Velvia Love and Exposure: Fuji Velvia (35mm, 100 iso) User-Review

Fuji Velvia wasn’t my favorite film at first. In fact, I bought a bunch of expired rolls of this film, and then after a few test rolls, I wanted to sell off the rest of my stock! Now, I can’t seem to get enough of it — I’m even looking to buy more cameras to use it with!!! Let me show you what I’ve learned about it by sharing with you my pictures…

At first I didn’t like Fuji Velvia. I thought the red color shift was horrible and just by looking at all that red and orange made my eyes sore! But I think it finally grew on me. I just love it now! Especially when I tried it on different cameras and in different film formats. :) It’s my new favorite film!

First, let me tell you more about the camera, settings and the Velvia that I used. All of these shots were taken with the Diana Mini set at “Sunny” (f/11) and 1/60 shutter speed for the Outdoors shots. “Cloudy” (f/8) with Diana Flash and 1 sec exposure time for the Indoors locations. The Fuji Velvia I used was expired on 2007 and has been cold-stored since purchase.

What I’ve found out from cross-processing Velvia is that aside from the orange and red, you can actually get some blue and pink hues in your pictures. In the Outdoor shots below, you will notice that there are pictures that are completely orange and red, while some retained a bit of natural color and highlights of magenta. Some skies even have a gradient of blue and magenta — and believe me, I was so surprised!

The difference between the red and orange shots and the blue and magenta shots was exposure. When the pictures are over exposed, they become too red and orange-y. When shots are underexposed, the picture gets deep red to black colors. But when they are properly exposed — Oh! What beautiful colors!

I have three sets of pictures below which categorizes my shots to the following: Under-exposed, Properly Exposed. (Disclaimer: I categorized these pictures based on the my memory of the light conditions at the times pictures were taken and this guide: http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm )

Properly Exposed — Colors which are closest to natural with pink highlights

Underexposed — Deep Red, a lot of Black

Overexposed Shots — Orange and Magenta hues

I hope you enjoyed my reading my observations. Of course, further testing is needed to validate these claims.

How about you? Have has Velvia been for you?

written by ak47lomogurl on 2010-06-06 #gear #red #film #review #orange #velvia #magenta #xpro #cross-processed