No time to explain (will do tonight), but here are the first two scans :)

Isn't that the bobbin area of a sewing machine? Bsteph

Nope, it's an extension tube to get closer to whatever you want to shoot :) Or maybe I bought extension tubes that were made out of a sewing machine ;)

And another.....For some reason Ektrachrome 64 is much much darker than Velvia 50....Almost all my macro shots were completely black, or very underexposed. I'm not at all impressed by the color range, nor by the contrast....it's far too blue as well. I do like the shot above, where the blue color works well with metal, but it's horrible for normal shots that don't include sunlight. Thursday I'll pickup my 2nd roll, which I used at a Xmas fair outside, on a cold and sunny day, so I think it should turn out much better. Nevertheless, I'm very dissapointed with the overall results...although it might be great to use in special ways I guess.

Vague memory... Should use through the lens meter with extension tubes (if possible). Else, need to compensate with hand held meter.

The F4 meters very well, with just about anything except with a banana or an inner tube. Seriously, it's got an extra meter to show the amount of stops you should correct it with... I think I missed it out on one stop here & there, but the tube shots were just 1/4th of the roll. So the darkness didn't just happen to the macro shots only. Velvia doesn't punish you as hard I guess, or do you recon 100 is better in average situations than 64 ?

Btw, don't get me wrong....I DO like the film, but just not to use for stuff you can't prepare for. Perhaps when I know that I have to correct it more than other film, it'll be much better. Hey, I think I payed too much for it btw....something like $15 USD per roll...ouch! I ordered 1 roll off kodak high speed infra red which is $25, ouch ouch.

To compare things, I shot this with the same equipment (except for the lens...50 1.8, Ektachrome with 180 2.8 ED), but this was at a real sunset...so even if it colors a bit blue it does give a clear and bright range a colors...just the way I meant to shoot it. Now the Ektachrome cloud shot above was done on a normal sunny day, during the (early afternoon).

Why do I say 'with the same equipment' while the only thing that was the same is the body, lol!

Wait a sec. am I out of line but isn't Ektachrome and Velvia made by two different manufacturors(sp) namely Kodak and Fuji? I thought Kodak tends to develop toward the yellow and Fuji toward the warmer tones red, blue ect? Bsteph

It always used to be; Ektachrome (with yellow and blue box) tended towards blue, kodachrome (with yellow and red box) tended towards red, agfachrome (with orange box) tended towards warm colors. Strange but true. Don't know if Fuji followed same pattern. Did you process the ektachrome yourself? [I did, once. Ended up real blue.] Maybe had a bad processing run?

I agree with Misha. I started developing Ektachrome back in the '60's, the blue can be minimized by altering the developing times. But as it sounds like you're using a commercial developer, you'll never get rid of it to your satisfaction. Ektachrome was developed for the do-it-yourselfer, Kinda like a Tri-X in color. While Kodachrome, which has quite a few extra steps in the development process, has always been a more commercial film. You didn't mention it, but did you use a ring flash on the macro images? It helps a lot!

Giggle, When I first started reading this thread, I said to my self. Ektachorme, manufactured for decades now, has allways favored the blue spactrum with less saturated and cooler colors. This was the price you paid for the sharpness of the images it can produce, and it excellent ontrast latitude. It was the first choice for those who had to or wanted to do their own developing and there you could warm the transparancy up a bit. If you wanted great saturated colors and image depth you went with Kodachrome. My favorite was Kodachrome 25. Underexpose it a bit and you got the most vivid color images of any film out there. Why do you think someone actually wrote a song about the film. Moma don't take my Kodachrome away. It is nice to see someone rediscovering these idiosyncracies for themselves it provides knowledge hard to gain otherwise. Films are like any other imaging tool each one has a nich that it does better than the other. For Ektachrome you can develop it just about anywhere with the minimum of fuss. It excels in high contrast lighting environments and you would be hard pressed to find a sharper film per ASA number

What ??? The price you pay for sharpness ? Maybe I should try it in high contrast shots, cause all normal daylight shots looked incredibly dull. When taking a closer look I think the Ekta is more grainier than Velvia. (with some exceptions). Very interesting stuff...I'll post my other roll tomorrow. I shot it completely with the 180 2.8 ED, which gives some contrast as well.

An old ektachrome shot. Hmmm now that I think of it nearly 40 years old. While the colors are cool. The image is not blue. The image has a very comfortable feel. A shot taken with Kodachrome or (if it were available at the time ) Velvia would not have resulted in the same how can I put it. Texture.

No problem :) And yes, especially this shot is better as original slide...this one seems a bit hard for my scanner. No idea why.