Daylight film in Tungsten light: Colour correct when taking, or when printing?

[namke]

I've been asked to take some pictures at an event and, whilst I usually take black and white (with 1600 or 3200 speed film), I thought that this time I'd try colour as well.

To this end I've bought a few rolls of Fuji Pro800Z; which I hope will be fast enough (although I prefer not to use a flash, I will have one if necessary!).

My past experience of using colour (slide) film indoors has been of a colour cast due to the tungsten lighting; this time I want to think about correcting for it!!

Is it generally better to correct for colour defects at taking time (I have the appropriate blue filter according to the Cokin reference book), or should I just wait until printing time and colour correct then (note that these will end up being printed digitally - I don't do colour darkroom stuff! - so colour correction would be done in the computer).

The advantage as far as I see it of not using a filter on the camera is the film speed is maintained - looking at the datasheet for the film, I would lose two stops.

Any opinions gratefully received

 

[Photo Engineer]

As Ctein shows in his book "Post Exposure" it is always best to correct when taking the original.

PE

 

[SuzanneR]

I'm a big believer in getting it right in camera, but for an event, the two stop loss might present a problem. I'd be prepared to shoot it either way. If the light is working for you, it'd be a shame not to have the filter handy, and save some time later.

 

[namke]

Thank you - I will perhaps do a bit of both. If things turn out a bit blue, then I can always colour correct for that instead

To be honest, I'm not sure what the lighting will be like - I'll find out when I get there!

 

[Ektagraphic]

Correct ahead of time. Don't correct after.

 

[fotch]

Garbage in, garbage out. Correct at time of shooting.

 

[ZorkiKat]

Filter on the camera lens is best. I am toying with a lot of tungsten-balanced movie film respooled for 35mm still cameras now. Even when scanned and PS-tweaked, the blue cast in the shadows cannot be removed totally without causing the other hues to shift. When filtered through an 85, the hues are fairly neutral.

 

[namke]

I've just looked, and I've got an 80B (Cokin A021) - actually I might need an 80A looking at Cokin's site...

I guess that - since I've never used such colour-correction filters before - I'm just a little concerned about screwing it all up! Nice to know that I should use the filter

 

[DanielStone]

and the thing is, the 800z is a somewhat saturated, and higher contrast film. if you correct at the time of exposure, then you'll get much better negs. and as stated above already, you won't have much to color correct, especially in the darker tones, and especially shadows.

if you can, try the portra 800, its lower contrast, and has a flatter color palette than the 800z. you can also push it a stop or so, so you can get a 400 speed film, after the filtration and push +1 of course

-dan

 

[Thomas Wilson]

I was in your shoes about 6 weeks ago. I was invited to a recording session (in studio) and encouraged to photograph, with all due discretion of course, the musicians doing their thing(s).

The thought of shooting available tungsten light made me very nervous. To make matters worse, I was using Hasselblad gear (maximum aperture f4.0). Add some depth of field, a couple of stops for the 80B, and all bets were off.

I went loaded for bear, Portra 400 NC + VC, Portra 800, Fuji 800 Z, two Metz heads w/ grids, snoots, shoot-through umbrellas, Pocket Wizards, and last but not least, ye old color meter lll.

I lucked out. The hot lights in the studio were gelled Arri heads with an assortment of CDM's (ceramic metal halide) registering 5600°K.

The control room was a different story. First, I went with the 80B, Portra 400 VC, f 11.0, @ ¼ sec on a tripod. Second, I pulled the filter, dropped to f 16, popped a single strobe into a corner and dragged the shutter.

The funny thing is, while I'm happy with my film from the Hasselblad, I'm happier with the test shots from my G9. This, of course, will change after I enlarge the negatives. I now have 5 rolls each of the Portra 800 and Fuji 800 Z that I will probably never shoot.

 

[namke]

As a follow up; I ended up using flash throughout with no filters at all. The light was really lousy (a mix of dimmed tungsten plus the remains of daylight). Still not got 'em developed, so have no idea what they'll turn out like.

I shot Neopan 1600 in the F4 and 800Z in the F90x - will develop the neopan myself, and send out the colour stuff