Colour Negative film

[koraks]

Is this an accurate summary of what you are saying?

It's an accurate way of summing up what I experienced in my testing. I'm not saying it is fundamentally impossible to make color-accurate RA4 prints optically from ECN-2 negatives, but as far as I can tell, it would take considerable doctoring with complex color masks to get there. Not something I would consider worthwhile.

Hence my request for any examples he has from his 2 month's of work. That way we can see how sub standards the prints are so we can judge how substandard they are in our eyes.

That's a very fair request indeed and I agree wholeheartedly with you that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder', and that it's up to anyone to decide what they find acceptable. I didn't scan everything I made in that period - actually far from it, but I did find some things I happened to have online anyway, here they come:

This is a promising early experiment; Vision 3 50D in 'straight' ECN-2 developer according to Kodak processing parameters. This may seem to come out OK to some, which is mostly due to this being a low-contrast scene, so most of what draws our attention is crammed into a narrow density range and hence, we can print without crossover being a very apparent problem. However, note the lack of saturation in all the primaries. The mug is supposed to have a quite vibrant (but rather dark) blue print, and I guess we all know what a bell pepper looks like in reality. This initial test actually inspired me to give it a go with portraits; the inherently 'toned down' look of ECN-2 seemed suitable for this to me.

So here's one of the more successful portraits; again, this mostly works because of the narrow density range resulting from deliberately flat lighting. There still is a sickly greenish tint to the skin, which additional filtering would only fix at the cost of other problems (I tried), and more importantly the wall in the background was in reality neutral white...due to severe crossover issues, it doesn't render as underexposed white at all.

This is a scene that more directly demonstrates the issue, with a deliberately chosen high dynamic range. This is something Vision 3 should excel in, but as you can see it doesn't translate well to an RA4 print. Note how we cross pretty much through the entire rainbow as we transverse the scene from dark to light. I actually made this as part of a pH and development time test series where I tried to doctor the ECN-2 curve by adjusting the pH. While the color balance did shift, the crossover problem did not go away at all; indeed, it seemed to help very little at all.

Of course, one could exploit the crossover issue artistically as I did here, deliberately filtering the print for a very warm, golden skin tone while keeping the shadows very cool. Problem is, of course, that you're basically stuck with this kind of thing; it's not something you can control. It's what the material gives you.

For more examples I'd really have to start digging and frankly I'm not sure if I can be bothered...I've had my say on the subject several times; it's up to those who want to experiment to decide if they feel it's worth their time. I do think the material has artistic merit in a way. But whenever people start off saying things like "ECN2 is pretty much like regular C41 film only better/cheaper/whatever"...well, I just don't see it that way. It's a different animal, and not an animal that was designed to mate with RA4 paper. That you can seduce them to create offspring, doesn't mean the offspring will be particularly pretty or nice to live with.

PS: in most of my experiments, I resorted to exposing Vison 3 50D at EI 32 or even 25 to get enough shadow density to get it to work sort of OK with RA4 paper. This will give a relatively (compared to C41) low-contrast image with somewhat decent shadow detail. For contrast comparable with C41 film, I would advise extending development time while remaining closer to box speed.

PPS: I don't think I saved my early experiments with developing Vision 3 50D in C41 developer, but the results were so abominable that I very quickly gave up on it. While ECN-2 developed film at least prints in somewhat believable colors, C41-developed film looked exactly what it was: cross-processed (and not in a pleasing way, to my eye).

Or Koraks is hitting some kind of edge case with the subject that they're shooting?

I tried natural light outdoors, indoors, sunlit scenes, shade, strobes...the works. See my examples above; the severity of the problems depend mostly on the contrast of the scene and more subjective factors such as what kind of color fidelity the viewer intuitively expects from shadows and highlights, so basically subject matter. But the technical phenomenon was at least for me unescapable.

Btw, I did show some of those same images to PE in our discussion on the subject, and in his polite and soft-spoken way, he didn't seem particularly pleased with the results or hopeful of substantial improvements.

 

[MattKing]

I did find some things I happened to have online anyway, here they come:

koraks:
What a great post - the examples are clear, and the explanation even clearer.
And I can feel my teeth hurt when I see the crossover .

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks, these examples have helped me a lot, koraks. Clearly you apply much more exacting standards than I would. Frankly had you asked for my opinion of the still life fruit I'd have said it's OK. The head and shoulders portrait of the lady looks fine also. I fail to see the sickly greenish tint in her skin. Can I see any problem with her skin? Well having seen the phrase sickly green I am sure that if I look long enough and hard enough I might be tempted to say that there is just a hint of green in the lower part of the face but do I really see it or have I been influenced by the phrase sickly green? Well I have just had another look and have to say that had it been in the gallery I certainly wouldn't have felt the need to point out the hint of green to the person offering it for viewing

In the interior room shot would it be possible to direct my attention to the crossover area(s). All I see is an area where due to intense sunlight penetrating part of the scene you have extreme bright highlights and in the other area very dark almost featureless details

In the final portrait what part of the picture is wrong? Is it the colours or are we denied detail in her dress, legs area? I take it that your alterations to get the golden skin were those you were able to do with enlarger filtration

Unlike Matt my teeth are not hurting at all

Had there been the same scenes with C41 films developed in C41 chemistry then maybe the problems created by cine film processed in ECN-2 would be more obvious to me but unfortunately we don't have such comparative pics with which to compare

It may just be that I simply fail to recognise what others like yourself and Matt see as unacceptable colour crossover. I recall that someone called Bormental had taken some outdoor shots that looked fine to me but once he had mentioned something he had done then colour crossover was seized upon as being the issue The same happened when David Lyga showed some examples of what he had done in his non standard processing


I couldn't see what was wrong with his pics but others saw shadows that were wrong for the scene. When these were pointed out to me I was still unsure what the problem was

I do wonder if he had simply posted his shots in the gallery without his thread whether anyone would have mentioned his crossover problems. I think it came down to almost a split decision between those for whom the problem stuck out like a sore thumb and those like me who when the shadow problem was highlighted as a serious crossover found it almost non existent

Others looking at your examples will no doubt make up their minds as well


So thanks for taking the time to show us these prints I am certainly in a better position to judge than I was in this ECN-2 cine film v C41 still film issue

pentaxuser

 

[MattKing]

FWIW, the first portrait looks cyan to me
One suggestion to pentaxuser: in the second portrait, concentrate on the differences between the subject's highlighted skin - which looks warm and red - and the shadowed skin - which looks cold and blue.
In real life, most people's skin doesn't change hue like that.

 

[koraks]

The same happened when David Lyga showed some examples of what he had done in his non standard processing

I remember that; he even sent me physical prints and the negatives they were made from so I could digitize them and make my own prints. The results are still in that thread, as I recall. Indeed it was one of those cases where the result was problematic for my standards, but perfectly acceptable for his. It was also one of the cases where a true comparison could be made, if only by just two people with an ocean between them.

This is what makes discussions of things like ECN2 film a tad hairy. It always boils down to the question whether the results will be any good, and then the answer invariably depends on what constitutes 'good'. To make matters worse, what I considered good enough a few years ago I don't find acceptable anymore today.
It doesn't help that more often than not we have only subjective qualifications to go by. Even the images I posted are still digital scans from prints and without any objective measurements. You can still make of them what you want. And perhaps that's best, indeed.

@MattKing many thanks for the compliment. It's hard to illustrate something like this well; I hope I've at least made a start.

 

[koraks]

In the final portrait what part of the picture is wrong? Is it the colours or are we denied detail in her dress, legs area?

It's the colors, mainly. The shadows were a deliberate choice. A realistic rendition would have been if the background wouldn't have turned blue (it was the same white wall as earlier!) or if the skin tones would have been just as cool in tone as the background. They now split into opposite directions on the yellow/blue axis.
Don't get me wrong, I actually like that image. It shows that the result doesn't have to be considered bad aesthetically even if it's abysmal technically.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Many years ago quite a few companies sold ECN films as "Get prints! Get slides! Free film!" The most famous of these was Seattle film works, although there were others like Dale Labs in Florida.

I spent some years in this environment when I lived in the San Fernando Valley where virtually all movie development and printing took place. A huge industry, and then there were small companies doing the Seattle Film Works things. There were many hundreds of feet of unused film to be had from movie companies.

These would be wound into 35mm cartridges, with the different speed and tungsten/daylight ratings.

I spent a lot of years dealing with Identicolor Labs in North Hollywood. Shooting color on the relative cheap; I went to the lab many a Saturday to drop off or pick up.

Here's the rub: Cinema films are low contrast. When "printed" on movie print film, they make gorgeous slides. However, when printed on RA-4 paper, the contrast sucked.

Back in those days, Kodak made a Vericolor Slide Film 5072 which was made to make slides from conventional C-41 color negs. I'm off track here from ECN-2 film. Anyway, I discovered RGB Color Labs....guess where... in the early 1990's. Stunning slides from C-41 negatives.

No one wants slides today, of course. But with the miracle of scanning and computer processing, you can have the 5072 results w/o chemistry.

 

[koraks]

However, when printed on RA-4 paper, the contrast sucked.

As said before, that's the least of my worries. The gamma mismatch can be fixed. The color mismatch, however, can't. And the more you try and fix the contrast, the worden the crossover problem gets. At least in a full analog workflow. In a hybrid workflow, it's a lot easier to mend things. For me personally that's not an option because one of the reasons I practice photography is to get me away from a computer monitor for a bit

 

[foc]

IIRC Frontier minilaba scan the negatives and peint the scanned file. It wouldn't be RA4.

Of course I might be wrong on this one.

It depends on the Frontier model. A wet lab Frontier will print and process RA4, a dry lab Frontier is inkjet.
Also the name Frontier can refer to both the scanner and the print making.
Frontier scanner software, if correctly set up, can correct a lot of neg problems. Of course the software is designed to read film processed by C41, B&W and reversal but not (to my knowledge) ENC2.

 

[pentaxuser]

FWIW, the first portrait looks cyan to me
One suggestion to pentaxuser: in the second portrait, concentrate on the differences between the subject's highlighted skin - which looks warm and red - and the shadowed skin - which looks cold and blue.
In real life, most people's skin doesn't change hue like that.

I think this illustrates the problem precisely, namely the interpretation depends on the eyes of the beholder

koraks see a sickly green, you see cyan and at worst I see possibly just a hint of the lower face by the chin area having a slightly different look than the rest of the skin but frankly were I to pass this photo in a window of a shop I'd see nothing wrong. It was the same with Bormental's and David's shots. Different interpretations of what was wrong with the pictures. This was true especially of Bormental's scene in question where the responses resembled the tale told by a U.K. comedian who had a problem with a mole in his lawn He quickly concluded, from what he was told by 50 people. that thankfully there was in fact only one way to kill the mole His problem was that all 50 ways were different

The warn and red v cold and blue in the second portrait I just don't see at all It just seems like the normal change that happens in skin in the highlights compared to skin in the shadows. I always thought that most portraits exhibited this warmth of skin in the highlights and coolness in the shadows

Maybe it's time I looked at a lot more of these sorts of portrait in the flesh as well as in prints to try and discern what is before my eyes to improve my judgement .

Not sure the wife will see it that way, of course

pentaxuser

 

[koraks]

Different interpretations of what was wrong with the pictures.

Don't mistake differences in formulation for differences in diagnosis. In the case of the portrait shown above, I think Matt and I are really talking about the same thing.

Anyway, looking closely at all sorts of images is indeed required to develop a feeling for how colors work. Then at some point you find you cannot 'unsee' it.
So perhaps it's even better to NOT go there at all and remain in a blissful state of enjoyment

 

[MattKing]

So perhaps it's even better to NOT go there at all and remain in a blissful state of enjoyment

Growing up, it was always difficult going to see a movie in a theatre or a drive in with my Dad.
My Mom, brother and I rarely noticed the technical stuff.
My Dad would be distracted by scratches on the print, changes in colour from reel to reel and all the things that someone who ran a customer service department in a Kodak Kodachrome and Ektachrome processing lab might notice.
A huge percentage of Kodachrome shot was movie film.
I guess I was well, if informally trained when I started doing colour printing for a living .

 

[btaylor]

Growing up, it was always difficult going to see a movie in a theatre or a drive in with my Dad.
My Mom, brother and I rarely noticed the technical stuff.
My Dad would be distracted by scratches on the print, changes in colour from reel to reel and all the things that someone who ran a customer service department in a Kodak Kodachrome and Ektachrome processing lab might notice.
A huge percentage of Kodachrome shot was movie film.
I guess I was well, if informally trained when I started doing colour printing for a living .

That’s an interesting, and to me, important point about going to the movies. I was trained in filmmaking- and as I became more educated and watched films more technically I saw things like the defects your dad observed. If the film engaged me, I put those observations in the background and my “suspension of belief” remained intact. If I was not engaged my focus shifted and the technical imperfections were glaring. There are many examples of low budget films with technical deficiencies that are great films. So I think an engaging photograph is more important than technical excellence.
But on to color- again, coming from a film background, color fidelity to scenes and objects is not that important to me. What is important are the color and tone choices one chooses to make for your final presentation. Cinematographers and directors create a “look” for a film- and that frequently involves a lot of color “correction” that is wildly different from what was recorded in camera to suit the mood of the film. Colorists are big names in the post production world because of their talents to get a certain look.
I think the same way about color printing- though most of my printing is “straight” I do deviate color and density from “normal” to suit my vision.
One thing I like about the examples is to me they have a ‘60’s-‘70’s feel to them with the color crossovers- I actually find them appealing because they remind me of the color materials of that time. Sort of like the use of anamorphic lenses- I had a set of FSU anamorphics that the digital crowd went gaga over because of the “artifacts” i.e. optical defects, that these optics have. So to each his own- thank you koraks for the print examples. Since I have a lot of ECN 2 film and make RA4 prints it might be worth trying out.

 

[koraks]

Cinematographers and directors create a “look” for a film- and that frequently involves a lot of color “correction” that is wildly different from what was recorded in camera to suit the mood of the film.

Certainly. And that's just as legitimate in still photography as well. It's a lot easier in the digital domain, though, to do what colorists today are doing in the cinematographic domain. For starters, there's no such thing as a LUT in analog printing...

So to each his own- thank you koraks for the print examples.

Absolutely, and you're welcome. Be sure to go ahead and give it a try, see how you like it. I did produce one or two worthwhile images via this route - but it was more down to luck than actual planning.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Growing up, it was always difficult going to see a movie in a theatre or a drive in with my Dad.
My Mom, brother and I rarely noticed the technical stuff.
My Dad would be distracted by scratches on the print, changes in colour from reel to reel and all the things that someone who ran a customer service department in a Kodak Kodachrome and Ektachrome processing lab might notice.
A huge percentage of Kodachrome shot was movie film.
I guess I was well, if informally trained when I started doing colour printing for a living .

Continuity is one of the things I notice. I was on a date and the date brought up the Lethal Weapon movie with Danny Glover and Mel Gibson and asked me what I thought. I said that the movie was hilarious because Mel Gibson chases after a bad guy into the Los Angeles Metro wearing cowboy boot and they run on to the tracks an out into the sunshine and Mel Gibson is wearing loafers. I said that I wondered how he had the time to stop running, change shoes and yet catch up with the bad guy and where did the loafers come from? and what happened to the cowboy boots? She asked me if there were other errors in the movie and I told them several more to her. She then asked how many times had I seen the movie and I said only once. It was at that time she told me that it was her movie and she was responsible for continuity. The date went downhill quickly after that.

For what it is worth Anne will catch things like that on television or in a movie on the first viewing too. Maybe that is why we are together after 21 years.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

As said before, that's the least of my worries. The gamma mismatch can be fixed. The color mismatch, however, can't. And the more you try and fix the contrast, the worden the crossover problem gets. At least in a full analog workflow. In a hybrid workflow, it's a lot easier to mend things. For me personally that's not an option because one of the reasons I practice photography is to get me away from a computer monitor for a bit

If the film/paper gamma mismatch could have been corrected, those labs would have done so.

I'm not enough of a masochist to try RA-4 processing. I do respect your desire to get away from a screen.

 

[flavio81]

I tried natural light outdoors, indoors, sunlit scenes, shade, strobes...the works. See my examples above; the severity of the problems depend mostly on the contrast of the scene and more subjective factors such as what kind of color fidelity the viewer intuitively expects from shadows and highlights, so basically subject matter. But the technical phenomenon was at least for me unescapable.

Btw, I did show some of those same images to PE in our discussion on the subject, and in his polite and soft-spoken way, he didn't seem particularly pleased with the results or hopeful of substantial improvements.

What an excellent post, that's the reason I come here to Photrio.

So QED: RA4 simply can't produce good color from a ECN-2 negative.

But have you tried printing through a digital workflow? I guess it should work fine, perhaps even splendidly.

 

[MattKing]

But have you tried printing through a digital workflow? I guess it should work fine, perhaps even splendidly.

How complex a digital workflow are you suggesting?
Adjusting separately the gamma of each of the colour channels in order to get them to be compatible is, apparently, accomplishable, but it certainly isn't the same as just tweaking the colour to get rid of a colour cast.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

What an excellent post, that's the reason I come here to Photrio.

So QED: RA4 simply can't produce good color from a ECN-2 negative.

But have you tried printing through a digital workflow? I guess it should work fine, perhaps even splendidly.

AFAIK, color negative print materials.... RA-4.... have only one contrast grade. Hence the lackluster prints from those long ago ECN labs.

As Matt notes, there may be color shifts and and gamma changes. But the real world results of many folk developing ECN, whether in ECN chemistry or C-41, often shows perfectly acceptable results for all but the anal retentive.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

What an excellent post, that's the reason I come here to Photrio.

So QED: RA4 simply can't produce good color from a ECN-2 negative.

But have you tried printing through a digital workflow? I guess it should work fine, perhaps even splendidly.

What an excellent post, that's the reason I come here to Photrio.

So QED: RA4 simply can't produce good color from a ECN-2 negative.

But have you tried printing through a digital workflow? I guess it should work fine, perhaps even splendidly.

Just wanted to comment on your "
This Nikkor lens is so good... that it should be labeled as a Canon lens!"

I've never been big into glass. For no other reason is that I can't afford forays into lens perfection. And, glass is probably the least important matter in taking a great image most of the time.

My daily driver 35mm cameras are 1980's Ricoh XR-P's. I recall that one of their 50mm lenses outperformed I think it was Pentax. Lens making is not the almost black art of the 1930's and 1940's. There are these things called computers that can make an incredible lens. The brand no longer matters.

 

[flavio81]

And, glass is probably the least important matter in taking a great image most of the time.

Agree

 

[flavio81]

How complex a digital workflow are you suggesting?
Adjusting separately the gamma of each of the colour channels in order to get them to be compatible is, apparently, accomplishable, but it certainly isn't the same as just tweaking the colour to get rid of a colour cast.

I thought what I was suggesting was evident, but I'll make it explicit:

On a digital color image, the color values follow a standard (i.e. Adobe RGB). Any color material that is scanned, be it Ektachrome, Kodachrome, various C41 films and various ECN2 films, passes through a conversion stage to get perfect color. No matter what the individual curve channels are, as long as there's no color crossover (i.e. as long as fresh C41 film is properly developed in C41 process, as long as fresh ECN2 film is properly developed in ECN2 process, etc), you can get good color in the digital space under the standard chosen (i.e. Adobe RGB).

Now, the printer, like the Fujifilm printers, are calibrated to translate these digital files, which all follow a same color space standard, into the correct color into RA4 paper.

So, in other words, long story short -- you should be able to do a perfectly fine print out of a ECN2 negative by using such a system: Scan the file with a good scanner, do a good curve conversion (same difficulty as doing the same from a C41 film or a Kodachrome film), and then the rest should follow with little difficulty.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Agree

How many of the world's greatest photos were taken with uncoated, simple triplet lenses?

Yes, great glass is needed for things like scientific applications. I can't imagine the engineering for the glass of satellites or the Hubble. But needed for amateur, uh, needs? Not hardly.

I've noticed that there are many people....OK, men...that are deeply invested in both photography and audio. And there are many who are obviously OCD and/or anal retentive. Speaking as an old observer of human nature here.

 

[MattKing]

And there are many who are obviously OCD and/or anal retentive.

I'm not sure how anally retentive it is to be bothered by green/cyan skin tones or people whose foreheads are yellow-red but under their chin, their skin is blue-cyan.

 

[btaylor]

Just to add a bit about digital conversion of ECN2 films- they were designed to be converted to digital files. Because of this I would think (I don’t do it) that scanning and digital printing would be pretty straightforward for excellent color rendition.