Closest filter to create ortho response with pan film.

Doremus Scudder said:

Kino,

You need to be a bit thicker-skinned. Daniel is just continuing the discussion and contributing lots of valuable information. Sure, the thread was originally to help Jarin find a solution to his particular problem, but now that his film is made and he's up for an Oscar, the discussion can veer off to address the needs of more of us here on the forum. I tend to think of that less as hijacking the thread than continuing on from an original destination. I, for one, find Daniel's contribution fascinating and eagerly await his further posts.

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Perhaps you like being testily dismissed when trying to help someone; I don't.

Doremus Scudder said:

And, you should really know that blue-sensitive emulsions (or color-blind emulsions as they are also called) are really not anywhere the same as orthochromatic ones. The latter have markedly different renderings of green things, like foliage, than the simple blue-sensitive ones. Sure, blue-sensitive films have a different look than panchromatic ones, but orthochromatic is a different animal too. I don't think Daniel is being too exacting, nor do I think we should stifle his interest and industry, especially in light of the amount of research he's already done and the information he's presented.

Really, you shouldn't get so testy when someone kindly points out a discrepancy or misconception on your part. You were the one that wasn't exactly "spot on" with regard to the discussion about orthochromatic rendering.

Best,

Doremus

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Dismissed out of hand, yes.

Someone didn't look at the spectral response curves of 2366, which clearly show it about halfway between being blue and orthochromatic response.

For a quick and near ortho response, it is suitable.

There’s a lot of good info in this thread. Please dial back the snark, folks, because we’d rather not have to edit posts or close what is otherwise an informative discussion.

pentaxuser said:

Interesting pictures and helpful in terms of the differences between the two films but unfortunately not a comparison between Ilford Ortho Plus or any Ortho film and FP4+ or any Pan film with the ortho filter that Jarin uses

Looks like I''ll just have to wait a bit longer

pentaxuser

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I’m surprised you haven’t already done the comparison yourself.

Kino said:

... Someone didn't look at the spectral response curves of 2366, which clearly show it about halfway between being blue and orthochromatic response. For a quick and near ortho response, it is suitable.

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Kino,
Interesting. Yes 2366 seems to be about halfway between blue-sensitive and ortho. It would be interesting to compare all three with a multi-colored subject and see the differences. I'm not sure how much difference the extra sensitivity would actually make compared to blue-sensitive film, since 2366 begins falling off rather soon, already at 400nm, and density is pretty low at its highest sensitivity, about 530nm. Ortho emulsions are pretty sensitive up to about 580nm from where they fall off rather rapidly, i.e., a rather sharp, steep drop.

FWIW, I was just trying to keep things civil and polite. Apologies if you took that wrongly. I'm certain that Daniel meant no offense.

Best,

Doremus

Doremus Scudder said:

...Apologies if you took that wrongly. I'm certain that Daniel meant no offense.

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Right -- I was just trying to stay on topic which is: "Closest filter to create ortho response with pan film."

I jumped into this discussion when the Oscar nominations were announced. Maybe it was a little premature to announce my little experiment.

I'm still waiting for a couple of filters to arrive. The cyan additive dichroic filter is on a slow truck from New Jersey and the 44A shipped from Germany. No tracking on either one. I also have to check with Panavision on the availability of Jarin's custom filter. In other words, don't expect anything from me right away.

Jarin - Congratulations on your ASC Spotlight Award for your work on The Lighthouse!

Quick update on the test I'm setting up--here are the filters so far.


The square filter is the Kodak Wratten 44A gel, 3x3 inch. To my eye it looks more cyan than this photo but I don't have a color corrected lightbox and this was shot on an iPhone. The mounted filter is a 52mm Nikon B12 which is equivalent to an 80A filter. It is designed for shooting tungsten film in daylight but some people have reported good results using this with black and white film. The unmounted filter is the cyan dichroic filter from Edmund Optics. This is an interesting filter because it passes cyan and reflects yellow. (I sent a request to see if they can supply this in larger sizes and am waiting for a reply.)



I spoke with Andrea Alemany, filter technician at Panavision. She is tracking down the custom filter used on The Lighthouse.

Somewhat off topic I read Kodak's 1921 book, "The Fundamentals of Photography" by C. E. K. Mees, D. Sc. and it was interesting to note that back in the day when ortho film was still popular they were using yellow filters to try and get closer to the look of the new panchromatic films. Why? Because it is easier to process ortho film by inspection using a rather bright red safelight while panchromatic film requires a dark green safelight that can only be turned on for a few seconds midway through development.

Eagerly awaiting your results, Daniel!

Doremus Scudder said:

Eagerly awaiting your results, Daniel!

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Likewise. Incidentally, Daniel, the mounted filter looks the most like cyan and the round unmounted one looks almost turquoise on my screen and to my eyes

pentaxuser

I got some results to share.

As I was planning out the test I realized that some of the filters didn't have published filter factors. Some experimenting shooting digital got me close but I wasn't really sure until I put some real film through a camera. In addition, I contacted Andrea Alemany, filter technician at Panavision, who told me to call Mike Carter who is the person that was involved with getting the filter made that was eventually used by Jarin. In any case, before testing the hero filter I thought I'd better test what I've got and maybe narrow down the number of filters to test.

On page 110 of "The Fundamentals of Photography" by C. E. K. Mees, D. Sc. chapter XII, Orthochromatic Photography, there is a picture of an orange on a blue cloth.



After some experimenting shooting digital through the various filters it looked like an orange on a blue cloth would be an ideal subject for this test so here's my setup:



Notice that I'm using the same film stock and light meter that Jarin used on The Lighthouse.

Ok--so this is what I really wanted to see, a side-by-side comparison of panchromatic and orthochromatic film.




Now which filter is going to be the survivor this first round? Turns out that the Kodak Wratten 44A filter did the best job.



Note that the filter requires opening up two stops so it will be interesting to see how close the Schneider filter comes to this. By the way, these are quick and dirty scans and I did very minimal adjustments on the images.

I had high hopes for the cyan dichroic filter from Edmund Optics because it only needed to open up 1/2 stop but it didn't do very well on the test. They do have some short-pass filters and they can do a special order cut to size but their minimum charge is $750 which is good for about 5-7 100mm square filters. That is way beyond what I'm willing to spend on this experiment.



Finally, the 80A (actually a Nikon B12 filter which is the same thing).



Before moving on to the next part of the test I thought I'd try something suggested in The Fundamentals of Photography and that is to use a yellow filter with ortho film in order to get a response close to panchromatic film. Why would you want to do this? Ortho film does have the advantage of being able to be handled under a red safelight so you don't need to be in total darkness. It actually worked quite well but the yellow filter needed a lot more exposure compensation on ortho film.



That Nikon Y52 filter is the same as a Wratten 12. Note that the filter factor is much more than on panchromatic film. In fact this is slightly underexposed. I also tried orange and red filters but I only went to 7 stops and was still way underexposed. In any case, let's get back on topic.

What does skin look like? First let's take a look at what it looks like in color -- this is me standing in for Willem Dafoe.



Kodak Double-X - no filter


Ilford Ortho


Not that big of a difference. I would have expected something more dramatic. In any case, here are the filters.

Kodak Double-X with 44A filter


Kodak Double-X with cyan dichroic filter


Kodak Double-X with 80A (Nikon B12) filter

I'm seeing the images fine. It looks like they are hosted at flickr so could be an issue there.

Thanks Sean. The images are showing up on another computer so the issue might be here -- or flickr. In any case, hope other forum members are getting something useful out of this.

tests are nice but why use film that is not made anymore...xx?? not available

Peter Schrager said:

...why use film that is not made anymore...xx?? not available

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If you're talking about Double-X:

Jarin Blaschke said:

It is motion picture, and the only practical black and white stock available (excepting Orwo - too risky) is Double-X, so we'll be working at these levels:

ISO 250
Lighting: 5500k (daylight, HMI and LED)
...

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Both Ilford Ortho Plus and Kodak Double-X are current films. Sure, I could have used another panchromatic black and white film but I wanted to keep my test as similar as possible to what was used on The Lighthouse even though I'm not shooting with a movie camera. Note that Double-X is rated slightly slower with tungsten lighting (ISO 200 tungsten vs. ISO 250 Daylight) so I'm using daylight balanced lighting in my tests. Hum--just noticed that I rated it at 200 but I used D-76, not whatever they use to develop motion picture film so this is by no means a perfect match. What's important is if the filter is giving the vintage ortho look and I got the same results when I ran this test on a digital camera (5D Mark III) using the monochrome picture style.

It is interesting how unappetizing an orange can appear !
Thanks for the very interesting tests.

Very interesting, thanks for your work at it.

Daniel,

Thanks for this! Interesting how the 80A gets a result somewhere between pan and ortho (or the #44A filter). I've used both for "ortho effects" with pan film and come to a similar conclusion, but without ever doing any rigorous testing; now I know for sure. I'm interested to see how Jarin Blashke's custom filter stacks up against the #44A filter. Could you make sure to include the color chart when doing those comparisons as well?

Thanks again!

Doremus

Got some news about Jarin's filter. Mike Carter at Panavision informed me that another production is using it so I can't get my hands on it for testing until the end of May!

In the meantime, at the risk of getting offtopic once again I took the color digital shot and gave it the black and white orthochromatic look.



I used the controls in Lightroom to roughly match the color chart from the ortho frame.



Yeah, I know, this is cheating. I worked in editorial / post production for about 25 years so I was the guy fixing it in post. I don't want to start a film vs. digital discussion though Steve Yedlin does make some interesting points in this article for Polygon.com.

In any case, my filter test will resume in a few months.

Interesting experiment, Daniel and thanks. It looks to me that Ilford Ortho actually darkens the orange and red the most which is what I'd want in an Ortho film However I had thought I'd read that for darker blue skies a yellow filter works but based on the light-blue cloth and the Macbeth chart it would seem not and the cost of using yellow is a large filter factor

I wonder if the lesson is that Ortho with no filter is as good as it gets for contrast in a white clouds blue sky. What I haven't seen is an Ortho shot with blue skies and white clouds to make a judgement but it may be that if you want the kind of shot where the sky is a prominent part of the scene then you simply don't use Ortho and there's the end of the matter and there is no way to darken blue.

Interestingly the Mees shot with an Ortho film that I presume precedes the new Ilford Ortho 80 by many years makes the orange look even slightly darker.

pentaxuser

pentaxuser said:

...It looks to me that Ilford Ortho actually darkens the orange and red the most which is what I'd want in an Ortho film However I had thought I'd read that for darker blue skies a yellow filter works but based on the light-blue cloth and the Macbeth chart it would seem not and the cost of using yellow is a large filter factor...

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It was a little tricky doing this test because I couldn't find published filter factors for the various filters I was trying out. Then again the filter factors are different on ortho film. I ended up bracketing exposure. I was rather surprised how well the yellow filter worked on ortho film. However, orange and red filters were too much.

Reading Jarin's American Cinematographer interview he lit the lighthouse kitchen set by placing an 800-watt halogen bulb in the lantern as a "practical" light. The actors' faces were lit by a warm tungsten balanced light and thus gave them darker skin tones with the ortho film look filter. On my test I used a daylight balanced LED so maybe that's why the skin tones didn't darken very much.

Off topic -- I've been doing some experimenting shooting panchromatic film through an infrared filter and it looks like some emulsions have a bit more infrared sensitivity than others. Kodak Double-X might have somewhat less red sensitivity -- note that it is rated at ISO 250 for daylight and ISO 200 for tungsten.

pentaxuser said:

I wonder if the lesson is that Ortho with no filter is as good as it gets for contrast in a white clouds blue sky. What I haven't seen is an Ortho shot with blue skies and white clouds to make a judgement but it may be that if you want the kind of shot where the sky is a prominent part of the scene then you simply don't use Ortho and there's the end of the matter and there is no way to darken blue.

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I haven't tried shooting clouds on ortho film. Most examples I've seen the clouds blend into the sky making it look like an overcast day. I suppose that with a yellow filter it would look like pan film without a filter. However, further darkening blue skies with ortho film might be possible using a polarizing filter. Of course polarizing filters aren't generally used to darken skies in movies because panning the camera changes the tone of the sky.

Funny how important color becomes when shooting black and white ortho.

Thanks Daniel. Good point about a polariser as the potential "fallback" should a situation arise with Ortho when a white clouds and blue sky is part of the scene

I always think that any overcast look is second best but I am sure there are plenty of people who see a pale overcast look for skies as being at least OK if not an advantage.

pentaxuser

Went to the movies last night with my wife and daughter to see The light House. What an experience, isolated on a small island, cramped in square format, dramatic mono tones, strong sounds and dialogue. The strong stench of urine and bad breath....oh that was the theater. It was uncomfortable and cramped from start to finish, no escaping, you become part of the picture. Very unsettling, theater was quiet when it ended, nobody was in a rush to leave or seem to speak even, took awhile before we could get or thoughts together and talk about the movie. Wonderful cinematography and acting. I rarely go to the movies since it all went digital, for me it loses its magic, unfortunately that was the only let down, shadows were poor and sky was pixelated. Apart from that if you can appreciate a movie that only has fine acting and cinematography to hold it together you will enjoy. I do love a sea shanty and can still hear the sound of the fog horn mourning......oh thats my wife snoring.

Thanks!
Ah- the good ol’ days, two months ago, when you could congregate with savage abandon.

I didn’t notice any tonality difference between daylight, HMI and tungsten light sources when shooting with the SP570 filter. In theory they should look pretty similar since no light longer than 570nm is transmitted. However, I don’t really know since our sets were rather monochromatic and the most colorful things around were skin tone, sky and the yellow-ish scavenged clapboards of the house. There isn’t even any foliage anywhere in the movie. I wonder if tungsten light would render saturated greens any lighter than daylight under the filter.

Indeed, if you want to see clouds, don’t use ortho film.

Currently for our next film I’m finding very interesting results using the “Lighthouse Filter” with color film for particular uses I can’t talk about yet. Stay tuned...

Jarin

Daniel Fort said:

Yet another congratulations to Jarin on his
Independent Spirit Awards win for Best Cinematography​

Reading Jarin's American Cinematographer interview he lit the lighthouse kitchen set by placing an 800-watt halogen bulb in the lantern as a "practical" light. The actors' faces were lit by a warm tungsten balanced light and thus gave them darker skin tones with the ortho film look filter. On my test I used a daylight balanced LED so maybe that's why the skin tones didn't darken very much.

Off topic -- I've been doing some experimenting shooting panchromatic film through an infrared filter and it looks like some emulsions have a bit more infrared sensitivity than others. Kodak Double-X might have somewhat less red sensitivity -- note that it is rated at ISO 250 for daylight and ISO 200 for tungsten.



I haven't tried shooting clouds on ortho film. Most examples I've seen the clouds blend into the sky making it look like an overcast day. I suppose that with a yellow filter it would look like pan film without a filter. However, further darkening blue skies with ortho film might be possible using a polarizing filter. Of course polarizing filters aren't generally used to darken skies in movies because panning the camera changes the tone of the sky.

Funny how important color becomes when shooting black and white ortho.

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Jarin Blaschke said:

Indeed, if you want to see clouds, don’t use ortho film.

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I take it the poster wasn't shot on ortho film.



This brings up a question. Just wondering if the stills were shot in color on a digital camera and converted to black and white or if the still photographer shot black and white ortho film on the set or??? The publicity stills do look good and generally match what I remember from my movie theater experience.

I've still got running tests with the "Lighthouse Filter" on my todo list but obviously everything is sort of up in the air for now.

I thought your question was a good one so I emailed the stills photographer Eric Chakeen https://ericchakeen.com/Home and asked.
he was kind enough to answer.
As for the clouds Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884) solved that problem the same way Eric did.

"Thanks for reaching out. I used both film and digital. For the cover you attached in the link that was digital and comp’d together from a few images I believe. Seems like the art director had fun with that. For the majority of the other images its ilford hp5 400 pushed a couple stops on Pentax 67ii.

Eric Chakeen"

Thanks for the answer on this.

You got me curious so I looked up how Gustave Le Gray did it.