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Astia blows away Provia for skin tones.
Posted 58 months ago.
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Does that mean that Provia is more neutral or "real" color balanced?
How do they respond in warmer light?
Velvia does not do well under warmer color.
Posted 58 months ago.
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Isn't Velvia famously bad for skin under most circumstances?
Posted 58 months ago.
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Berin Loritsch [deleted] says:
Provia is the most versatile of the three for general use. Astia was designed for the fashion industry, and Velvia was designed for lush landscapes. Velvia has a tendency to emphasize greens which is dastardly for just about everyone's skin tones. Velvia is also the highest contrast of the three, and Astia is the lowest contrast of the three.
Something I noticed about Astia that surprised me a bit is that it seems to smooth surfaces for you. For example, with Provia if I took a a picture of a marble column I would be able to see the imperfections in that column. With Astia, those imperfections would be mostly smoothed out, which helps cover up skin blemishes for sure. Although, for architecture it looks a bit unnatural.
Posted 58 months ago.
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Yup, Astia's low contrast (for slide film anyway) and neutral color is great for skin tones. But the Kodak Portra line and Fuji 400H are also great for portrait use, especially if you are shooting outside and don't want to carry around a selection of warming filters to get skin tones just right on slide film.
Posted 58 months ago.
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I think Velvia's badness is somewhat overrated. I have read that it used to be quite commonly used for portrait work. I think, though, that control of the lighting was rather important.
I actually used an 812 filter for both those shots above. I've found it basically always improves skin tones. At least in my experience.
Posted 58 months ago.
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Velvia, Provia, and Astia are all great films (as are Portra, 400H, etc) and you can use any film you want for portraits or any other subject, it's just a question of what look you want and how much control over light you have available. But if someone is using Velvia for portraits I doubt natural skin tones are their first priority.
Originally posted 58 months ago.
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(mjh) edited this topic 58 months ago.
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Of your two examples I would say Provia looks better, if a little cold. The astia shot is too yellow to my eyes. But saying that I use Astia for everything! lol
Posted 58 months ago.
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Agreed on all of that. I first learned of Velvia portraits from Vik Orenstein (who ran a child portrait studio and wrote several books). Her luck seemed to be pretty good with it. I've tried it. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it wasn't quite what I was after either.
Posted 58 months ago.
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I like Kodak films (Ektachrome/slide or ProImage/negative) skin tones.
I never used Provia or Astia, the only slide film from Fuji I have used is Velvia. Although not that bad, skin tones are somewhat "wrong" and it tends to underexpose. But that's probably me.
Posted 58 months ago.
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Interesting. I'm not too keen on Ektachrome, and tend to prefer Provia. Matter of taste, I suppose.
Posted 58 months ago.
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i've shoot a velvia 100f, overexposed one step, and doesn't look too bad, thought the highlights are a little blown
Posted 58 months ago.
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Velvia 100f is indeed the best (or least bad) for skin tones of the Velvia family. But also the worst for its originally intended use.
Posted 58 months ago.
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I tried velvia 100f under studio lights once and got some very odd (but pleasing) results.
The contrast was higher than expected, the skin tones while not looking natural, seem fairly suited to the glamy style, and the background went from charcoal grey to a strange purpleish grey.
See link. (contains glam style pic hence look at your own discression)
Heres a natural light one shot on velvia 50. I have changed the saturation and balanace slightly as the original was very very saturated in the greens and reds.
Astia looks great to me for use under controlled lighting, but I find Portra NC more flexible in terms of speed, more natural colours, cheaper to process, and more forgiving for general portrait use.
Posted 58 months ago.
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