I have a question for you film gurus. I've been shooting a Pentax 67 now and then, just for fun but I'm very new at this whole film thing. My problem is, mildly put, that the results so far have been complete crap. I've had the films developed and scanned for me by a company I usually use for high quality prints. They should be good at what they are doing but I'm getting washed out colors, strong color cast etc:
Ektar 100 (negative):
Portra 160 VC (negative):
My question is - what's going on? Why such crappy results? Is it the film stock, is it the scanning or is it simply a question of postprocessing?
I suspected scanning and almost ran away to the nearest photo store and bought an Epson 750 Pro scanner but I came to my senses and realized that I don't actually know that the problem is with the scanning.
The first image is going to cause problems for you. Ektar is a daylight balance film with pretty high saturation, so shooting it in tungsten light is not going to be easy to correct unless you shot through the proper color conversion filter.
#2 isn't too bad and you could probably dial in the color in photoshop with selective color.
#3 probably just has bad white and black points set. But to know for certain, have you looked at your film and ensure you've got good density on the film to start? If the negative is thin, the auto adjustment the scanner would apply would probably cause that problem (gray blacks and white skies).
Anyways, for me scanning gives me much more control over my processes and I'm happier with the results, but my volume is limited by my available time.
Denoir,
with respect to Mr Ladewig, there is no need to use colour correcting filters now that there is Photoshop. The two tools you need are curves - to remove a colour cast (if you have a cast of particular colour, adjust the curve of that colour downwards in the centre with a single point) and colour balance (to correct the colour balance - self explanatory, but a powerful tool as you adjust midtones, highlights and shadows separately. Like all of these things needs a bit of practice...
Simon Kennedy wrote:
Denoir,
with respect to Mr Ladewig, there is no need to use colour correcting filters now that there is Photoshop. The two tools you need are curves - to remove a colour cast (if you have a cast of particular colour, adjust the curve of that colour downwards in the centre with a single point) and colour balance (to correct the colour balance - self explanatory, but a powerful tool as you adjust midtones, highlights and shadows separately. Like all of these things needs a bit of practice...
I'd have to disagree with that first sentence. The rest is true and useful, and while you can correct a lot of color casts and other crap in Photoshop, using a filter on the lens will definitely give you better images.
Daylight balance film's blue layer is too slow for tungsten light, so you are underexposing the blue when shooting it without a filter. You can adjust for that some in Photoshop, but the fact of the matter is that it's underexposed. Furthermore, once you mess with the color balance in PS, it can lead to color crossover, leading to funky looking shadows and/or highlights, since the R, G, and B curves are non linear and are no longer matched. Using a filter corrects for all of this. In my experience, using something like KB6 gives you enough of a boost to make a difference, letting you make up the difference in Photoshop and really improving colors without sacrificing too much speed. Though you'd still be better off with the full correction.
Also, I wouldn't think Ektar is a good choice for shooting portraits, especially with indoor lighting. To each his own, but I think you'll be a lot happier with something like Portra 400 in this scenario. The first image certainly suffers from not having a filter on the lens.
The 2nd image looks like it might have tungsten lighting as the primary light source also, though I'm not sure. I agree with the poor black points on the 3rd image, but it also looks like it might be underexposed some. Once you bring the black points up to the right level, you might be unhappy with how little there is going on in the shadows. If so, it needed more exposure.
Minilab-style scans can be useful and even good, but a lot of times you end up with wonky black points, blown out highlights (when more is obtainable from a better scan of the negative), and slightly off colors. Some places are better than others.
kidtexas wrote:
I'd have to disagree with that first sentence. The rest is true and useful, and while you can correct a lot of color casts and other crap in Photoshop, using a filter on the lens will definitely give you better images.
Daylight balance film's blue layer is too slow for tungsten light, so you are underexposing the blue when shooting it without a filter. You can adjust for that some in Photoshop, but the fact of the matter is that it's underexposed. Furthermore, once you mess with the color balance in PS, it can lead to color crossover, leading to funky looking shadows and/or highlights, since the R, G, and B curves are non linear and are no longer matched. Using a filter corrects for all of this. In my experience, using something like KB6 gives you enough of a boost to make a difference, letting you make up the difference in Photoshop and really improving colors without sacrificing too much speed. Though you'd still be better off with the full correction.
Also, I wouldn't think Ektar is a good choice for shooting portraits, especially with indoor lighting. To each his own, but I think you'll be a lot happier with something like Portra 400 in this scenario. The first image certainly suffers from not having a filter on the lens.
The 2nd image looks like it might have tungsten lighting as the primary light source also, though I'm not sure. I agree with the poor black points on the 3rd image, but it also looks like it might be underexposed some. Once you bring the black points up to the right level, you might be unhappy with how little there is going on in the shadows. If so, it needed more exposure.
Minilab-style scans can be useful and even good, but a lot of times you end up with wonky black points, blown out highlights (when more is obtainable from a better scan of the negative), and slightly off colors. Some places are better than others....Show more →
Kidtexas is right but in my experience of shooting interiors with mixed light sources you are much better off using Photoshop - you can selectively apply colour correction, after the event, interactively. If you get good at it with some experience there should be no "funky looking" shadows or highlights.
The underexposure is a good point and why with negative film I personally over expose by at least one stop to ensure lattitude for colour correction.
This also leads to better scans - negative film can hold the highlights well but does not behave well when shadows are underexposed.
Your mileage may vary, but I will certainly never use colour correction filters again.
Haha love the shot of the monkeys Nate. Wonder why the man was so annoyed to find them on it... it doesn't look like a supremely pristine machine itself. Very recognisable lens that 35 lux asph.
Simon is right, Photoshop is some great stuff. His important point though is the overexposure. A KB6 filter only sucks a half a stop of light - he's giving his film a full stop of overexposure. Either way though you are losing some speed. The filter way gives you a better balanced image on the negative, which may or may not be important to you. The little extra blue density on the negative with a filter means less PS work for me. Less PS work makes me happy
Note I never have shot, nor do I own, a full on 80A filter. Color neg film + PS is pretty good in this respect. I've just started experimenting with the KB6 and it seems to be like a noticeable improvement. But I normally don't do the overexposure thing.
Also note that typical indoor lighting is about 2800K and not 3200K, so you are stressing your daylight balanced film even more compared to 'tungsten' color balance. Ektar's increased contrast, slow speed, increased saturation, and lower latitude make for a poor choice for indoor shots like this in my opinion. I have been really impressed with Portra 400NC in these conditions though, and expect the new Portra to be even better.
I want to pick up a Canon EOS film body and not sure which one to get. I know the EOS 3 is better but I don't really want to spend $200+ on it. Looking at the A2E or no E and Elan 7 or Elan 7n.
Thanks a lot for the info guys. I did not think of the fact that different film stock is suitable for different light temperatures. I'll try a couple of more color films, but I suspect that I won't be too happy in the end. Perhaps I'd simply better stick to B/W Tri-X
denoir wrote:
Thanks a lot for the info guys. I did not think of the fact that different film stock is suitable for different light temperatures. I'll try a couple of more color films, but I suspect that I won't be too happy in the end. Perhaps I'd simply better stick to B/W Tri-X
I wouldn't give up on it too soon. It just takes some effort to learn how to get the best out of it. Exposure is pretty easy on negative film (color and B&W), it's just different from digital. Either hit right on, or over expose. Don't underexpose and expect to rescue things (something you can get away with in digital, or even preferred). 4 stops of over exposure? Not ideal, but you can work with it. 4 stops under? Mud. A little unsure on the perfect exposure? Add a half of stop just in case.
There are some really nice color films out there that give great results. I find they are particularly good with skin tones.
Pretty much all color film currently made is daylight balanced (ignoring motion picture stocks). There is still some slow tungsten stock being sold, but it's discontinued.
Here's two shots of the same subject, same exposure, same camera, same lens, same roll of film, but different light. The first is under tungsten and compact fluorescents indoors at night. The second is with window light during the day. Both are just minilab scans (NCPS) - you could probably do a bit better with a home/professional scan, especially if the shots had real dense highlights, which these don't. The first I'm happy with and shows you what some other films might be capable of in mixed lighting, but I personally think the second has better color.
The second has way better color. I can't get enough 400NC.
VladiD wrote:
A few from Key West, Portra 400@200 in Contax 645.
Is that the new Portra 400? It looks much higher in contrast and saturation than I was expecting, but I haven't shot it yet. Maybe partially the Zeiss lens, or some processing afterwards?
kidtexas wrote:
I wouldn't give up on it too soon. It just takes some effort to learn how to get the best out of it.
It's not particularly just indoors shots, in fact I'm mostly interested in medium format landscape shots. It seems to me however that colors are the weak point. If you look at Nate's Velvia monkey picture above - that's from what I've seen is about as good as it gets color wise with film. It's fine but still not quite what I want. And what I'm getting is much worse than that.
Take a look at this shot for instance, Ektar 100 as well. The colors are just washed out and none of my standard PP methods seem to work. Increasing contrast or saturation doesn't seem to help. I'm getting nowhere with curves adjustments...
I don't know. Perhaps I should try velvia and perhaps I should try slide film and see if I get something better but it seems right now difficult for me to justify the extra work and the cost. With developing and scanning each 6x7 shot such as the above costs me about $10 and I'm just getting rubbish out of it.
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