The slides I shot at Ocean Isle Beach came back from AgX Imaging in Sault Saint Marie in Michigan and I couldn’t be happier with them! As long as Mike keeps processing E6 slide film, I’ll keep sending my rolls of film to him because you can see that the processed frames are very nicely done even with me really pushing the limits of the film shooting until it was almost dark.
The really cool thing about shooting this film was the feeling of eager anticipation when I mailed the box off to AgX Imaging because at the time I shot this roll of film, I really wasn’t sure how the resulting pictures were going to look! This was my first time really having a chance to play with Velvia 50 in my Nikon F5. The last time I was of a mind to shoot film, I was stupid and left the Velvia 50 in the refrigerator in the garage when I went to the mountains this past spring and couldn’t find any in Asheville!)
Velvia 50 is known for in-your-face obnoxious color saturation (especially with red and purple) and this roll certainly didn’t disappoint in that department! 🙂
You generally don’t want to use Velvia 50 for people unless you’re really looking for skin tones that would remind you of Ooompa Loompas (you can see this in the couple of frames that show people walking along the beach). If you’ve got to have the Velvia look for people, consider using Velvia 100 instead…it’s much less harsh on the skin tones.
My favorites are the ones of the house next door (especially frame 21!) where you can see the setting sun reflected in the window which were the ones that really show you what Velvia can do that really can’t be faked in a digital camera or Photoshop. You can come close but it won’t be Velvia!
None of these photos were retouched…all I did was scan them at 7200 dpi with a Plustek 8200 film scanner, import them to Lightroom, and then fix the cropping (and occasionally flipped a frame horizontally) in Lightroom’s Develop module which I’m starting to play with.
