Fuji 160s - exposure information - starter for 10

[TimH]

Hi all, I've been shooting Velvia / Provia QL for about a year now - starting to get the hang of it ( I think !!) I base my exposure on the film having a useful (ie V700 scan-able) range of -2.3 to +1.7 stops so a latitude of 4 stops total (thanks Jon Brock website). I'm aware of trying not to blow the hi-lights and have setup the Kenko light meter hi-light/shadow gizmo to do the calculations for me and I'm reasonably happy with that.
Now - the big question - I've recently bought some Fuji 160S colour neg - its sooo expensive I thought I'd quiz the group for some exposure starting points. !! So - here goes :-
1) As its a negative rather than a positive film, should I now aim to preserve the shadow detail (as that will now become a hi-light when scanned and reversed back to a positive).
2) From what I can find on the net, Fuji say this film has a latitude of -1 to +3 stops - but this is only 4 stops - the same as Velvia and I thought it was supposed to be useful as a film as it had significantly wider latitude ???
3) I've seen other references (can't find it now - should have bookmarked!) that in reality its nearer -5.5 to +2.5 stops - sounds implausibly large !
Any help gratefully accepted - I don't want to start too much experimentation at £5 quids or so a pop and I don't own a 35mm film camera to experiment with it in a smaller (read cheaper) format.

Thanks in advance Tim....

[timparkin]

Hi all, I've been shooting Velvia / Provia QL for about a year now - starting to get the hang of it ( I think !!) I base my exposure on the film having a useful (ie V700 scan-able) range of -2.3 to +1.7 stops so a latitude of 4 stops total (thanks Jon Brock website). I'm aware of trying not to blow the hi-lights and have setup the Kenko light meter hi-light/shadow gizmo to do the calculations for me and I'm reasonably happy with that.
Now - the big question - I've recently bought some Fuji 160S colour neg - its sooo expensive I thought I'd quiz the group for some exposure starting points. !! So - here goes :-
1) As its a negative rather than a positive film, should I now aim to preserve the shadow detail (as that will now become a hi-light when scanned and reversed back to a positive).
2) From what I can find on the net, Fuji say this film has a latitude of -1 to +3 stops - but this is only 4 stops - the same as Velvia and I thought it was supposed to be useful as a film as it had significantly wider latitude ???
3) I've seen other references (can't find it now - should have bookmarked!) that in reality its nearer -5.5 to +2.5 stops - sounds implausibly large !
Any help gratefully accepted - I don't want to start too much experimentation at £5 quids or so a pop and I don't own a 35mm film camera to experiment with it in a smaller (read cheaper) format.

Thanks in advance Tim....

Hi Tim,

I've looked into this and chatted with a few people and came to a few conclusions. First is that velvia has a lot more dynamic range than you'd think. In my testing (rating velvia down 1/3 stop at 40) I get -3 to +2 (and even +2 2/3 if your highlights are warm colours like a sunset).

http://www.timparkin.co.uk/blog/926815673944184070

In my comparisons with negative film, I reckon I get an extra 0.5 stop in the highlights and possibly a couple of stops in the shadows (maybe a 1 2/3 stops?). A few people I've spoken to have down rated the film to 100asa and then treated the highlights the same as velvia/provia. This makes a definite 2 stop advantage in the shadows. You may be able to see some more detail in the shadows but it gets noisy quickly. an example of provia vs portra (which behaves similar ish) is shown here...

http://www.timparkin.co.uk/blog/knapdale2

So far in my playing around, I tend to curve the shadows down so I effectivley get a 1 1/3 stop advantage but with some texture in the shadows. This ensures I don't get horribly noisy blacks.. I am still experimenting though. Julian Barkway may be the person to get some more feedback from.

Tim

[joolsb]

Hi Tims!

Actually, Baxter Bradford is the guy to talk to as he was using NPS well before I started...

I tend to work on a 7-stop dynamic range and usually place my exposure in the centre of that range. However, I have occasionally suffered from blown highlights which bears out Tim P's finding of a reduced upper range (although that could also be down to metering errors on my part). I've only encountered noisy shadows if I'm really pushing the lower end of the range and then only rarely. To be totally safe, it's probably best to work on a 6 to 6.5 stop DR. Next time I use NPS I'll try and record more info about the DR of the scene and where I placed the exposure - something I'm usually rather lax about!

That's an interesting point about the latitude of Velvia, Tim P. I know David Ward recommends 1 2/3 stops for the highlights and 2 1/3 for the shadows but I'm pretty sure he exposes it at iso 32 (as do I). Exposing at iso 40 would give an extra 1/3 stop in the highlights and less shadow detail.

[timparkin]

Hi Tims!

Actually, Baxter Bradford is the guy to talk to as he was using NPS well before I started...

I tend to work on a 7-stop dynamic range and usually place my exposure in the centre of that range. However, I have occasionally suffered from blown highlights which bears out Tim P's finding of a reduced upper range (although that could also be down to metering errors on my part). I've only encountered noisy shadows if I'm really pushing the lower end of the range and then only rarely. To be totally safe, it's probably best to work on a 6 to 6.5 stop DR. Next time I use NPS I'll try and record more info about the DR of the scene and where I placed the exposure - something I'm usually rather lax about!

That's an interesting point about the latitude of Velvia, Tim P. I know David Ward recommends 1 2/3 stops for the highlights and 2 1/3 for the shadows but I'm pretty sure he exposes it at iso 32 (as do I). Exposing at iso 40 would give an extra 1/3 stop in the highlights and less shadow detail.

I should probably add that you only gt the -3 with a drum scanner so about -2 is a pretty good bet for scanning with a v750

Tim

[Keith Tapscott]

Now - the big question - I've recently bought some Fuji 160S colour neg - its sooo expensive I thought I'd quiz the group for some exposure starting points.
Thanks in advance Tim....

Just set your light-meter to the recommended ISO and makes some bracketed exposures to run a simple calibration test. The latitude with negatives films is towards over exposure rather than under, so if in doubt, you can always make another exposure around half to one stop more generous to ensure that you have a good negative to work with.
There is a useful guide to using light-meters on Kodak`s website which deals with TTL, reflective and incident light readings and light-meter calibration.
Getting good exposure is of fundamental importance, but don`t complicate it.
http://www.kodak.com/cluster/global/en/ ... ndex.shtml