Velvia 100 vs Provia 100F

[Joanna Carter]

Thanks Baxter... I did have a few suspicions about Peak so I shall try to take less pictures and use a better developer.

Apart from NPS (and yourself!) who would you recommend?

I use MPS Imaging, just off Edge Lane in Liverpool 0151 228 4801; ask about the UKLFPG rates and mention my name. Or if you can wait 'til I get home, I'll run them through my ATL 1500 with my shots from France

[Paul Mitchell]

Tim, David recommended www.the-darkroom.co.uk in Cheltenham while we were in Northumberland. I gave them a go and they seem to be pretty OK... very fast turnaround. They're 50p a sheet more expensive than than Peak but don't charge any extra for pushing & pulling. Roger Longdin took all his Namibia fillms to them for processing and haven't heard anything untoward.

Paul

[timparkin]

Tim, David recommended www.the-darkroom.co.uk in Cheltenham while we were in Northumberland. I gave them a go and they seem to be pretty OK... very fast turnaround. They're 50p a sheet more expensive than than Peak but don't charge any extra for pushing & pulling. Roger Longdin took all his Namibia fillms to them for processing and haven't heard anything untoward.

Paul

OK.. the next step for my test is to take one of each type of film three times and send them to four different labs..

I'm thinking

NPS (Joe's lab)
Peak Imaging (as a test)
The Darkroom (David's)
Joanne or Baxter (I'll let them choose between them - who is the most pH anal!?)

I'll get some shots on Sunday hopefully.

Tim

[Charles Twist]

Hello Tim et al,
As I have said before, I have used NPS constantly over the last 3+ years and am happy with them. We have an abundance of pros in our neck of the woods (must be the water or the sea air?) and they all go there. That means they can't afford to make a mistake. And they know to treat 5x4 with as much care as was presumably put into them at the exposing stage. Ask for Bob Harvey if you have any queries over their process - he's very friendly and approachable.
Best regards,
Charles

[timparkin]

Hello Tim et al,
As I have said before, I have used NPS constantly over the last 3+ years and am happy with them. We have an abundance of pros in our neck of the woods (must be the water or the sea air?) and they all go there. That means they can't afford to make a mistake. And they know to treat 5x4 with as much care as was presumably put into them at the exposing stage. Ask for Bob Harvey if you have any queries over their process - he's very friendly and approachable.
Best regards,
Charles

Thanks Charles.. will do

[Dave Tolcher]

Dont always count on NPS doing a good job, a well known photog had his dales piccies somewhat ruined last autumn from the L & L trip I was on down to processing in poor chemistry. I suspect all processors occasionally make a mistake and for the ones named in this thread thankfully that is a low percentage.

Personally I think its inevitable that a few cock ups are possible and separation between A & B is important for 1) postal security both ways, 2) chemistry failure, 3) exposure error - probably in that order ! For 3) +/- 1/2 stop (unless highlights have gone) is entirely rescuable at the scanning stage. More than that starts to compromise the slide in processing a push/pull anyway.

I have seen that slightly off colour in 35mm Astia from Peak which I didnt like. Hadnt thought it might be chemistry but it makes sense.

[joolsb]

Perhaps I'm being far too pragmatic for this thread but surely casts and minor exposure issues can be corrected later in (dare I whisper it?) Photoshop?

Of course, I shall probably now be ejected from the group and cast into the fiery pit of digital hell for even suggesting such heresy....

[dave_whatever]

can you really rule out thing like slight magenta casts being down to the storage/age of the film prior to exposure? I know all reputable retailers supposedly refrigerate their film, and we all do at home, but you can't guarantee what the film has been subjected to in transit from japan, or whatever warehouse it'll have been sat in on the way. I'd just take it as something which goes with the territory. Like someone has although most people wil aim to get everything right in camera, such things aren't too bad to fix after scanning, especially when its out of your hands anyway. have the people who've had bad results from labs like Peak actually spoken to then about their concerns? In my experience of dealing with peak they are pretty customer-oriented.

On the note of exposure correction, OK its fine when scanning, but out of interest can the people who do the cibachrome prints do a similar thing to any extent?

[Patrick Dixon]

have the people who've had bad results from labs like Peak actually spoken to then about their concerns? In my experience of dealing with peak they are pretty customer-oriented.

Good suggestion. IMLE, Peak are keen to resolve quality issues, so it would be worth talking to them at least.

On the note of exposure correction, OK its fine when scanning, but out of interest can the people who do the cibachrome prints do a similar thing to any extent?

AFAIK, Cibachromes can be produced from scanned films these days, so they're as easy to tweak as any normal digital photo. When I did Cibachrome printing many years ago, ISTR that each batch of paper had to be tested to get the correct filtration anyway, so most of these things are as much down to artistic preference as reality anyway.

[apochromatic]

Tim, David recommended www.the-darkroom.co.uk in Cheltenham while we were in Northumberland. I gave them a go and they seem to be pretty OK... very fast turnaround. They're 50p a sheet more expensive than than Peak but don't charge any extra for pushing & pulling. Roger Longdin took all his Namibia fillms to them for processing and haven't heard anything untoward.

Paul

Just been checking up on prices and I see Peak have put the price of their processing up to £2.50 a sheet + postage so there's little to choose between them and The Darkroom on cost - what do NPS charge? I notice The Darkroom now send back the QL packet tops which is a real help

[timparkin]

Perhaps I'm being far too pragmatic for this thread but surely casts and minor exposure issues can be corrected later in (dare I whisper it?) Photoshop?

Of course, I shall probably now be ejected from the group and cast into the fiery pit of digital hell for even suggesting such heresy....

Theoretically yes but as anyone knows who has tried to get a colour accurate scan from a negative you'll know it isn't quite as easy in practise (for an experiment, try removing the colour cast from a raw neg scan and then get the colours looking natural using photoshop - not east. Its not even easy if you use silverfast to give you a head start).

The problem with fixing casts is that you don't know where they are. They could only exist in some colours and in some luminosities and isolating them is bloody difficult. Also, as anyone knows who has tried to reproduce photoshop adjustments knows, it's not easy just making the same adjustments to the same file without knowing the exact settings.

One of the advantages of a transparency is knowing you have an accurate colour reference. If I get a tranny back with a cast, how will I know if it is a cast or what it was actually like? If I have PS adjustments settings to remove the cyan cast from Provia scans, I would like to be able to apply them and know that I have a result with a high level of colour accuracy.

Anyway -- I think I ranted a little

Most of them time you can get an acceptable, if not accurate, result from tweaking in PS.

Tim

[Patrick Dixon]

One of the advantages of a transparency is knowing you have an accurate colour reference.

But you haven't really, have you?

All you have is a representation of the colours and luminosity presented in a way that the process and your ability to control it dictates.

[dave_whatever]

yep, the only accurate colour reference would be to walk around your scene with a colour meter taking readings. not even your memory of the scene is an accurate respresentation. colour perception isn't a fixed thing, so I would say unless your colour casts look out of place then don't worry about it. A warm/magenta cast in the shadows of an image with uplight sunset clouds is about par for the course anyway. The viewer of the image doesn't know if you had pink clouds overhead (i.e. out of shot) or cobalt blue sky, which would both give a wildly differing rendition of a foreground.

[timparkin]

One of the advantages of a transparency is knowing you have an accurate colour reference.

But you haven't really, have you?

All you have is a representation of the colours and luminosity presented in a way that the process and your ability to control it dictates.

Yes ,I should have said that you have a consistent representaton of the colour and that if you are familiar with the film you are using you will have a good idea what the actual colour was like. Whereas if you introduce random colour casts, this is impossible.

Tim

[Charles Twist]

Hello,
NPS charge £2.05 + VAT per 5x4 sheet and will give a 10% reduction for 10 or more sheets.
Best regards,
Charles