Hi!

I recently bought a couple of Agfa Scala black/white slide films for
medium format shooting. Does anybody have experience with this film or
know an other BW slide film for MF? I only found this one!

What about colour slide films? I`m rather interested in the choice of
other MF photographers! What kind of film is your favorite (for
special photographic situations, e.g. architecture, landscapes,
portraits, ...)?

Is there an "all-in-one" choice? Is there a film you would use for
every situation with your MF camera?

Regards, Chris

chrisjachner wrote:

> Is there an "all-in-one" choice? Is there a
> film you would use for every situation with
> your MF camera?

Provia 100 is my current film of choice.
This may change when Provia 400X becomes
available in the USA.
________________________________________
John Thurston
Juneau, Alaska
http://stereo.thurstons.us

Provia 100 is my favourite film as well. I'm really eager to try the Provia
400X too.

I shot 2 rolls of Scala last year, I received them with coupons for
processing as a gift. When it came time to process the film (1 year later) I
couldn't get it done in Canada. I had to send them to California to get them
processed. It was worth it.

-----Original Message-----
From: MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com [mailto:MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of John Thurston
Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 8:38 PM
To: MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [MF3D-group] Questions concerning film choice!


chrisjachner wrote:

> Is there an "all-in-one" choice? Is there a
> film you would use for every situation with
> your MF camera?

Provia 100 is my current film of choice.
This may change when Provia 400X becomes
available in the USA.
________________________________________
John Thurston
Juneau, Alaska
http://stereo.thurstons.us



Yahoo! Groups Links

--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, "chrisjachner"
wrote:

>
> Is there an "all-in-one" choice? Is there a film you would use for
> every situation with your MF camera?
>
> Regards, Chris
>

Provia 100F was always my choice as a great all rounder. One thing
to consider when choosing film is your chosen method of viewing.
The warmth of your backlighting source can vary the way a film
appears in a viewer. Since using the LED panel (around 5500K) as my
backlighting source, I have found Provia to be a little cold in some
instances. Velvia 100 suddenly becomes quite natural looking with
the LED lighting, and still gives an element of warmth.

I suggest a bit of experimenting with whatever you will have as your
backlighting source, and see what pleases your eye.

regards,

Harry.
hcalderbank@bigpond.com

Chris writes:

> I recently bought a couple of Agfa Scala black/white slide films for
> medium format shooting. Does anybody have experience with this film or
> know an other BW slide film for MF? I only found this one!

If you have not already done so I would suggest checking out the website
of www.dr5.com They do a lot of reverse processing using a variety of
films and they give honest opinions about each. They also offer two
different developers for most films, one that gives a "normal" B&W and
anothet that gives a "sepia" type image. Each film is different so check
them all out.

In my opinion absolutely NOTHING could compare to Tech Pan 2415 film
reversed developed. Unfortunately Kodak is no longer making this film.

Also in this group's files section Sam Smith has uploaded many of his
home brew reverse developing procedures.

> What about colour slide films? I`m rather interested in the choice of
> other MF photographers! What kind of film is your favorite (for special
> photographic situations, e.g. architecture, landscapes, portraits, ...)?
>
> Is there an "all-in-one" choice? Is there a film you would use for
> every situation with your MF camera?

Like many others I would say that Fuji ProviaF 100 is my choice for an
all-around film. However I like to use different films for different
purposes.

This new Fuji ProviaX 400 that everyone is so anxious for is not
available in the US right now even though it was supposed to be released
last summer. It has been out in Japan for two years now. It is claimed to
have gain very similar to ProviaF 100. I have a friend in Japan who is
supposed to be sending me some soon and Sam Smith is supposed to have
some soon as well. We will be reporting on this as soon as we can.

Fuji Velvia 50 can't be beat for great landscape colors (just don't get a
person in the image as they turn out very "ruddy").

I have not been very happy with the new Fuji Velvia 100 (not to be
confused with VelviaF 100). Although I have only used it in 35mm format
the lattitude is so little that I hardly ever got a shot that didn't have
blown out highlight or clipped shadows or most often both on the same
image.

I like the warm tones I get with Kodak Ektachrome 100 for my cave shots.
These have a lot of earthy colors as well as people in bright red cave
suits. Reds and blues really pop with this film.

The only real way to know what you like is to buy a roll or two of each
film and give it a try. What might look great to my eyes may look gaudy
to yours. What might be acceptable grain to your eyes might look like
boulders to me. *{;-)

Thanks,

David W. Kesner

--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, "chrisjachner"
wrote:

>
> Hi!
>
> I recently bought a couple of Agfa Scala black/white slide films

for

> medium format shooting. Does anybody have experience with this

film or

> know an other BW slide film for MF? I only found this one!
>
> What about colour slide films? I`m rather interested in the choice

of

> other MF photographers! What kind of film is your favorite (for
> special photographic situations, e.g. architecture, landscapes,
> portraits, ...)?
>
> Is there an "all-in-one" choice? Is there a film you would use for
> every situation with your MF camera?
>
> Regards, Chris
>Hello Chris,

Agfa Scala 200 is definitely the best black and white film ever
made. I exposed more than 2000 rolls with my Rolleidoscop. The only
problem is: Agfa Scala is out of production since September 2005,
Agfa Photo does not exist anymore. I have only a few rolls left and
even buying the avaible ones would be of no use, because nobody will
develop the film 2008 (in Germany there are now only 2 labs who do
that job, it is not the E6 process!). Greetings docsauter

--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, "Dr.med. Thomas Sauter"
wrote:

> Agfa Scala 200 is definitely the best black and white film ever
> made. I exposed more than 2000 rolls with my Rolleidoscop.

Wow, there's a strong opinion! I expect Europeans had less options
than here in North America, where Scala was not as universally
praised. With Techpan/Dr.5 no longer a choice, PanF/Dr.5 would
definately be a good contendor. Those on a budget or who are more
experimental could try one of my posted formulas, which converts PanF,
FP4 or 100Delta to slides for less then a few dollars and about 45
minutes of time.

My 120 Provia 400X is to arrive later this week, but I fully agree
with the Provia 100F and Kodak choices. I'd also add Provia 400F,at
least until the end if this week!

BTW, I think Doc posted some shots of his viewers in the PHOTOS
section a couple of weeks ago. Nice viewers!

Doc, any chance we could see any of those 2000 rolls in the
International Folio? How are you mounting them?

Sam

The consensus on this group seems to favor Provia 100F, but I'll have to
respectfully dissent. I have been using Fujichrome Astia 100F as my
primary color film for three years. It gives much more natural colors than
Provia, especially in morning and late afternoon light and in shadow areas
illuminated by blue sky light. It also does better at distinguishing
different tints of green. These comments apply to the 120 version.
However, Astia seems like a different film for 35mm, for which I do prefer
Provia 100F.

For black and white I tried Ilford Pan F Plus using dr5 processing, with
mixed results. It looks fantastic with scenes with detail throughout, but
sometimes in scenes containing large areas of light grey, like sky, you get
little white blotches. These flaws might be acceptable in a 2D slide, but
in 3D it looks like the sky is filled with popcorn. I also received one
roll that looks a stop underexposed, even though the rolls taken before and
after in the same series came out fine. I believe the problems are due to
inconsistent processing.

Oleg Vorobyoff

--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, Oleg Vorobyoff wrote:

>
> The consensus on this group seems to favor Provia 100F, but I'll

have to

> respectfully dissent. I have been using Fujichrome Astia 100F as

my

> primary color film for three years. It gives much more natural

colors than

> Provia, especially in morning and late afternoon light and in

shadow areas

> illuminated by blue sky light. It also does better at

distinguishing

> different tints of green. These comments apply to the 120

version.

I agree 1000%. I only use Provia for testing. Velvia 100 (no "F")
kicks butt too. It beats every Kodak emulsion other than possibly
GX, which has a special color pallette.

> For black and white I tried Ilford Pan F Plus using dr5

processing, with

> mixed results. It looks fantastic with scenes with detail

throughout, but

> sometimes in scenes containing large areas of light grey, like

sky, you get

> little white blotches. These flaws might be acceptable in a 2D

slide, but

> in 3D it looks like the sky is filled with popcorn. I also

received one

> roll that looks a stop underexposed, even though the rolls taken

before and

> after in the same series came out fine. I believe the problems

are due to

> inconsistent processing.
>

According to dr5, Ilford has been playing around with the ISO on
their PanF product. I've had two rolls come back underexposed too.
I've never encountered this with any other film from dr5. If you're
looking for a slow fine grained film, you might want to check out
Efke's offering. It's available from Freestyle Photo.
Steve

Oleg Vorobyoff wrote:

> The consensus on this group seems to favor Provia 100F, but I'll have to
> respectfully dissent. I have been using Fujichrome Astia 100F as my
> primary color film for three years.

What one wants to take photos of can make a big difference. Provia is a
medium-high
contrast film, while Astia is a low-contrast film that's known to be
particularly appropriate
for things like portraits. So for fine-shadings and the like, Astia is
likely to do better while
to add "snap" Provia can be good ( but w/o overdoing it so much as some
other films do).
Can't say that I've used Astia 100F much (REALLY low grain) but I did
use it for some
some "artful" nude photography some time ago, and I did like the results.

So, it depends what one is after, and one is allowed to use multiple
film types,
changing as the subject changes. :-)

Mike K.