"Best" color negative film

jpazzz · Nov 15, 2014

Hello, I'm feeling really ignorant here...totally out of touch with current offerings in color negative film. I'd like to make color print duplicates of about 175 6 X 6 transparencies. I may decide to do the job with a Hasselblad and extension tubes, but I'm leaning toward a Leica, Visoflex, and bellows. But whichever way I decide to go, I'd like to use the highest quality (sharpness and color rendition) film currently available. It would seem that film speed should not be a factor here. So, what do you all think. What is the highest quality color negative film currently available in 135 and/or 120?

Thanks for your knowledge, thoughts, and experiences.

Cheers,

John

MattKing · Nov 15, 2014

What size of prints?

Xmas · Nov 15, 2014

use 6x6 or larger
don't think the rendition is critical you will be 2nd generation
Id scan as well

bernard_L · Nov 15, 2014

use 6x6 or larger

+1 of course. How can you expect to achieve your goal of "highest quality" if upfront you use smaller format?

don't think the rendition is critical you will be 2nd generation

Don't agree. Like saying results will be poor anyway, why bother.

As concerns film choice, Portra160 should not be a bad choice. Overexpose by one stop at least to capture the high densities present in the slides.
As concerns color rendition, if I had to do this aiming for best results, I'd get a Wolf Faust IT8 transparency target, preferably of the same film as your transparencies (but not essential) and establish a profile for the positive-converted scans. Other important factors: quality of your light source: uniformity, color temperature, CRI; flatness of slide.

Mainecoonmaniac · Nov 15, 2014

This is sacrilege, but I would scan the chrome and send it off to shutterfly. I've tried duping chromes with color neg film and the results are not great. The process picks up contrast and shadow detail gets lost. You can dupe with a special interneg film if it's available but results won't be as good as scanning though.

DanielStone · Nov 15, 2014

if you're dedicated to making neg dupes of your transparencies, then I'd recommend Kodak Portra 160

railwayman3 · Nov 15, 2014

Mainecoonmaniac said:
This is sacrilege, but I would scan the chrome and send it off to shutterfly. I've tried duping chromes with color neg film and the results are not great. The process picks up contrast and shadow detail gets lost. You can dupe with a special interneg film if it's available but results won't be as good as scanning though.

I'm afraid that I would have to agree that, on occasion, digital has its uses. In pre-digital days I used to copy slides onto color neg to make prints, using the dedicated Kodak interneg film (now no longer available, SFAIK ?), but always found that ordinary neg film gave either excessive contrast or a milky look to the prints.

To make B&W prints from slides, I used to copy them onto a B&W film with (IIRC) extra exposure and a "soft" developer to control contrast. (It was in student days when money was tight, and I used cheapy Orwo NP22 bulk film with Neofin Blue. Still have a few books of prints up to 10x8 and I'd be quite satisfied to get the same quality of results now.)

snapguy · Nov 15, 2014

best

I was going to say I seem to remember from the olde days that for your proposed use you need a low contrast film not the "best," whatever that is. The film you need will be the worst for regular shooting but better for what you have in mind.

Vonder · Nov 15, 2014

The best film to use is Fuji Reala, an ASA 100 film, still available fresh (not new) on eBay. I have a bunch of it frozen and use it for special events and occasions.

asteroid_death · Nov 15, 2014

I like Ektar more than Portra for its saturation; Fuji's 800H is ok too, but Velvia 50/100 is my film of choice for 'the best look' but that's slide film.

jpazzz · Nov 15, 2014

Thanks

Hello, You're all helping me clarify my thinking. Thank you!

Cheers,
John

ME Super · Nov 15, 2014

If I were making a negative of a slide for printing, I'd go low contrast, slow speed, fine grained. To me this screams Portra 160. I believe this is what PE recommends for interneg use since there aren't any internegative films currently in production for stills.

However, a hybrid process has been adequate for me when getting prints from slides. YMMV.

Mainecoonmaniac · Nov 15, 2014

railwayman3 said:
I'm afraid that I would have to agree that, on occasion, digital has its uses. In pre-digital days I used to copy slides onto color neg to make prints, using the dedicated Kodak interneg film (now no longer available, SFAIK ?), but always found that ordinary neg film gave either excessive contrast or a milky look to the prints.

By scannning, you can make multiple scans at different exposure levels and use Photoshop to HDR them. Back in the old days, there was Cibachrome and Kodak R-2000. Loved Cibachrome, but still very contrastsy. Back then, skilled printers masked some of their chromes to tame the contrast. That's the nature of the beast printing chromes. I printed most of my chromes years ago by using interneg film. Got good results if the transparency wasn't too contrasty. But if I get the filter pack wrong, I get color cross overs. Pain to print.

jpazzz · Nov 16, 2014

Hello Maincoonmaniac, Your mentioning Cibachrome reminds me that perhaps I should have begun this thread by saying that I used to print my transparencies on Cibachrome (which I loved), but that's no longer, obviously, possible. My thought, perhaps misguided, was that perhaps I could duplicate the transparencies on neg film and learn to print color that way. Also, in response to a comment made earlier, my plan was to use the color printing light head from an Omega enlarger for lighting the transparencies, which, it seemed to me would allow me to make whatever adjustments appeared to be necessary.

As a final note, my 6X6 transparencies are mostly mounted. My impression, perhaps erroneous, is that in order to scan 6X6 transparencies, they must be unmounted...true? False?

Again, I really appreciate the help you've all given me.

Cheers,
John

Mainecoonmaniac · Nov 17, 2014

jpazzz said:
Again, I really appreciate the help you've all given me.

A real pleasure

DREW WILEY · Nov 17, 2014

John - internegs can be made on Portra 160, but to do a good job you often need to mask, just like when printing Cibachromes. In fact, sometimes the same mask would work. Otherwise, there are a lot of tricks to doing a good job. Internegs are kinda a backburner project for me, which I fiddle with from time to time. It's a lot easier and more economical just to print new color negs rather than make internegs from old chromes. Even commercial labs generally did a horrible job with internegs, back when that was a routine service. But the now defunct official interneg films had no real advantage over Portra. A lot depends on the original chrome film. Velvia can be a real headache, but it generally had to beat it into submission to print Ciba too.

StoneNYC · Nov 17, 2014

DREW WILEY said:
John - internegs can be made on Portra 160, but to do a good job you often need to mask, just like when printing Cibachromes. In fact, sometimes the same mask would work. Otherwise, there are a lot of tricks to doing a good job. Internegs are kinda a backburner project for me, which I fiddle with from time to time. It's a lot easier and more economical just to print new color negs rather than make internegs from old chromes. Even commercial labs generally did a horrible job with internegs, back when that was a routine service. But the now defunct official interneg films had no real advantage over Portra. A lot depends on the original chrome film. Velvia can be a real headache, but it generally had to beat it into submission to print Ciba too.

If I send you a cell phone camera phone will you actually take a picture of your internegs and post them here?

You never show examples of what you mean. I would like to see them.

DREW WILEY · Nov 17, 2014

An interneg looks like any other neg - just an orangish piece of sheet film. ... nothing really to see unless you print it. ... With that orange mask and inverse colors, it's not like a chrome you can evaluate on a lightbox, unless you are very experienced at it. Doubt I'll be fiddling
with more internegs anytime soon. I can hardly find time to print color at all for awhile. Got too many good black and white negs I'm working
on at the moment. I have no idea of what a camera phone is. Where do you hang the darkcloth?

StoneNYC · Nov 17, 2014

DREW WILEY said:
An interneg looks like any other neg - just an orangish piece of sheet film. ... nothing really to see unless you print it. ... With that orange mask and inverse colors, it's not like a chrome you can evaluate on a lightbox, unless you are very experienced at it. Doubt I'll be fiddling
with more internegs anytime soon. I can hardly find time to print color at all for awhile. Got too many good black and white negs I'm working
on at the moment. I have no idea of what a camera phone is. Where do you hang the darkcloth?

So show us pictures of the good and bad examples of internegs or anything, just one picture of anything you have done or made in the last year.

I just.... You always offer advice with no examples of what you're talking about or proof you have ever done anything, it's frustrating and hard to sort through what is just talk and stuff you may have actually done, you obviously have read and understand a lot, but experience with practical application is important.

Sirius Glass · Nov 17, 2014

I recommend the Kodak Portra family.

sagai · Nov 18, 2014

I tend to say Kodak Colorplus is the best for my non professional purposes.
I have recently compared to Ektar and actually there is a difference of course, however the 3 times higher price for Ektar does not seem to be justified at all.

DREW WILEY · Nov 18, 2014

I don't need to "prove" anything, Stone. If someone can't put two and two together in terms of the tidbits of advice I give on forums like this,
then they simply haven't been on the road for very long. I do not own any kind of digital camera, nor do I have any interest in one, or have
the surplus time to fiddle with that kind of thing just for the sake of casual web communication. Maybe down the road somewhere. I don't
mean to be rude, and do understand the utility of visual illustrations, but at this point in time it's something extremely low on my list of
priorities. In the case of something like internegs, posting anything on the web would be meaningless. A correct interneg looks a lot like an
ordinary correct neg - that's the whole point. After that, it's all densitometry and fussy technique that very few people will want to get involved with. If you're interested, start with elementary film masking techniques first.

Sirius Glass · Nov 18, 2014

DREW WILEY said:
I don't need to "prove" anything, Stone. If someone can't put two and two together in terms of the tidbits of advice I give on forums like this,
then they simply haven't been on the road for very long. I do not own any kind of digital camera, nor do I have any interest in one, or have
the surplus time to fiddle with that kind of thing just for the sake of casual web communication. Maybe down the road somewhere. I don't
mean to be rude, and do understand the utility of visual illustrations, but at this point in time it's something extremely low on my list of
priorities. In the case of something like internegs, posting anything on the web would be meaningless. A correct interneg looks a lot like an
ordinary correct neg - that's the whole point. After that, it's all densitometry and fussy technique that very few people will want to get involved with. If you're interested, start with elementary film masking techniques first.

Point well made.

StoneNYC · Nov 18, 2014

DREW WILEY said:
I don't need to "prove" anything, Stone. If someone can't put two and two together in terms of the tidbits of advice I give on forums like this,
then they simply haven't been on the road for very long. I do not own any kind of digital camera, nor do I have any interest in one, or have
the surplus time to fiddle with that kind of thing just for the sake of casual web communication. Maybe down the road somewhere. I don't
mean to be rude, and do understand the utility of visual illustrations, but at this point in time it's something extremely low on my list of
priorities. In the case of something like internegs, posting anything on the web would be meaningless. A correct interneg looks a lot like an
ordinary correct neg - that's the whole point. After that, it's all densitometry and fussy technique that very few people will want to get involved with. If you're interested, start with elementary film masking techniques first.

If one doesn't have the visual knowledge of what "a normal or correct" exposed color neg looks like, how can they know if it's done right.

I've offered one for FREE your point is an excuse.

I will even send you 35mm color film and a camera and include return shipping, I will have the film processed and post it for you if you will use the film to take pictures of some of your print work or film work.

You have no excuses to not show a single thing, I've seen your website once and I can't image you really know what you are talking about based on that, you claim they are old and that's why, I just want something that shows me you know what you're talking about man.

Sorry, I'm a bit rattled by some things in my personal life and probably more irritable than normal but cmon man, you know what I'm saying and I'm offering you multiple ways to show your work.

flavio81 · Nov 18, 2014

sagai said:
I tend to say Kodak Colorplus is the best for my non professional purposes.
I have recently compared to Ektar and actually there is a difference of course, however the 3 times higher price for Ektar does not seem to be justified at all.

Thanks, i'll use more Colorplus then. I don't have Ektar in 35mm available in this country, only in 120.

"Best" color negative film

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