Vivid colors with housed Nikon D70 vs Nikonos V

[OceanObsessed]

I just did a shark dive with my Nikonos V & SB-105 strobe with 20mm and 15mm lenses. I was using Velvia 100 (not 100F) and Extachrome 100GX. Although I am happy with my photos I did noticed that the photos taken by the professional photographers with a housed D70 produced much more vivid colors than my Nikonos setup produced. The colors with the housed system were a closer match to the true colors of the sharks. We were photgraphing on the same dive, same proximity to subjects, etc. I took over 100 photos per dive (had 3 cameras) and not one of my photos matched the vivid colors produced by the housed D70. Perhaps it is just that they are "professionals" .

Has anyone else noticed a difference with vivid colors when they switched from the Nikonos to digital?

 

[Mariozi]

Try shooting Kodak E100VS for slides, or Agfa Ultra100 for negatives.
You can (if you want) push E100VS to 125 or 160... it gives a lil bit more puch to contrast... but first try it at 100ISO

 

[Mike Veitch]

i would recommend Provia 100

I notice different than you.. When i switched to digital from film i had a hard time getting that punchiness of colour that i would get from film, and certainly not the contrast that i got in film.

Also, those guys with their D70s are playin with stuff in PS before showing you their pics!!! haha...

 

[ChrisA]

I took over 100 photos per dive (had 3 cameras) and not one of my photos matched the vivid colors produced by the housed D70. Perhaps it is just that they are "professionals" .

Has anyone else noticed a difference with vivid colors when they switched from the Nikonos to digital?

What happens is that with slide film "you get what you get" and with digital you get to play with the color balance, saturation and contrast in post processing. Even if you don't shoot in RAW format and print straight from the camera you still can select the degree of color "vividness" with a menu seting on the camera. But I'd bet did some post precessing on the compter. There is also a setting for more subtle color and even monochrome

You to can get the same result by scanning the slides to digital files and then importing the files to Photoshop or the like.

I routinly change the color in my underwater photos to make them look more like I think color should look like. Note that what it should look like (withou tthe color filter effect of the water) and what I saw are not the same.

 

[Mariozi]

Yeah Mike, felt like it also...
Down here in Brazil we had a nice experiment: last years National Championship was a mixed event, both digital and film competing together. Only in-camera editing was allowed, and no film push processing.
Some points were confirmed, for example, Digital is much more versatile, especially for the ability of shooting more than 36 exposures, but Film (mostly Velvia 100, Provia100F, E100VS and E200) had a good advantage in WA photography.

 

[DesertEagle]

Are you comparing the original slides, or looking at the prints? There can be a world of difference. I use a Nionos/15mm.

I tried E100VS a few years ago. It was too saturated for my liking. Water was turned an artificial blue.

For general wide angle I would use the Velvia 100 (not F). For sharks it would be Provia 100F.

Until very recently I had Ilfochrome prints done from my slides. Unfortunately the lab closed. But.. another lab has a Frontier printer and uses Ilford super gloss paper. My prints from Velvia look incredibly vivid. Hope that helps.

 

[f3nikon]

I just did a shark dive with my Nikonos V & SB-105 strobe with 20mm and 15mm lenses. I was using Velvia 100 (not 100F) and Extachrome 100GX. Although I am happy with my photos I did noticed that the photos taken by the professional photographers with a housed D70 produced much more vivid colors than my Nikonos setup produced. The colors with the housed system were a closer match to the true colors of the sharks. We were photgraphing on the same dive, same proximity to subjects, etc. I took over 100 photos per dive (had 3 cameras) and not one of my photos matched the vivid colors produced by the housed D70. Perhaps it is just that they are "professionals" .

Has anyone else noticed a difference with vivid colors when they switched from the Nikonos to digital?

These are Velvia:

http://www.ianskipworth.com/suig/nudis.html

Digital is almost at film's color range. I don't believe it's the film but the limitations of the Nikonos camera. The problems with the Nikonos is that you are guessing in the focusing (rangefinder camera) so your focus maybe off. Then, since film does not have the instant feedback like digital, your exposures maybe way off, too much light or too little light can make or break an image because Velvia cannot tolerate even a 1/3 stop over or underexposure. More the reason for a lot of bracketing with film, the only problem is that you only have 36 shots, even more the reason to go digital. To add to this with he Nikonos you are not seeing the same image as the camera's sees, so when you think you are close to the subject you really are not, and will be shooting through more water than an SLR/DSLR in a housing.

I'll keep my Nikon F3 (housed SLR) for pinpoint macro work but will shift to digital for the wideangle.

 

[OceanObsessed]

Are you comparing the original slides, or looking at the prints? There can be a world of difference.

When I got my slides processed I had them make digital images too. So I am comparing my digital images to the digital images of the D70. I have not checked the actual slides yet.

Thanks for all the replies!

 

[f3nikon]

Actually that website used both the the F3 Nikon with Velvia film vs. the D70.

http://www.ianskipworth.com/suig/nudis.html

 

[ChrisA]

The problems with the Nikonos is that you are guessing in the focusing (rangefinder camera) so your focus maybe off.

He was using a 15mm and 20mm lens. The depth of field of a 15mm lens is huge.
It is this 15mm lens that makes the Nikonos worth having. The N70 would need to be using the 10mm fisheye to get as wide a field. In fact I don't think it is possible to make a lens that wide for any SLR camera. The mirror box has some thickness or depth and makes it so that the lens mount is an inch or so in from of the image plane. So A range finder camera can have a shorter focal length lens. As for exposure, Of course it could have been off butthe Nikonos has a built-in meter

As for shooting through more water, maybe with a 15mm lens the subject were likely panoramic

Still, I'd bet the guys with the N70 post processed the images or set the camera to "vivid color".