Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/08/19

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Kodak's Professional E6 Films
From: "Henning J. Wulff" <henningw@archiphoto.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 16:16:05 -0700

ghuczek@mailhost.sk.sympatico.ca wrote:

>At 02:56 PM 19/08/99 -0500, Bub wrote:
>>What's the difference between E100S and E100VS.  Is VS just more saturated?
>>Is VS as saturated as Velvia?
>>
>>
>VS is a close cousin to Velvia, likely brought out by Kodak to pull some
>market share from Fuji's flagship film.  Did some comparison shots in 120
>on Velvia and VS recently to see for myself.  The look is almost the same.
>Nearly indistinguishable.  I put two complete uncut rolls side-by-side on a
>light table with identical frames (shot on a Blad while changing backs to
>keep everything else the same -- changing EVs to account for the one stop
>difference, and keeping apertures the same) and couldn't tell them apart
>without looking at the edge markings ... even with a 6x loupe.  If you had
>two shots side-by-side taken with each film, you would have a very
>difficult time telling them apart in a blind or double blind test.  I'm
>sure about that.
>   E100S has a much different look.  The colours are less pastel-like, and
>some would find them more natural.  These days though, the Velvia/VS look
>is what sells.  Colours are more intense and vibrant, though slightly on
>the warm side.  By the way, VS does just as poor a job with Caucasian skin
>tones as Velvia.  The look is far too warm and ruddy.

I find that VS has better skin reproduction than Velvia, mainly due to its
lower contrast. The colour saturation is as high, but the contrast is
lower, and as is typical of Kodak films, the toe is longer so you don't
have the blocked up shadows as readily as with Velvia. Conversely, VS
doesn't hold the highlights as well as Velvia. As a result, while Velvia is
a true 50 ISO film, you're best off shooting it at 32 or 40 EI, while VS
can be shot at 100.

   *            Henning J. Wulff
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