P3D Fuji Velvia

["Lawrence A. Haines" <lhaines@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Whoever said that the Fuji Velvia film is not correctly rated at
50, is certainly wrong from my experience.  I have shot
essentially nothing but Velvia for a year and a half and in
several cameras.  The rated speed of 50 is right on, and
consistent.  Personally I love the color saturation of the
Velvia.  I find that I can get pictures as sharp as I have ever
seen, when I handle my end properly.  I try to use a tripod for
all shots I think are important.

At NSA Green Bay I sat next to Al Sieg at the banquet and talked
to him about such films.  Incidentally as perhaps most of you
know, Al is a former VP of Kodak and the stereo photographer who
has diamond status for his stereo photographs which means he is
the best in the world, since I don't believe anyone else has
achieved that.  He told me that Kodak had a new film called
E100VS which has color saturation like Velvia and a speed of
100.  It requires refrigeration as Velvia does.  As I questioned
him about the grain  he said it was virtually the same as the
Velvia.  I am trying to find some of this new film to try out.  I
did find a Kodak Technical Data Sheet on the film on their
internet site.  The write-up seems to support Al's comments.
However, the sheet indicates a "diffuse rms  granularity of 11".
I can't find the equivalent granularity for Velvia, since Fuji
does not seem to publish it on their web page, but it is 9 for
both Kodachrome 25 and 64 according to Kodak and 11 for
Ektachrome 100.  If this granularity measure is indicative of the
grain structure of the films then it would seem that perhaps the
E100VS grain may not be similar to Velvia.  I am assuming that
the grain structure of Velvia is similar to Kodachrome 25 but
that is only a wild guess on my part.

Larry Haines...



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