Color Film For Pinhole

[Arthurwg]

I am a B&W photographer but would like to try some color in my 120 Zero Image camera. I know nothing about color film so I need some recommendations. With B&W I shoot T-Max 400.

 

[Jim Blodgett]

I have never handled a Zero Image camera but I have built and used lots of pinhole cameras, mostly using color film. If you are familiar with b+w film in your pinhole camera I recommend getting a roll (or a few sheets if that's what you use) of color film the same speed you are used to. That way the only variable you are changing is switching from b+w to color.

But by all means, give it a try. I didn't find it any different than switching from b+w to color in a lensed camera. And frankly, a big part of the appeal of pinhole work is letting go a little, not trying for such precision in every aspect of the process. Have at it.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I put a pin hole on my Nikons and shot with color negative film. No problem, just calculate the time for the exposure.

 

[DWThomas]

With a pinhole body cap on a Bronica SQ-A and an 85B filter taped on, using Fujichrome RTP 64T II tungsten E6 (no longer made) just to see what would happen. A 40 second exposure with an f/253 pinhole. I have since come to prefer larger formats (and do B&W with X-ray film).

 

[Arthurwg]

Since pinhole tends to reduce contrast I'm wondering if I should use a more contrasty color negative film, a very saturated film of something subtile. No idea what these films might be.

 

[MattKing]

The major issue is the reciprocity behavior, which of course differs with different films.
120 Ektachrome in a Noon Pinhole set to 6x9.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

Starting out this was shot with the cheapest 35mm Fuji color film I could find locally. This is f 90 or so based on the smallest pinhole I could make at the time.

It did not take to long to realized 35 mm is too small a format for any enlargements. I switched to a 4x5 format and black and white film I could develop myself. I shoot with and f360 pinhole now. Shooting 4x5 color is expensive and I an still experimenting.

 

[Jim Blodgett]

"I switched to a 4x5 format and black and white film I could develop myself."


If you develop your own b+w you can develop your own color film too. I started a couple years ago and found it surprisingly easy.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

Jim.

I have considered color but to start with, it is a dollar a shot with 4x5 b&w film vs. $5.00 a shot for color.

I started by making a pinhole camera out of my 35mm Pentax, I burned through a five pack of 35mm Fuji color film and got a few passable shots. My biggest problems were,

• The color shifts due to reciprocity from too long or too short exposers.
• The smallest pinhole I could fabricate was about .017" (.43mm)
• The smallest f stop was f 90. Not a very sharp image when enlarged.

In retrospect, I should have modified a cheap 120 format camera, however a already had a 4x5 view camera.

.

 

[Jim Blodgett]

I don't know how to talk about why I like certain photos and not others. I just know that certain things move me, almost like certain music, or watching a thoroughbred horse or world class athlete. But in general I am drawn to colors far more than b+w.

I understand why people prefer to work in b+w for many practical as well as artistic reasons. But since I enjoy color more than b+w, that's what I work in, lensed or pinhole. There are distinct advantages and limitations to each, but if someone enjoys pinhole work there is no practical reason to limit it to b+w - at least not that I can see.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

Jim, You are not alone in your choice of color over b&w.

If you lay two identical prints side by side, one color and one converted to b&w, 90% or more of the time, the folks will choose color. I believe it is the way our brains are wired, after all, we live in a world of color.

However, if you only have the option of a b&w print, then the brain is not distracted by the color and you tend to connect to the image.

I use the phase "distracted by the color", because if the color is off by just a little, like your Golden Retriever puppy has a greenish tint to it or your child's flesh tones lean toward yellow-orange, one almost immediately dismisses the photo without looking at the image. Or, perhaps looking at the image but being distracted by the off color.

I do a lot of b&w photos because I like the medium and of course, for those who like to tinker with film it is cheaper and easier than color.

Here is my furry critter photo. People see it and usually smile and make a squirrel comment. However, if I posted the color version, the b&w would hardly get a second look.

 

[Jim Blodgett]

Great image, Ron. Love it.

 

[lantau]

I used Provia 100 sheets in my 4x5 pinhole. Looks surprisingly good. Provia had great reciprocity behaviour as well. I did one exposure on the 1-2 min range and it was spot on.

I used only a few sheets and just got my first proper lf camera and will use the remainder of the box with that.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

Lantau,

I would appreciate it if you could provide information on how or who did the processing of your 4x5 color film.
If you have a few color pin hole images to post, I think the folk would find them interesting.

 

[Jim Blodgett]

I used Provia 100 sheets in my 4x5 pinhole. Looks surprisingly good. Provia had great reciprocity behaviour as well.

Okay, so I am getting way out beyond my knowledge here, but Provia is a slide film, isn't it? I have heard for years that slide film has more concentrated colors, is more contrasty than negative film. But again, I have nothing to back that up with, only that I keep reading it. Does anyone here know about that?

All that aside, I have bought and shot slide film thinking it was negative film, cross processed it and printed as if they were regular negatives. Very cool color shifting. Really adds to the ethereal feel of many pinhole images. Is that what you are doing lantau? Or do you use these 4x5 Provia negatives as slides and project them?

 

[lantau]

Lantau,

I would appreciate it if you could provide information on how or who did the processing of your 4x5 color film.
If you have a few color pin hole images to post, I think the folk would find them interesting.

I'm based in Germany, so it won't help you much. Normally I use Photostudio 13 in Stuttgart by mail, very well known, very professional and high volume. They also offer Scala b/w reversal processing for a range of negative films.

Because I couldn't safely ship sheets due to a lack of extra boxes I used an E6 only shop in Munich (dia-spezial). I drove there from and during work after making an appointment by phone. I did this only two, or three times. I don't pinhole much.

He also specialises in pull development, so on my second batch I tried that to lower contrast and have more dynamic range. I can't say much about it without having made non pulled reference shots. But the quality was great.

I'vee posted pictures in the pinhole section two or the years ago. I'll repost them once I'm in the office, together with my long exposure.

Okay, so I am getting way out beyond my knowledge here, but Provia is a slide film, isn't it? I have heard for years that slide film has more concentrated colors, is more contrasty than negative film. But again, I have nothing to back that up with, only that I keep reading it. Does anyone here know about that?

All that aside, I have bought and shot slide film thinking it was negative film, cross processed it and printed as if they were regular negatives. Very cool color shifting. Really adds to the ethereal feel of many pinhole images. Is that what you are doing lantau? Or do you use these 4x5 Provia negatives as slides and project them?

It's slide film. On a sunny summer day I had about 2s exposures, I seem to remember. Used an incident meter and the exposure disc that came with my Harman Camera Obscura (Ilford) to translate the reading to the tiny pinhole aperture.

I had it reversal processed as slide. No problems there. The images where better than expected. I have projectors for 135 and 120, but not for 4x5. My favourite way of viewing is on a light pad, anyway.

E6 film has a lot of latitude when you process it as a negative. It won't be optimised for it as much as a CN film, but it works. I accidentally exposed Provia 400X (120) at EI 50 and then switched to 400 when I noticed. Decided to x-process it in ecn2 and you can hardly see the difference in EI in the negatives.

 

[lantau]

Okay, so I am getting way out beyond my knowledge here, but Provia is a slide film, isn't it? I have heard for years that slide film has more concentrated colors, is more contrasty than negative film. But again, I have nothing to back that up with, only that I keep reading it. Does anyone here know about that?

Slide film certainly has lovely contrast. Provia not as much as Velvia. The thing is that a the final output, the transparency provides a huge available contrast ration. No computer display and certainly no print can rival that. So it has the ability to show a subject in a really contrasty way. It's up to the photographers skill to control that, and I guess the pros in the film days were good enough to control that.

So what people often don't realise is this: Colour negative can record a scene with 10+ stops of dynamic range. But you cannot print that. By using contrast grades on the paper and using dodging and burning you can selectivly cut out parts of of that DR to get the important parts it into the few stops that paper offers. That is, IMHO, what our brain does. Our eyes cannot handle the DR of much that we see. But by changing the eyes aperture and combining the scene in our visual cortex we get a nice low contrast image in our mind.

Slide film is said to have a DR of, I don't know, 6 or so stops (Provia more than Velvia). More than can be displayed on a print anyway. And the transparency will show all that. That can, depending on the scene make it look contrasty and, ideally, breathtaking. The image represents what it really was like at the time of the single exposure.

In the E6 process the conversion from the negative (first b/w developer) to the positive (second colour developer) is fixed. When I print a colour negative I can choose the exposure in the enlarger. That is where the latitude of the negative film comes from and why slide film requires exact metering.

If I fixed the exposure in the RA4 process to a set time and illumination in the enlarger the C41/RA4 process would become just as sensitive to in camera exposure as the E6 process. If you don't get the exposure spot on the prints would suffer the same way the slides do.

But under such conditions Portra would suffer from lower effective dynamic range than Provia because RA4 paper cannot handle a range as large as the transparency does.

So yes, a high contrast scene will look very 'contrasty' on slide and Portra will always have less contrast, when RA4 printed.

I'll show some samples taken with a lens to as contrast examples. First Provia 400X in 6x6 format taken with a Rolleicord, which I have on hand right now. You can't buy the 400x anymore, but the 100F should be similar. I think the contrast is not extreme, and they look better when viewed physically on a light pad:

And these 6x6 Velvia 50 images where taken with a Rollei SLR, the first with a Planar normal, the second a distagon wide angle. The first has a lot of contrast due to the scene:

 

[lantau]

Lantau,

I would appreciate it if you could provide information on how or who did the processing of your 4x5 color film.
If you have a few color pin hole images to post, I think the folk would find them interesting.

Here are the pinholes taken on a sunny day with Provia 100F (RDP-III) 4x5 sheets. The first two had short exposure around 2s, the third quite a bit longer. But I cannot remember how long.

The next one was a very long exposure (for me). I believe somewhere between one and two minutes:

 

[Jim Blodgett]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, and those images you posted look great. You have a great eye.

In an early paragraph you wrote "No computer display and certainly no print can rival that."

Then, you later wrote "But you cannot print that."

So I guess that is the crux of it for me. Everything I do with a camera or in the darkroom, every choice of film or type of camera, or printing technique...every part of the hobby is for me focussed on making a print. I recognize other aspects appeal to other people, but for me it's all about making prints that I like.

 

[lantau]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, and those images you posted look great. You have a great eye.

In an early paragraph you wrote "No computer display and certainly no print can rival that."

Then, you later wrote "But you cannot print that."

So I guess that is the crux of it for me. Everything I do with a camera or in the darkroom, every choice of film or type of camera, or printing technique...every part of the hobby is for me focussed on making a print. I recognize other aspects appeal to other people, but for me it's all about making prints that I like.

When I said that you cannot print that I meant you can't print it 1:1. You can't print a negative with a recorded range of 14 stops either. But using your darkroom techniques and skill you compress that onto paper in a nice way. I guess printing is a nonlinear process, reversal is linear. Some scenes work better for slide than others and then there is the tiny matter of taste

There are people writing on Photrio, who can do amazing things printing in the darkroom, both a high dynamic range negatives and also slide. I managed to carve out a dark room in a relatives basement and can spend relatively little time in there. All my free time is on weekends, so I can either go to the darkroom, go out with my cameras or do other things that I want or need to do.

My printing skills are mostly limited to straight printing, although recently I had my first success with b/w dodging and burning. As far as my RA4 printing goes it isn't currently realistic to get into masking to control contrast, even though I'm highly interested. I certainly get your love for printing.

I just completed assembling my first large format camera and took two b/w test shots. I want to explore the zone system with it and that should make printing easier as well. For now I won't have a 4x5 enlarger, that means contact printing only. I did that with a few of my pinhole negatives.

Large format colour will be limited to slide at the moment. If I ever aquire a 4x5 colour enlarger (and one which fits into my darkroom) I'll do colour negative as well. Also in my pinhole camera.