Summary: Works well for the purpose it is intended

Comment: To expand upon the other review, here is my personal non-scientific experience with this film.

If you are shooting photos outdoors in bright sunlight and your subject is not human, this film is fantastic. It yields very clear beautifully colored slides that are suitable for use with extreme enlargements - in the 30-40 inch range easily, maybe larger. It is also an E-6 process, so while still some what challenging to find, processing the film in major cities is "doable".

I personally find the best aspect of this film is its ability to render amazing greens - so, for example, the grass and trees in my photos look astounding.

So, why only four stars? For me, there are two reasons -

1. You have to know and want to shoot outdoor scenery. If you load this film, you have decided that your next 36 photos are going to be landscape and scenery photos devoid of any closeup human subjects (unless you like pink people).

2. You have to have bright sunlit days to take advantage of this film. If it is overcast, if you are shooting sunrise or sunset, your subject again must be landscape and you need a tripod (lest you like blurry pink people in your photos).


If your subject is stationary, not human, and you have lots of sun, this film is hard to beat because it does deliver beautiful, lush greens, as well as other colors and is still somewhat easy to process.

If you want to use slide film, your scene/subject is people or will have people close up, and if you want accurate skin hue along with your other beautiful colors, Kodachrome 64 beats this film hands down (even though there is really only one place remaining in the world that can process k-14 slide film).

CM

Summary: Works sometimes, but not a good 'general shooting' film.

Comment: It seems like these days, those who still DO shoot at least SOME film rave RELENTLESSLY about hypersaturated films like this one. So when I went from shooting all digital to shooting digital and SOME film several months ago, I figured I would give this stuff a try. After all, Velvia is supposedly the film that 'dethroned' Kodachrome. And given the fact that I have ALWAYS been a fan of Kodachrome, it just HAD to be good. Right? Well, not quite. Now don't get me wrong. I like colors as much as the next guy. But not when they just completely butcher a shot. People often complain about rendering of skin tones. But this is NEVER what Velvia was intended for. It is supposed to b a landscape film. However, I have found that it is not the best landscape film, either. I am just not partial to vast expanses of mountain forests (normally a dark grey-green) that look almost kelly green or expanses of golden, grass-covered California hillsides that come out orangish-brown. Of course, in its defense, I have taken some GREAT shots with this film. Sometimes, the hypersaturation just plain-old works. It seems to work well when shooting subjects which are SUPPOSED to be REALLY coloful, like art or flowers. Also, it works well on landscapes that are fairly colorless, but in which a really old, blue sky is desirable. However, I just don't seem to encounter enough situations on a consistent basis where this IS the case to make Velvia a favorite.

Summary: Adorama is the best!

Comment: Good film! maybe the best there is for landscape

Adorama is the best! I mean it!