F U J I
Food photographer Paul Kemp was given Fuji`s ISO 50 Velvia Chrome film to Benchtest. Fuji are forthright in their claims for this film - they say there is nothing to match its colour and its sharpness. Paul Kemp agrees up to a point "I used this and my normal Kodak Ektachrome 64 on a shot for McDonald`s, and beside Fuji, the Kodak colour just wasn`t any good. The client thought the colour saturation was a bit too good though. The McDonalds red was so strong that it almost glowed in the dark, so they had a dupe made to tone it down a bit."
Paul has been using Ektachrome recently, but he was a convert to Fuji`s previous film. "That super-real green used to make salads look great, really fresh, then they started mucking about with it. We started to get crossed curves, green shadows and pink highlights, so I had to go back to Kodak again, which isn`t that good at seeing reds and greens." Since changing back to Kodak Paul has been waiting for Fuji to "sort its act out", and he expressed relief at the arrival of this new emulsion. He does have reservations however "The last time I changed over from Kodak to Fuji I didn`t have any problems with lighting. This new film is a lot more contrasty than any other I`ve used so I`m having trouble with shadow detail. If I`m going to carry on using it, I think I might have to change to a softer lighting."
The film is slower than the currently popular transparency films, might this have a bearing on contrasts? "As I do everything on 8 x 10, I stop down to F64, which means that I need a lot of light. I`m having to increase the light by about half a stop because of the slower film speed, but instead of doing that I used the same lighting and uped the process by half a stop. Surely you aught to be able to push the film to this extent without contrast problems? I can do this with Kodak, in fact it improves the punch a bit." Taking into account the manufacturer`s claim that the film can be easily rated at ISO100, and processed accordingly. I asked Fuji`s Nick Gimbert for his comments. "Paul`s criticism of the contrast is the only one we have had so far, and the film is now widely used. We have looked at the emulsion in the light of his remarks and we can`t agree that in general it is too contrasty when pushed a stop. We know that Paul does his own processing, so we will be discussing his results with him and making any suggestions that will help overcome his reservations." The manufacturer`s blurb makes much of a new `sigma` tabular and grain structure offering what they claim to be the finest detail currently possible with ISO50 film.
I asked Paul how this worked in practice and important he felt this aspect was. "At this end of the film chain you shove it in and shoot it. You have a sense which tells what you want and it`s a question of getting it into film. The number of halides per square mm sounds good on the blurb but it means little to me. "However, I will say that I almost gave up photography when Fuji started messing about with their last film. Having seen what colours could be like and then having to go back to Kodak and lesser results was disspiriting. Put a tomato and a lettuce leaf on a plate and this new film makes them really leap out at you. Despite reservations about contrast, I will perservere with it as it has the potential to be the best film ever. I want it to work, I desperately want it to work because the decent shot I took was on Fuji film. Since then I know what the colour should look like but I`ve had to make do. Velvia could be the answer.(From: Hotshoe International. Summer Issue No.57.)