Highlight detail...

[Sirius Glass]

Better dilutions or delusion than deletions, but that is another thread.

 

[Athiril]

I haven't printed it optically, but I incident metered in the shade and exposed for that for particular scene on Portra 400. This was mixed with heavy shade and hard sun, the subject I wanted was in the shade, so I exposed for my subject.

Everything in the hard sun came out, nice mid tones in both at the same time.

The difference in incident readings between the sunny area and shadey area was 5 stops.


So the sunny area was overexposed by 5 stops (for subjects there), and the neg still held the detail fine.

 

[Dinesh]

If you think I'm doing this for kicks you're diluted.

Classic!

 

[benjiboy]

Classic!

I'm not diluted, but I'm dilated to hear you are diluted

 

[DREW WILEY]

What Flying Camera said about crossover in enlaring is directly equivalent to what I stated about
cross-contamination of the dye curves. It's the practical result and it often can't be fixed, even by
the know-it-all Photoshop crowd. Some color neg films, esp amateur ones, are designed for a lot of
exposure error, but might still give acceptable skintones. But most other colors go to hell, and pretty much anything analogous in the scene turns to skintone. You might want to use this bias creatively, but it helps to know the ropes.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Also, to add to what Drew and I were saying, although there may be detail in the highlights on the negative that can be burned in, what can also happen is that that the filtration for the highlight burn is different than the filtration required for the base exposure, because the exposure times are so different. Long story short - you're better off controlling exposure at the time of exposure rather than compensating after the fact. It's a bit of a case of "while it CAN be done, the more important question is, SHOULD it be done, or avoided if at all possible".

 

[RPC]

Keep in mind that the need for burning in (and dodging as well) is often because of the dynamic range limitations of print material, and can't always be prevented by exposing properly.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

From my experience burning in when printing color negs, the color will shift in the burned in area. You can compensate by dialing in a correction to compensate for the shift. That get's tricky. A cheat's way is to scan the neg and different exposure levels and blend them in Photoshop. Kinda like an analog/digital version of HDR photography. This technique is not for analog purist though

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

RPC - yes, photo paper has a limited contrast range and burning and dodging can't be avoided per-se by proper exposure, but proper exposure certainly reduces the amount you have to do. And you'll always have to decide in high contrast situations which end of the SBR you want to favor - is it more important to have highlight detail or shadow detail. I'd rather lose a little in the highlights and not have blocked up shadows, but I'd also rather have my shadows be true neutral/black rather than have a strange cast to them (which can also happen when dodging while printing color).

 

[ChristopherCoy]

...This technique is not for analog purist though

Its ok. I wasn't planning on printing my own color stuff anyway. I was going to do the unspoken....

 

[DREW WILEY]

For those analog purists who do their own printing: you change the contrast simply with a contrast
increase or contrast decrease silver mask. Differential masks can also be made for color correction or
curve distribution. Anyone who has done high-quality chrome printing can figure this stuff out with
a it of patience, and do it every bit as well as Photoshop, maybe better. What you cannot do in either case is correct parts of the negative where the different color layers have contaminated one
another and created mud due to incorrect exposure in the first place.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Color negative film will show no crossover if done correctly. For example, a 120 Portra can be exposed at 100, 50 and 25 with no crossover, or at 200 or 400 with no crossover. Below ISO 25, you are on the shoulder and can see some crossover due to shouldering of the 3 curves. Above 400, you will begin to lose detail.

The best exposure for an ISO 120 film is about 100, and for a 400 film is 320. No need to go 1 stop, just 1/3 stop will do the trick. I learned this while helping in the design of Gold 400 film. It has worked for me for years now. But then, there is no need to do even this as the modern films are spot on and stay there from batch to batch.

PE

 

[MattKing]

Actually, through the various explanations I'm only beginning to slightly understand what people are talking about when it comes to filters and color casts. I got Scotts explanation about the 'chase, and I'm assuming that if you over expose and get a yellow cast, when you try to fix that you may get a blue cast, and if you try to get that you may get some other color cast. I'm associating that explanation to the times when I am digitally editing and I repair a white balance, but then get something that is too green or too red, and then when I fix that, it goes yellow or blue etc etc etc...

Christopher:

You are missing something really important.

If you don't expose properly, and end up with over-exposure overall, you are risking problems with:
1) contrast; and
2) colour crossover.

The contrast problems are similar to what you will encounter with black and white - tones and details may end up being "scrunched" together and it may be harder or even impossible to separate them out. The dye clouds in colour film can be scrunched a bit more than black and white without irreversible damage, but there is a limit.

Colour crossover is not a wardrobe choice. It is a phenomenon where the different colour layers respond differently to a change in exposure. If you end up with crossover, you don't end up with a single colour cast - you end up with multiple casts that vary across your photograph.

For example, for a neutral gray subject you may end up with the shadowed areas going blue, and the highlight areas going yellow. That means if you correct for the shadows, the highlights go more yellow. And vice-versa.

If you encounter a colour printer with a wide-eyed look of frustration, most likely they have been printing something that has a colour crossover issue.

Many, many years ago I worked as a colour printer. We printed for a number of pro photographers. We had one customer who shot a lot of volume, and decided to cut his costs by running his own C-41 processing. He messed up a bunch of films - everything was processed improperly, and had crossover problems. We had to fire him as a customer.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Things have sure improved in certain respects, but I still can't get a neg to behave like a chrome. Damn close, however, with the added advantage of more range. I can get green fairly clean of the cyan, but nothing yet with ideal differentiation between yellows and yellow-orange. Ektar can be beaten into submission with masking, but then they almost immediately discontinue it in sheets! So I counted what I had in the freezer and looks like I've got enough inventory for quite awhile, at least until something better comes along or else I'm too old to care. But I have gotten some very difficult
greiges and brown earthtones to print from these new Ektar & Portra films which previously gave me
hell with either negs or chromes. Best film I ever had for that kind of thing was the old-school gritty Agfachrome (pre E-6). It would even pick up fluorescent lichen colors that nothing else can.

 

[Les Sarile]

Controlled test with some digis for reference. First frame (far left) is ideal exposure and each frame to the right is a stop of overexposure. Apparently I didn't shoot enough to reach these film's extinction point. BTW, Kodak Portra 400 at +10 is still recoverable with the most minor of white balance and levels adjustment in post as shown.

Full res version -> http://www.fototime.com/3EDD4D13204247B/orig.jpg

It's a bit of a case of "while it CAN be done, the more important question is, SHOULD it be done, or avoided if at all possible".

I was shooting Kodak Ektar 100 and came upon a scene that I wanted to smooth out the water some. My meter indicates "proper exposure" at 1/60 but I wanted 1/4 and didn't have ND filters to "stay within specs". Knowing I can safely overexpose Kodak Ektar and get useable results even +5 overexposure, I shot the scene and got this.

I've tested a few other film's range as shown below if you're interested.

Fuji100 larger version -> http://www.fototime.com/5662A1CA253B2E0/orig.jpg

Kodak BW400CN larger version -> http://www.fototime.com/0A2BFD8BCB1F695/orig.jpg

Kodak Portra 400 larger version -> http://www.fototime.com/B1379B2FE749C83/orig.jpg



An example of the latitude of Kodak Portra 400 in a single frame below. Obviously to full appreciate it, you will have to dodge and burn - or Shadows & Highlights in post, to show on a considerably narrower latitude media such as print or monitor.

Full res version -> http://www.fototime.com/DCE615918D77901/orig.jpg

 

[Photo Engineer]

Les;

In a test like this, each individual exposure should be rebalanced and adjusted in density to match the zero point. Otherwise, you are comparing apples to oranges. I do as you did, but I also make comparison prints with the adjustment in density and filtration. I have posted samples here before.

PE

 

[DREW WILEY]

Try a mixed lighting scene with Ektar, in which you have both sunlit subject matter and shadows, and you'll see just how little real latitude there is without inflecting across the board. If you treat
exposure with the same care as a chrome it makes a big difference. About all I can do is repeat what
I said earlier: if you're accustomed to mud, it looks like you can get away with all kinds of things. If
you want to optimize the performance of the film for color balance, that's an entirely different subject. Anybody can fake something in Photoshop or saturate one aspect of the pallette at the
expense of another. Not the same thing as balancing, or objective in the sense of comparing it to an optimized printed standard from something like a Macbeath chart exp under proper color temp.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

To be honest, this is what I am getting from this conversation:

- optimum performance of film is at box speed
- color negative film can be shot at least one to three stops over exposed and still be useable
- it is best to over expose color neg film than under expose
- obnoxious amounts of overexposure can cause severe issues with color shift and contrast
- and color balance is sort of like 'pixel peeping', to the normal eye it is not noticeable, much like noise. It isn't until you get out the microscope that it can be seen.

 

[Les Sarile]

Drew,
You mean something like this from Kodak Ektar 100 and I recovered the shadows.

Full res -> http://www.fototime.com/EEDE7E79B0493CF/orig.jpg

 

[Les Sarile]

PE, I can see the importance of rebalancing but not in this casual observation.

 

[Les Sarile]

Christopher, It is very easy to test and of course you should test it yourself as there are personal preference considerations as well as workflow/post processing that has to be accounted for.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Les - getting slightly off-topic since this is about shadows instead of highlights. Typical neg films like
Portra are engineered to achieve "realistic" skintones (complex warm neutrals) even with a fair amt
of exp error. Ektar tries to achieve a more saturated look with dramatically sharper dye curves, but
does so at the expense of artificially warmed shadows. If the scene is entirely in shadow you can
simply filter for it with something like an 81A or 81C, depending. If the scene is split you end up with
blue in shadows (like the Impressionists discovered or we routinely expect in chromes but not in
pleasing "skintones". The fact that a certain hues come still come across saturated in a film like
Portra, by contrast, does not mean the scene is balanced, except overall. It's an interesting problem.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Pretty much my experience.

To be honest, this is what I am getting from this conversation:

- optimum performance of film is at box speed
- color negative film can be shot at least one to three stops over exposed and still be useable
- it is best to over expose color neg film than under expose
- obnoxious amounts of overexposure can cause severe issues with color shift and contrast
- and color balance is sort of like 'pixel peeping', to the normal eye it is not noticeable, much like noise. It isn't until you get out the microscope that it can be seen.

 

[Les Sarile]

Drew, I have read about the blue shadows of Kodak Ektar - and generally poor color, but it is likely the result of poor scanning and/or post. I have not encountered it myself and I have shot over 50 rolls of it already in various lighting conditions from very long (more then an hour) exposures to indoor flash snapshots.

However, I am really impressed by the new Kodak Portra 400's latitude, mixed light response and grain.

 

[DREW WILEY]

To continue a bit... some folks got real good at simply accepting the inherent reproduction errors of
classic color neg film and working with the pallette. I can think of Meyerowitz, Stephen Shore, etc,
who built entire bodies of work on the errors of Vericolor, namely, the inherent contrast of pumkin
orange and poison cyan, with an occasional clean blue. Nowadays these new Portra and Ektar films
are capable of a much cleaner pallette across a wider range, but still are at heart films largely optimized for skintones. Learning the rope and how to correct for greater versatility has been quite
a challenge for me, but a lot of fun too. But I certainly don't disrespect those who bend the rules
for a particular effect. One "expert" printer I know never could get a clean green with color neg film
and simply accepts that's how green looks in the world. And in the past it does seem like the green
was always inflected with cyan. Compare the dye curves between Portra 160 and Ektar and you'll
see just how dramatically different they are in green response.