Extended Red Sensitivity

Not looking for the full IR look,,, just a little help for the porcelain skin tone. Any recommendations for b&w film type and filter?

Cheating a bit,,, using a 25 filter on a not to be mentioned imaging device ;-) gave me close to what I was looking for after conversion to monotone. Not at all sure what I found will translate well,,, but it did give the skin tone I was looking for.

Ilford SFX with a red filter.

It's a little grainy for an ISO 200 film, so you probably want to use 120 rather than 135 if you are concentrating on skin tone.

Grif said:

Not looking for the full IR look,,, just a little help for the porcelain skin tone. Any recommendations for b&w film type and filter?

Cheating a bit,,, using a 25 filter on a not to be mentioned imaging device ;-) gave me close to what I was looking for after conversion to monotone. Not at all sure what I found will translate well,,, but it did give the skin tone I was looking for.

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I would suggest Ilford SFX with either a Red 29 or a 665 nanometer or 720 nanometer filter. You will get the strongest effect with the 720 but will need to add about +4 or +5 stops to your basic non filter exposure. Red 29 will give a pretty dramatic look (but not full IR) and needs only about two stops increased exposure.

Sandy King

Kodak Tech Pan

I'll try the SFX. It'll give me a chance to try out my roll film back for my borrowed Linholf. ASA 200 sounds good,,, a little extra speed after the filter.

I've never done any Tech Pan at all. Last real b&w I did was back with panatomic x and microdol.

Rollei Retro 80S, Rollei Superpan 200 and Rollei Retro 400S all have extended red sensitivity. I shot a roll of the Retro 80S with an orange filter and the people came out almost ghostly, so a yellow filter would have probably been about perfect.

Rollei IR or Superpan or SFX or efke IR plus a red filter or near-IR filter. The reason why your other method gave you the result you wanted is that the unmentionable object you used has high near-IR sensitivity, and you metered and through a red filter.... favoring the near-IR contribution to your image. I have done the same thing with aerials.

You can also use lots of fill.

If you look at Hurrell's work, you will see that there are other ways to do it e.g. with paper negs, even with films that are primarily blue sensitive and with rather harsh light.

But... near-IR is easy!

keithwms said:

Rollei IR or Superpan or SFX or efke IR plus a red filter or near-IR filter. The reason why your other method gave you the result you wanted is that the unmentionable object you used has high near-IR sensitivity, But... near-IR is easy!

Click to expand...

That was why I gave the Unmentionable a try. It's turned out to be a Polaroid in disguise. I use the silly thing for all manner of things. Keeping track of where small parts go when working on the old Bronco, Argus bits and pieces,,, it's turned into quite a shop tool.

I wasn't sure at all how far it went into the deep red/near IR range, but it worked great when I tried it out. Gave me the effect I was looking for, so now it's off to the film for a try.

What I'm trying for is not so much the "IR Look", as just a touch of the porcelain skin, just enought to make it look a bit made up, what I"m heading for is a low key side lit figure.