Re: [Largeformat] Photo 101 - Class 23 - Film

[Douglas Cooper <douglas@metaversalstudios.com>]

At 03:30 AM 9/4/00 +0000, you wrote:

>I can't really see why any magazine prefers negatives over Chromes
>except for the fact that more photogs and labs are getting sloppier
>about exposure and process control.

I think it's a question of aesthetics.  Chromes are sharper, but negatives 
offer a different palette.  I've never found a transparency film that will 
give me what I love in Fuji Reala, for instance (which is not available in 
large format, and barely available in America at all these days):  almost 
perfect skin tones in bright sunlight.  NPS160, as well, has no analogue in 
chrome:  low contrast, accurate skin tones, acceptable color range in mixed 
lighting.

I was for a while sick of my favorite chrome films:  if I have to shoot one 
more Caribbean beach scene in utopian Velvia Blue, I'll shoot myself.  (My 
photo editor hated them, but I spent some time in Anguilla cross-processing 
consumer negative film as slides:  got a nice, washed-out look, like a 
placemat from the fifties left out in the sun for a few decades.)

Scala, however, is unparalleled.  And Provia F is a film I can love almost 
as much as Reala (although they have different fortes:  RDPIII is much 
better for overcast landscapes; Reala for mixed lighting and late afternoon 
skies).

Art directors are just going through a phase, I suppose, where sharpness is 
not the chief attribute sought.  Also, only recently has technology 
rendered the choice of format a neutral question:  any magazine is in a 
position to do equal justice to chromes, negatives, or prints; that wasn't 
always the case.

I'm going to have to spend some time figuring out the new range of films 
available in large format.