Provia 100 status

[Brian Maier]

Whats the status at this point of the Provia 100 film?

[blackangus1]

It should be ready any minute. I wrote to Pro8mm on Friday asking what the status was, and am expecting to hear from them very soon.

I will post to the list, as well as individually to all purchasers, as soon as it's ready.

[Mikko]

How about the new Velvia order? Are they ready?

Mikko

[blackangus1]

Hi all,

I just received notification from Pro8mm that both the Velvia 50D and Provia 100D orders should be ready later today. Once they send the cartridges back to me, I'll turn around and distribute them to you.

As for the Provia 400, B&H notified me that the raw filmstock has been shipped, and should be here in a few days. I will then send it on to Pro8mm for conversion to cartridges, so we're still a few weeks away from having Provia 400 carts.

[blackangus1]

I have the Provia 100 and Velvia 50 cartridges now, and they will be sent out tomorrow!

[Cranium]

I just got about 5 rolls of Provia 100F slides back yesterday. This stuff has NO grain. For kicks, I scanned a few frames just under the dimensions of a S8 frame (my scanner software won't go down to 1/1000th of an inch.) Couldn't see a spec of grain. I did notice that all of these frames I got were a tad soft. I figured it's either my cheap ($300!) lens, or my scanners inability to focus that clearly on such a small scale. Probably the lens, though I've since heard on the internet that Provia's a bit soft. I'll be anxiously awaiting my carts to give it a go.
My other impressions, based on the slides:
1. I love this film.
2. Decent shadow detail.
3. Great skin-tones. Even Asian skin, which I've had problems with in the past color-wise.
4. Color's not a saturated as, say, Kodak EBX. I still haven't decided if that's good or not.
5. Doesn't blow-out like Kodak E100SV. Highlights stay tame.
6. Did I mention NO grain? OK, I know that it has grain by nature of being film. How about no NOTICABLE grain. Again, we'll see how it looks in S8.

I've heard of people pushing it to 320 with no noticable difference in grain or color. I'd love to try that in S8. If I'm as impressed with the S8 results as I am the 35mm results, this could be the one film I'd take over any other. I've already made that decision for slides.

BTW- Anybody else shoot slides around here?