Velvia 100 pushed two stops... by accident

DrTebi

DrTebi

Slide Lover
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I forgot to reset my ISO to 100 and went out on a trip shooting five rolls of Velvia 100 at ISO 400... the results were not as bad as I expected:






See the entire set here, only the last five images or so were shot at the correct ISO.

A good learning experience, I suppose. This was my first time pushing film :)
 
Did you ask the lab to push the roll to 400? Because there's a chance these aren't technically pushed, just underexposed, if the roll was processed as normal.

Not that there's any point to my rambling. :) Sorry.

These are the results I'd expect from an underexposed roll: decent highlights, completely lost shadows. I did the same thing with a roll of Portra 160: I exposed it at 400. The results look pretty similar to yours. I don't mind the super-high-contrast look, actually.
 
Yes, I did ask the lab to process them at 400. I did only minor tonal adjustments to the images, in other words, exposure was not "pumped up" in post editing.
 
DrTebi said:
Yes, I did ask the lab to process them at 400. I did only minor tonal adjustments to the images, in other words, exposure was not "pumped up" in post editing.
Click to expand...

Good lab... :)

You got close to normal (@ISO100) results, just a bit more contrast and blocked shadows, but nothing new to slide film under direct sun/velvia users...

For soft light, the same can be better than shooting at ISO100...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Velvia 50/100 are tricky films, i don't have enough experience with those film, only few rolls around 4 or 5 so far all in 120 [i don't shoot 35mm] and LF, 1 or 2 rolls of Velvia 50 turned out not so lovely as i want, or say 1 roll was really bad except 2-3 frames were not so bad or so so, another rolls were not bad at all but the colors were not so amazing as i expect from Velvia films, so i feel it is my fault, the lab process great, but i have to expose better, good that the only roll of Velvia i used on GSW690III came out brilliant vibrant decent color that i shocked about it.
 
I think the 2nd shot turned out really great. Looks like it's a nice "mistake" to make when shooting landscapes :D
 
@TareqPhoto: I think some of those example pictures are pretty good. I am not sure what exactly you did not like about it. How did you scan it? Do the scans look like the transparencies on the light table? Many scanners have a hard time scanning dark areas.

Overall I am quite happy shooting slide film (mostly 120). I was hesitant at first, after hearing so many saying that slide film is so much harder to expose, but after shooting a few rolls now, I find that by just sticking to the "general" rules of photography, you can get some great results.

Your greatest reward will be projecting those slides (analog) onto a big screen--simply amazing, especially in MF resolution.

Oh--and by the way, yes, I am quite happy with the lab (Photoworks SF). They even give me a 10% student discount :)
 
DrTebi said:
@TareqPhoto: I think some of those example pictures are pretty good. I am not sure what exactly you did not like about it. How did you scan it? Do the scans look like the transparencies on the light table? Many scanners have a hard time scanning dark areas.

Overall I am quite happy shooting slide film (mostly 120). I was hesitant at first, after hearing so many saying that slide film is so much harder to expose, but after shooting a few rolls now, I find that by just sticking to the "general" rules of photography, you can get some great results.

Your greatest reward will be projecting those slides (analog) onto a big screen--simply amazing, especially in MF resolution.

Oh--and by the way, yes, I am quite happy with the lab (Photoworks SF). They even give me a 10% student discount :)
Click to expand...

It was very very hard for me to scan them because the transparency was so dark, it was very difficult for me to see the shots under the light table or source or not so vibrant and clear, so i did a big work to recover most of the shots during and after the scan, it was first time i get that problem with color, i had this problem with B&W before, so i think it was my mistake to expose the slide, if i exposed it better then you will see the shots much much better than those, here are 2 or 3 shots i did in the past with Velvia 100, see the difference:

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/8157/img073x.jpg
http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/2116/img072.jpg
http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/3752/img070.jpg

I wish if i live in a better nature/landscape country then i will make slides mostly Velvia to shine.
 
Velvia 50 is a pig to scan, because it's so dense and because the shadows can easily get pretty dark. Most conventional consumer scanners are far better at handling highlights than at handling shadows when it comes to slides (while the opposite is true for negatives, obviously).

I think I'll shoot my next roll of Velvia 50 at EI 40, and see if I get a little more shadow detail that way.
 
Rob-F said:
Nice pictures! Do the pushed slides project as well as they scan?
Click to expand...

Once I get around repairing the Götschmann projector I will know... The lamp does not "fire" but instead the fuse burns out whenever I try to engage it. I am not ready yet for the expensive overseas shipment and repair :( Hopefully I can find an expert to take a look at it locally.

I have a Rollei 6x6 projector as well, and I will mount the two slides that got cut off by the end of the film today; I am pretty sure they will look better than the scans. I have some 6x6 slides that were slightly underexposed, and the projector revealed shadows which the scanner could not, so I am quite certain the projected slides will look great, despite some completely black areas.

@TareqPhoto: What camera are you using? Maybe your light meter is not working correctly? The later images you posted look correctly exposed however.
 
DrTebi said:
Once I get around repairing the Götschmann projector I will know... The lamp does not "fire" but instead the fuse burns out whenever I try to engage it. I am not ready yet for the expensive overseas shipment and repair :( Hopefully I can find an expert to take a look at it locally.

I have a Rollei 6x6 projector as well, and I will mount the two slides that got cut off by the end of the film today; I am pretty sure they will look better than the scans. I have some 6x6 slides that were slightly underexposed, and the projector revealed shadows which the scanner could not, so I am quite certain the projected slides will look great, despite some completely black areas.

@TareqPhoto: What camera are you using? Maybe your light meter is not working correctly? The later images you posted look correctly exposed however.
Click to expand...

For the first set that i didn't like and hard to recover was from Mamiya RZ67 ProII, this camera is a beast and working flawlessly, and the mistake i know why, so i will solve it next time. The second better exposed set where from Fuji GSW690III.
 
@TareqPhoto: It seems that both of these cameras have no built-in light meter, maybe there is an issue with yours? I have always disliked cameras without a meter... I don't consider myself a good-enough photographer to be able to estimate aperture and shutter settings, and really prefer a camera that tells me what it thinks it's best.

Regarding projection of the pushed slides: I have now mounted two slides into 6x6 frames to project them with my Rollei 6x6 projector. They looked quite good, just a bit more shadow detail than the scanner was able to produce.

Of the images that did come out way too dark (which I haven't even posted), I believe it was not only the pushed film's fault--I also used a polarizer for these, and guestimating the exposure did not work. I suppose I can hold the filter in front of the light-meter window, and take a reading from there?
 
DrTebi said:
@TareqPhoto: It seems that both of these cameras have no built-in light meter, maybe there is an issue with yours? I have always disliked cameras without a meter... I don't consider myself a good-enough photographer to be able to estimate aperture and shutter settings, and really prefer a camera that tells me what it thinks it's best.

Regarding projection of the pushed slides: I have now mounted two slides into 6x6 frames to project them with my Rollei 6x6 projector. They looked quite good, just a bit more shadow detail than the scanner was able to produce.

Of the images that did come out way too dark (which I haven't even posted), I believe it was not only the pushed film's fault--I also used a polarizer for these, and guestimating the exposure did not work. I suppose I can hold the filter in front of the light-meter window, and take a reading from there?
Click to expand...

The problem is simple, i used Pol filter that day for all films including Velvia 50, the shots of Velvia 100 on GSW6x9 without any filter, so maybe i forgot to compensate for filter stops, but that day i was shooting 5 rolls, 4 colors all with filters, only the Velvia 50 was the dense roll, when i use this film without filter it is shinning and vivid nice colors, i need to use this film a lot with and without filters to understand it and watch my exposure each time, i don't feel sad at all about the roll because it was a test day, and i don't have an issue if the camera has a built-in meter or not, i was metering with a digital camera and a Sekonic light meter, i don't limit myself with only film camera without anything and then no internal light meter then i have to guess or waste the roll if wrong exposure, if i am a photographer then i should be serious and advanced, not just go out and shoot without watching the exposure or using light meter, not all cameras i can have internal meters, what i can do if there is no built-in light meter in the camera i carry??? I feel exposing the film whatever it is is not a big problem, sometimes there is a time very important that i want to be sure i got the film exposure spot on, but another time for test only i get the best result, mistakes can happen, and your mistake is not that bad at all, and honestly speaking, with your roll i can recover the frames way better than my so dense Velvia 50, my scanner doing a great job for me these days.
 
TareqPhoto said:
The problem is simple, i used Pol filter that day for all films including Velvia 50, the shots of Velvia 100 on GSW6x9 without any filter, so maybe i forgot to compensate for filter stops, but that day i was shooting 5 rolls, 4 colors all with filters, only the Velvia 50 was the dense roll, when i use this film without filter it is shinning and vivid nice colors, i need to use this film a lot with and without filters to understand it and watch my exposure each time, i don't feel sad at all about the roll because it was a test day, and i don't have an issue if the camera has a built-in meter or not, i was metering with a digital camera and a Sekonic light meter, i don't limit myself with only film camera without anything and then no internal light meter then i have to guess or waste the roll if wrong exposure, if i am a photographer then i should be serious and advanced, not just go out and shoot without watching the exposure or using light meter, not all cameras i can have internal meters, what i can do if there is no built-in light meter in the camera i carry??? I feel exposing the film whatever it is is not a big problem, sometimes there is a time very important that i want to be sure i got the film exposure spot on, but another time for test only i get the best result, mistakes can happen, and your mistake is not that bad at all, and honestly speaking, with your roll i can recover the frames way better than my so dense Velvia 50, my scanner doing a great job for me these days.
Click to expand...

I thought about this problem earlier when using my M3 with a filter, given that it has an external lightmeter. Well... unscrew the filter and hold it in front of the lightmeter and then take a reading. After comparing it to without - then you know the exact compensation :)
 
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