Confusion: Color print film vrs Color Negative

[peter k.]

Are they both the same just a different way to refer to them?
As slide film can be refereed to as color reversal, transparency or e-6

 

[Ben 4]

Exactly the same thing—just different terms.

 

[mshchem]

The good old days

 

[MattKing]

As long as you aren't wandering into the world of motion picture film, historically you could use them interchangeably.
In the motion picture world, there are specialized colour print stocks which are designed for optical projection - in the small and rapidly vanishing number of cinema theatres that still have an optical projector.
Those print stocks are technically colour negative, they are slow and quite different than the films designed for our still cameras, and only the curious and very patient experiment with them for in-camera use.
Nowadays I would avoid referring to colour negative films as a "Colour Print film", because so few of them are used the way that those films were used traditionally: exposed and then developed and quickly returned to the customer with a print made from each negative. It was that very common type of use that resulted in them being referred to as "Colour Print films".

 

[Mick Fagan]

Matt, as usual, is correct.

Color Print Film was a Kodak speciality, about the best in the business and possibly the only one outside of Agfa.

Attached is a picture of the last of my stock of kodak Color Print Film 4111.

This is a colour negative film designed to be developed in the C41 process. Essentially it is designed to take a (usually) contact exposure from a colour negative film and give you a colour slide, or transparency.

My professional use of this was in my work in an industrial colour lab where we made colour slides from colour negative film. Usually this was for advertising purposes where the colour balance was impossible to work out, or was impossible to correct for. This meant that colour negative film was exposed, the film developed, usually a colour contact sheet(s) was/were made. Then the chosen frames were enlarged, or contact printed onto C41 colour negative film to make colour transparencies for the advertising executives or art director to choose.

My personal use was to make myself able to supply a picture library with difficult lighting situation stock pictures. My method was to use 135 cameras, always tripod mounted, using very sharp lenses, like a 55mm Micro Nikkor to record industrial machinery under interesting light conditions. From the ensuing contact sheets, I would enlarge the colour negative film onto Kodak Color Print Film, then develop it to produce a colour corrected, or at the least a very nice coloured scene, 4x5" transparency.

I did this for around 5 years before they found out I was supplying them film images that originated from 35mm colour negative camera work. It was around this time that this kind of work was drying up as electronic photography started taking over and colour correction from an electronic file was their preferred method.

For the very best colour possible, I started using Fuji Reala 4 layer colour negative film the week it became available in Australia. The colour accuracy of this film combined with Kodak Print Film, was something to behold.

As you can see from the attached image, I bought my last lot in 1991. The demand for this product basically dropped off of a cliff around the end of 1991.

You can see my enlarger settings on the open box in the plastic bag.

 

[mshchem]

Are they both the same just a different way to refer to them?
As slide film can be refereed to as color reversal, transparency or e-6

Are you asking about cinema film? If not color negative film for use in a Nikon, Pentax etc 35mm camera is used to make color prints on color photo paper.

If you are asking about something like Kodak Vision 3 camera film for a Hollywood film camera, most always this is a negative film that is used to make movie "prints" like what is projected in a theater or your Grandparents place

 

[mshchem]

Matt, as usual, is correct.

Color Print Film was a Kodak speciality, about the best in the business and possibly the only one outside of Agfa.

Attached is a picture of the last of my stock of kodak Color Print Film 4111.

This is a colour negative film designed to be developed in the C41 process. Essentially it is designed to take a (usually) contact exposure from a colour negative film and give you a colour slide, or transparency.

My professional use of this was in my work in an industrial colour lab where we made colour slides from colour negative film. Usually this was for advertising purposes where the colour balance was impossible to work out, or was impossible to correct for. This meant that colour negative film was exposed, the film developed, usually a colour contact sheet(s) was/were made. Then the chosen frames were enlarged, or contact printed onto C41 colour negative film to make colour transparencies for the advertising executives or art director to choose.

My personal use was to make myself able to supply a picture library with difficult lighting situation stock pictures. My method was to use 135 cameras, always tripod mounted, using very sharp lenses, like a 55mm Micro Nikkor to record industrial machinery under interesting light conditions. From the ensuing contact sheets, I would enlarge the colour negative film onto Kodak Color Print Film, then develop it to produce a colour corrected, or at the least a very nice coloured scene, 4x5" transparency.

I did this for around 5 years before they found out I was supplying them film images that originated from 35mm colour negative camera work. It was around this time that this kind of work was drying up as electronic photography started taking over and colour correction from an electronic file was their preferred method.

For the very best colour possible, I started using Fuji Reala 4 layer colour negative film the week it became available in Australia. The colour accuracy of this film combined with Kodak Print Film, was something to behold.

As you can see from the attached image, I bought my last lot in 1991. The demand for this product basically dropped off of a cliff around the end of 1991.

You can see my enlarger settings on the open box in the plastic bag.

View attachment 355715

$21.50 AUD? 25 sheets?

 

[Samu]

In still photography, the term color print film means usually the same as color negative. In motion picture, this term is seldom used when talking about camera negatives. Instead, print films are clear base slow ISO negative stocks for making prints from negatives. Most of the post production and projection is nowadays digital, but this is true in still photography too, where scanning is more popular than analog printing.

 

[Mick Fagan]

$21.50 AUD? 25 sheets?

You wish.

Nope, it is for 10 sheets. I had to go to the darkroom to check. Expiry date is 3/1992.

I've had these last two boxes in my refrigerator for the last 32 years; would you believe?

 

[mshchem]

You wish.

Nope, it is for 10 sheets. I had to go to the darkroom to check. Expiry date is 3/1992.

I've had these last two boxes in my refrigerator for the last 32 years; would you believe?

I have some 8x10 Ektapan expr. 1982. Your a Grandmaster in the color realm. I've been dabbling in color, strictly amateur basis since I was a kid but I never tried making slides from negatives.
So much fun playing around with this stuff.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Color Slide film, Chrome film, current E6 process films are the same category - positive viewable images whether they're printed or not. These products tend end with the suffix, chrome, e.g., Fujichrome, Kodachrome, Agfachrome, Ektachrome, etc.

Color negatives are just the opposite. They have to be RA4 printed or digitally inverted to see the real colors. The current process is C-41, and older labels included a "color" suffix, Kodacolor, Vericolor, etc. Today, Kodak color negative film includes Porta, Ektar, and Kodacolor Gold.

Mick's contribution might be confusing. He is referring to a specialty application, whereby if you make a negative of another negative, you end up with a positive image in that manner. That is a technical lab skill. I sometimes have reason to do that kind of thing; but it has little in common with typical film use.

 

[Brad Deputy]

It doesn't help that a lot of C-41 process film today is marked "Film for Color Prints" -- (i'm looking at you, Fuji!)

Yea, basically anything C-41 process is standard color negatives for pictoral use and prints. The movie print film mentioned above goes thru process ECP-2.

 

[MattKing]

The Kodak lab reference was to "colour print" film, because that was how the commercial lab work was divided in-house and in the marketplace.
If I hear someone referring to "colour print" film now, I expect them to have been in and around the industry prior to about 2000.

 

[mshchem]

If I hear someone referring to "colour print" film now, I expect them to have been in and around the industry prior to about 2000.

Really? I'm decidedly in the pre-2k camp, but I doubt that 99% of film users post 2000 know that "print film" refers to anything other than film for color prints. I think people our age think movies were shot on Kodachrome or other "movie film" as in Super 8 in the good old days

 

[MattKing]

Really? I'm decidedly in the pre-2k camp, but I doubt that 99% of film users post 2000 know that "print film" refers to anything other than film for color prints. I think people our age think movies were shot on Kodachrome or other "movie film" as in Super 8 in the good old days

"Colour print" film was a label you would have been most likely to encounter in the world inhabited by those involved in the photo-finishing industry - prior to 2000.

 

[foc]

All films, on the cassette label, state what process it needs to be developed. The most common types are C41 for colour negative/prints, E6 for slides/transparency and B&W for traditional black & white.

When we were training a new person in the lab to sort film types, we used these images as a guide.




For colour prints/ film for colour prints, is I think self-explanatory (to me anyway)
Colour negative film kind of assumes you understand negative/positive, so the film gives you a colour negative and you can print these negatives to get colour prints.

With slide/transparency (E6) films the label usually said, colour reversal film or colour slide/transparency film, depending on the brand.

Kodachrome was the only one, AFAIK, that had for colour slides on the label.

Now that a lot of people are having their films developed and scanned/digitised, maybe a better explanation is needed for the type of film. A new generation of film users, raised on digital, may need more than the traditional designations.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Any time I take in color film for processing, I put it in a plastic bag with a big masking tape label with either C41 or E6 specifically written in bold black ink. Same with sheet film boxes. It's amazing just how much counter people DON'T know these days, especially with the high rate of personnel turnover some places. I don't take anything for granted.