velvia 100.

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Up until this weekend, I hadn’t tried any slide film with the Hasselblad; my 35mm experiences with both Fuji Velvia 100 and Kodak Elite Chrome 200 have been mixed, at best: slide film is very finicky when it comes to exposure, and I’ve found the grain quality to be inconsistent.

The photo taken above, of my uncle outside the restaurant where we celebrated my father’s retirement, as well as the photos taken around my parents house in the last post, were all taken with Velvia 100.  As you can see from the house photos, in the right light the tones are just about spot-on; slightly underexposed (as with the photo above) and everything turns a bit violet. Slide film is not forgiving if you’re not careful with your metering.

Weirdly, though, I kinda dig it.  Maybe it’s because with the Hasselblad, there’s a crispness to everything that I didn’t really have with my 35mm cameras.  Maybe it’s because there are tons of different textures and patterns in that photo of my uncle, so combined with the purple tones it just feels a bit loopy anyway.   Or maybe it’s simply because I have a better scanner now, so the richness of slide film is finally coming through (in which case I’ll need to rescan all of my 35mm slides … or maybe not).   This is one of the first times I’ve really been pleased with transparency film, violet tones be damned.

Will pick up another 5-pack this week, to experiment on my weary friends this weekend.  Weary friends, you are forewarned.
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