fussy than neg film.....but if the shutter speed on your camera and the lens aperture and the exposure meter is slightly out, and film has a ISO manufacturing tolerance of a few ISO's....if all the tolerances are against you then it could add from 1/2 to 1 stop out...but the good news is they could cancel each other out.
So your first use of Velvia should check your system out, and over to the Velvia guys...................................
 
I have struggled with Velvia (especially the 50 flavour) so I would be interested to hear others views on it. I've still got a couple of rolls of 100 but I'm loathe to use it as I can't get it right.

Andy
 
^^^^^^^^

Good advice if you want that 50 look. The most important thing is do not be afraid under any circumstances.
 
Andysnap said:
I have struggled with Velvia (especially the 50 flavour) so I would be interested to hear others views on it. I've still got a couple of rolls of 100 but I'm loathe to use it as I can't get it right.

Andy
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Andy 100 is a very good film,but,no where near the finite parameters of 50, 100F you can just shot for joy.(y)
 
stevelmx5 said:
I don't want to ruin the magic of Velvia and the art of shooting it but I metered these with my iPhone and shot in midday sun in Fuertaventura ;0)


Fuji Velvia - Kowa6 by Steve Lloyd, on Flickr


Fuji Velvia - Kowa6 by Steve Lloyd, on Flickr

The shadows are a bit lost on this one bit I still like the overall result


Fuji Velvia - Kowa6 by Steve Lloyd, on Flickr

Is suggest just giving it a go and see what you get.

Cheers
Steve
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Steve,

You did not ruin the magic,you just shoot at the correct exposure and the IPhone is good for that,if you did not a light meter in hand.(y)
 
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Thanks for the comments guys.

I've just re-read my post (it was late when I posted) and it sounds a bit pretentious! I meant it to sound more like Rob's post since where he suggested just shooting it without worrying about the results being perfect.

I agree that when it's nailed, Velvia colours are almost painful but it needs blue skies and bright light in the first place. I've shot more of it when the light wasn't great and as a result, neither were the negatives so the main consideration is the environment outside of the camera. So long as you get a good meter reading of the scene, the film will be fine.

Cheers
Steve
 
Avoid situations where the scene is high in contrast as you will lose shadow detail due to 50's very high contrast, using a grad filter can be very helpful, but their not essential.

By exposing for the highlights it means that you meter so to put emphasis on highlight detail rather than overexposing. Velvia can be a difficult film to shoot because you have to constantly balance whether you want more detail in the highlights or shadows, but it is also somewhat difficult to scan as shadows have a tendency to just refuse to reveal any detail (and the highlights being even less accommodating) with most consumer scanners - I can scan it fairly well with my dedicated 35mm as I can do multi-exposure scanning to increase shadow detail, but thats not possible to do with flatbeds as they usually can't position the head precisely enough for each pass.

The only way to see Velvia properly in my opinion is to project it as it looks lovely!
 
medwaygreen said:
Andy 100 is a very good film,but,no where near the finite parameters of 50, 100F you can just shot for joy.(y)
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Well, its a nice sunny day here in Cheshire and I'm not in work today, so, if the washing machine engineer turns up before it goes dark, I may load up a roll of 100 and take it out for another spin in the Mamiya.

Andy
 
I meter at 40, as I find it works a little better than box speed.

I have a love / hate relationship with it. When right, it is fantastic, when wrong, it is a b****r.
 
Andysnap said:
I have struggled with Velvia (especially the 50 flavour) so I would be interested to hear others views on it. I've still got a couple of rolls of 100 but I'm loathe to use it as I can't get it right.

Andy
Click to expand...

Well practice makes perfect h'mm but after using Kodachrome, Ektachrome, Agfa and Perutz in the past over years had many inferior results, but the goods ones were lovely projected onto a large screen....and anyway with the not so good ones the family and friends didn't seem to care about the quality if the subject was interesting. ;)
 
Funnily enough my wife has just helped to clear out her Aunt's house as she has had to go into a home and her husband's collection of slides was brought back here for me to look at. About 2000 I'd say, all 35mm and so far they look good, especially when shown on the big screen that came with them.
 
Andysnap said:
Funnily enough my wife has just helped to clear out her Aunt's house as she has had to go into a home and her husband's collection of slides was brought back here for me to look at. About 2000 I'd say, all 35mm and so far they look good, especially when shown on the big screen that came with them.
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The bootie is a good source for slide projectors (mostly inferior ones though but have seen an old Leitz Pradolux), but once I saw professional Kodak carousel with difference projection lenses and lots of accessories...£25 for the lot :cool: Well if I didn't have a carousel would have at least took a gamble on it working and offered £15.
 
This has a Prinz projector and about 11 carousels all filled with slides dating back (so far, I haven't been through them all yet) to the 1960's.
 
Andysnap said:
This has a Prinz projector and about 11 carousels all filled with slides dating back (so far, I haven't been through them all yet) to the 1960's.
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Wow we had a thread about old slides.....maybe it was just Kodachrome, but it died for some reason.
 
Thanks guys! I must admit, in all my "I need to do it right" thoughts, it never occurred to me that it's going to be trial-and-error whatever I do. I guess I'm going to have to pay £10 for the lesson :D

I guess the trick is to avoid scenes with bright skies and dark shadows, and then hope my meter is accurate enough to meter the mid-point properly.
 
Well if your a perfectionist you would buy a sealed batch of Velvia so they would all be the same, then check your meter on incident, with sunny 16 and the grey card (reflective)...and they should all give the same reading..h'mm that leaves your shutter speed accuracy which you can check with some thingy guys have invented and posted, if it is working at say 1/200 instead of 1/250, and similar for other speeds, you can adjust the ASA on your camera for that slight over exposure, that just leaves the aperture (F stop) on your lens. dunno how you would check that but probably a Nikon lens would be more accurate than a cheapie. Anyway you would then set up a colour chart and take shots to see if everything works out. :eek:
Remember it's only if you are a perfectionist ;)
 
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I have about 20 rolls of Velvia queued up for summer, mix of 50 and 100 :-)
 
Keith, if/when you shoot the test roll, keep a careful note of the exposure information so you can see exactly what worked best for you. IMO, slight underexposure of Velvia 50 saturates the colours that little bit more but unless you'll be projecting it, you can usually achieve the same effect when scanning or PPing the scanned image.
 
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