Just got a couple more rolls of Astia back from the local lab. SP red noses look great on this film! The SP gray is still a tinge cool and maybe a tad brownish (I'm being overly critical here), but in my opinion it's a little more accurate than Provia here, and Kodachrome SP gray looks like dirt to me. Oh gee, maybe it is dirt? Anyway, nice green folliage, accurate reproduction of our Missouri hazy puke looking sky and good contrast and sharpness. The trailing CN unit looked a little ballistic, so I dug out a CN PKR64 shot that I took of a new SD-70I (or whatever those things are) and I like the Astia better. CN is too blood red on Kodachrome for me. It's supposed to be orangish-red. (You can't really compare these new E-6 films to Kodachrome these days, but people are still trying...).
The Astia NS shots look... black, but you can see hood door lines where you can't so easily with Provia. Very little difference, but noticable side by side on my light table. I need to shoot more of this stuff and do a side by side direct Provia comparison on the same subject at the same time in the same light to see more (looks like the enevitable dreaded roster shot!). Astia looks good so far. It is more than two bucks more a roll though than what I am paying for Provia and Velvia. I'm sure Astia will eventually drop in price like the rest of them though. I shoot a lot of Fujichrome. This stuff adds up. I need to shoot more Astia before I can decide if I think it looks better than Provia for trains. There isn't enough obvious difference to make it worth two bucks a roll more to me yet with the limited amount I have shot of this new film so far. Especially after looking at all of my RD Sensia from Wyoming and not being able to tell the difference from Provia. And the Sensia is even two bucks cheaper still. In controlled studio lighting, the results between Provia and Astia are distinct. Especially blue garments and skin tones. You tend to lose most of this difference though with less than 5500K light outside. The side by side test will be necessary. Anyone try that new Sensia 2 100 ISO film yet? Regards, Dave Cohen Photographer [EMAIL PROTECTED] --> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 924
