Fujifilm 400H Pro - what is it for?

[Вormental_old]

@Lachlan Young Do cyan highlights on tree trunks here demonstrate what you're talking about?

 

[pentaxuser]

Bormental I look forward to getting closure on this if possible. This was one of I think 4 pics taken on Ektar where overexposure creates colour crossover and yet while you couldn't be certain of your exposures the range of exposure which you gave suggested that the overexposure if any was very limited

Yes the one trunk does look to have a cyan cast but the other pics looked OK. I note you found that the green cast in Fuji Pro 400H was not the film and you were able to correct this so is this particular cyan on the tree trunk correctable by better scanning too?

As a purely analogue and RA4 under an enlarger person it would be nice is we can establish what caused the cyan look on a single element of one tree branch but not on all of the branches nor on the picture as a whole. Nor it would appear in the other shots taken in very similar light conditions. If overexposure is a problem with Ektar it would be helpful if new users knew what Ektar's limits in terms of both overexposure and under exposure are.

Is for instance exposure as tight as for slide film? It does sound this way but guidelines based on known tests would be helpful. The same pic at 1/3rd, 2/3rds one stop both over and under would certainly be useful to demonstrate this colour crossover and this may be what Lachlan will retrieve for us from his files

The Flying Camera responded to this question as he is someone who uses Ektar as does Drew Wiley but I cannot recall either being able to say other than "use box speed only" which you could say makes sense with all film but does this mean that any deviation in correct metering which takes you over by say 1/3rd stop is possibly/ likely/ almost certainly to create colour crossover

pentaxuser

 

[Вormental_old]

@pentaxuser I am afraid I'm not qualified. That shot (along with the sports car) came from my very first color negative roll since late 90s. I did 3 rolls that day, and never tried Ektar since. I have scanned it at two labs, then on a scanner, then with my Fuji camera, ending up with 4 different results. I am afraid I have more questions than answers!

[edit] I do notice, however, when playing with scanners and cameras digitizing C41 film, that both Portra 160 and Ektar penalize me for making curve adjustment mistakes with cyan in the highlights. I do not know what this means, or if it's just a coincidence.

[edit 2] just noticed your side question. Again, I am not a frequent shooter of slide film, but Ektar seems to have more dynamic range than Provia 100F, the only slide film I can compare it to.

 

[Les Sarile]

Of course in Bormental's example there is absolutely no way to qualify it because it is in nature with no controls or references.

As with all the films I use, I usually conduct a latitude test and in this case Kodak Ektar 100 when it was first released. I take a reference perfect exposure as "0" and I simply increment and decrement shutter speed 1 stop and scan as usual with all control settings off/neutral using Nikonscan + Coolscan. No pre or post color/contrast adjustment of any kind.

I then make adjustments in scan and/or post to see what I can use when I make real photos. For instance this nature shot I took using Kodak Ektar 100 looks "normal" even though it was overexposed 6 stops.with very minor adjustments. Camera recommended 1/60 but I needed 1 second in order to achieve the smooth water flow and knowing what I can work with in post, I was confident I can get "normal" results. For instance I can adjust gain in Nikonscan or levels in post.

 

[MattKing]

The shot referenced by pentaxuser has issues with cyan crossover as well as a lot of subjects illuminated by the (blue) open sky. In the result, it is hard to separate the cyan crossover artifacts and the normal result of having a subject illuminated by a variety of different light sources with different colour temperatures.

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks both. My take on your comprehensive range of pics, Les, including the rocks and water is that there appears to be quite a lot of leeway and in none of them did I notice a cyan cast although it does appear to my eyes that more than plus or minus 1EV starts to give less than optimum picks and I think the general consensus would be that Ektar's latitude is quite a bit less than the likes of Portra or Fuji Pro 400H

I am used to everyone having their own theories about the "cause" whenever a member presents a "problem " thread but it was the overexposure cause that I admit did stop me in my tracks and maybe start to germinate the seed that Ektar is a bit like nitro-glycerin in that the consequences of treating it in any way casually can be catastrophic

That seed is now beginning to die

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[Вormental_old]

TBH I am finding B&W discussions more fruitful. We can reason about film speed, grain, contrast, development times or our choice of chemicals, and learn from each other. Color is a different animal... So many variables... we won't even agree how Ektar looks like because it looks different every time you change the lab, the scanner, the post-processing or even your monitor. This isn't even film-specific, people have been at war over Fuji colors vs Sony colors in the digital domain too.

@pentaxuser just get some Ektar and shoot the living hell out of it, don't wait for epiphanies here

 

[Les Sarile]

Color is a different animal... So many variables... we won't even agree how Ektar looks like because it looks different every time you change the lab, the scanner, the post-processing or even your monitor. This isn't even film-specific,

Correct.
Again, same frame of film but different scanners and different results . . .

As always, some may find one or the other more pleasing . . .

 

[Lachlan Young]

Here's an example from a couple of neighbouring frames that sort of illustrates what's going on. Both were made within a few minutes and metres of each other & both display overexposure issues. The fall off in the RHS frame makes it easier to see what's happening - red circle might be OK-ish exposure-wise (though it's on the edge), but the cyan starts to get going towards the centre (yellow) and then in the LHS frame where the exposure ended up being based on the undergrowth (you can see the trolley handle is needing burnt in & getting well up the exposure scale), you can see what happens as the cyan gets stronger - on this frame, the blue channel clips well before the scanner carrier edges clear to white. They're not as egregiously cyan as some I've had through my hands & I've kept them tonally flat to try and give a fair showing - the sky was was definitely blue, but not that cyan. A mild warming filter may well clean these up fairly well at the time of exposure - or at least make them less unpleasant, especially if printing on RA-4 in the darkroom - I've noticed that sticking to sRGB through the post-scan inversion process (arguably closer to RA-4 paper gamut) tends to keep the lid on colour flying off the scale when the exposure gets generous - something that tends to get forgotten is that coupler response in the paper is important too! I've found that if you incident meter/ spot meter the highlights Ektar behaves fine - and that on my Konica Hexar AF, the correct EI for its meter with Ektar may be between 100 & 200 - I shot a roll at 200, bracketed, then pushed it +1 to really torture the film's colour response - but at 200, I had none of the highlight problems I had at 100 - I'd suggest a roll of careful tests should get you on the money.

I am given to understand that Ektar is a 200 speed emulsion 'dyed-back' to 100 for various tonal benefits.

 

[Les Sarile]

Same exact frame of Kodak Ektar 100 film scanned two different ways with different results. The "cyan effect" is clearly evident on the Epson scan but not with the Coolscan.
No pre or post adjustments done.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Same exact frame of Kodak Ektar 100 film scanned two different ways with different results. The "cyan effect" is clearly evident on the Epson scan but not with the Coolscan.
No pre or post adjustments done.

In this context, trying to compare 'out of scanner' results is only a test of the scanner's software, not looking at what the neg really can provide - nor is it delivering a realistic picture of the (very real) gamut limitations of the Epson. If you try and match them then you'll see the Epson's colour faults both more clearly and realistically.

 

[Les Sarile]

Of course since I have a second opinion readily accessible, easy for me to know. Unfortunately others may see results like this and say that Ektar 100 goes cyan.

This of course goes back to the original topic, if one thinks the colors from the color negatives they are using is off, how would one know if it's the film, scanner or other?

I tried the maskless color negative Rollei ScanFilm CN400 Pro which seems promising in the direction it's taken. However, it could use a lot of improvement in terms of grain. Why isn't there more maskless color negative films?

 

[MattKing]

Why isn't there more maskless color negative films?

Because of the much poorer colour response compared to a masked colour negative film.

 

[Les Sarile]

Because of the much poorer colour response compared to a masked colour negative film.

Great, deal with poor color response of the film itself or poor color response from the scan . . .

 

[MattKing]

Great, deal with poor color response of the film itself or poor color response from the scan . . .

It isn't the mask that creates the problem - the mask plus the negative's dyes = an inverted, colour accurate image that can be neutralized with a straightforward and simple amount of minus red filtration - that is what the RA4 paper does.

 

[Les Sarile]

It isn't the mask that creates the problem - the mask plus the negative's dyes = an inverted, colour accurate image that can be neutralized with a straightforward and simple amount of minus red filtration - that is what the RA4 paper does.

Seems so simple but yet only the Coolscan + Nikonscan seems to have implemented it properly . . .

 

[MattKing]

Seems so simple but yet only the Coolscan + Nikonscan seems to have implemented it properly . . .

Plus all the old fashioned RA-4 paper printing systems.
And all the really expensive scanning systems used by the movie industry.

 

[Les Sarile]

You're right of course as I don't recall ever getting these really bad colors back in the day.
When I first got my Coolscan, I sent out for 20" X 30" optical enlargements to see how the scans would compare across a sample from each of the color negatives I was using in terms of color/contrast as I had already gone through three other scanners by then.