velvia 50 advice came a settings

Good evening

Novice to medium format having always been on dslr full frame .

I am out tomorrow doing landscapes , I have a 645n and have bought velvia 50 ( probably wrong first time film but ill persevere !!)

I could do with some advice on iso setting and exposure settings as I'm not clear on what I need to set up at.

It will be a good old bright day tomorrow and I'll be on aperture with high depth of field ( around 18 -22 )

Any help would be hugely appreciated

Thx Jonny

Hi,

Take a good sturdy tripod then. The lens won't be at its sharpest at f22 but you will get the best depth of field.
Set the ISO (ASA) setting to 50 and see how you go. I also recommend a remote release and to lock the mirror up before you take each shot.

Thx Ian

I haven't been able to find a remote so will use the timer.

Thx for the advice

Velvia is quite a bright film, so do be careful not to blow out the highlights. You might have to accept that some shadows will just go black, but do keep detail in the brightest parts of the image anyway. Transparencies are ruined if over exposed.

I recently tried Velvia 50 120 film for landscapes for the first time, and am now in the process of scanning my films on an Epson flatbed scanner. There are some good exposures on my films, and these transparencies scan very well, even on a flatbed. Unfortunately I also ended up with many underexposed slides, and these are almost impossible to scan. A Nikon Coolscan 8000/9000, Hasselblad Imacon or a drum scanner could possibly do a better job than my flatbed, but dark/underexposed Velvia 50 slides are problematic. And as John mentions above, if you overexpose, the transparency is ruined. The bottom line is that one has to nail the exposure 100% with Velvia for successful results. With background in my recent films, I have some advice: Try to take several shots of the same motive with different settings. Check the dynamic range in your scene with your camera's spotmeter, and try to find a balanced point of departure for a correct exposure. Take a shot. Then take a shot 1/3 above and 1/3 below this exposure. In this way you might end up with at least some perfect exposures, and learn how to best use Velvia 50. If you google "Velvia 50 dynamic range", for instance, you will find tons of useful information about the film and how to master it in the best possible way.

Regards
Bjørn

Thx for the advice .
I have picked a test landscape site for today which it pretty straight forward to shoot but I will under and over exp on the same shots to get the right balance and learn how to use .

I'll post some when developed . ( hopefully

Once you've mastered a film like Velvia, the dynamic range of digital will never seem a problem again. It's a great exercise even if just from that point of view. All digital photographers should try at least one slide film. It will tighten up their composition skills and exposure skills.

I shot the above image in 1999. I used Velvia in a 1950s 6X9 Zeiss Ikonta with a 10.5cm coated Tessar lens. It was great fun and I even had the pleasure of processing the film myself. E6 kits were so cheap back then!

Good advice! I could not agree more.

Good morning visiting my usual scenic haunts . John your right had to think differently about each shot especially on shadowing !
Set up at iso 40 and did a range of bracketed at a 1/3 and then some at iso 50 . Took a good amount to see when developed where I'm getting it right and wrong

Also had my canon along to shoot same location to see the difference

Thx for the help and lovely picture Ian

Hi, Velvia delivers vivid colours which can be a problem if you underexpose it (many people suggest setting ISO 40 for this reason). If I'm shooting on auto with stepless shutter speeds I'll set it at ISO 40 and watch my metering carefully. If I'm restricted to full stop shutter speeds, I usually set my hand-held meter to 50 and use it as a guide (it reads to 1/10th of a stop anyway). I generally prefer Provia 100 in 120 though for the extra speed with slower medium format lenses.

When bracketing transparencies, I usually do 1/2 stops rather than 1/3 stops and usually only in one direction (most of the time I know whether I need to err on under or over exposure).

Please share your results.

John.

this is the original , sky a little washed out, shadows too dark on trees. there is a strange line down every picture in the middle . not sure how i get rid of that. this was taken at iso 40 under ex by 1/2.
ill get more up in the next couple of days
thx for all the help. any builds on this would be much appreciated

thx jonny