Is it possible for a particular color to fall outside of the Portra 400 gamut?

[faberryman]

Part of the problem with the discussion here is that, yes, you have representative spectrograms of the dye sensitivity of the film in question, but you DON'T have any representative spectrograms of the light reflecting off this or that flower or sample of fabric, since there can be a multitude of potential variations of those, which the human eye is capable of differentiating in a different manner than the given film itself, or even differently from pollinators like insects and their own kind of vision, which is really the priority with blossoms, and not our pictures.

Spectrograms and insect vision aside, you would still expect purple flowers to look purple. Of course, no film is perfect.

 

[Steven Lee]

Update. I just scanned the same negatives on Flextight X5.
The result is the same:

Conclusion: this had nothing to do with camera scanning. Portra 400 does not "see" this color the same way digital cameras (and human eye) do.

[EDIT] And here's the second image re-scanned on the X5:

Again: same colors (slightly warmer, but that can be adjusted to match the camera scan)

 

[pentaxuser]

So from Steven's latest post it would seem that if you want this colour to be what the eye or eye/brain sees it as then you use digital. Given this, then when it comes to the likes of wedding shots where the commissioning parties will remember the correct colours and be annoyed to say the least if the pictures do not reflect what they see with their eyes then it is hardly surprising that photographers using film for weddings or social gatherings are as scarce as hens' teeth

pentaxuser

 

[faberryman]

So from Steven's latest post it would seem that if you want this colour to be what the eye or eye/brain sees it as then you use digital. Given this, then when it comes to the likes of wedding shots where the commissioning parties will remember the correct colours and be annoyed to say the least if the pictures do not reflect what they see with their eyes then it is hardly surprising that photographers using film for weddings or social gatherings are as scarce as hens' teeth

That and the popularity of purple bridesmaid dresses. Why do you think Lomography came out with LomoChrome Purple?

 

[Lachlan Young]

Update. I just scanned the same negatives on Flextight X5.
The result is the same:

Unless you scanned them as a positive and did the inversion outside of Flexcolor, all you are testing is Flexcolor's sometimes odd understanding of colour neg.

 

[Steven Lee]

Unless you scanned them as a positive and did the inversion outside of Flexcolor, all you are testing is Flexcolor's sometimes odd understanding of colour neg.

I scanned them as positive and then inverted manually, i.e. exactly the same workflow as with a camera.

 

[snusmumriken]

As @BMbikerider said up above, bluebells (Hyacynthoides non-scripta) are notorious for not seeming their lovely selves in photographs. However, if you photograph them on a cloudy dull day rather than a bright sunny day, the colour seems much closer to the real thing. I’d like to know whether anyone can explain this to me; and I’d also like to know whether it improves things for the OP?

 

[Steven Lee]

This was a good lesson to learn. Majority of my photography has been on B&W film. I didn't get a chance to step up to RA4 printing before the digital wave hit, so it took me a while to discover this. The positive side effect of this investigation was comparing camera scans from the Sony A7R IV to Flextight X5. The camera performed surprisingly well, I am able to get the color I like from camera scans with comparable amount of effort to the X5, which is above my expectations (I was contemplating dropping $15K on the X5). I should probably share some results in the digital forum.

 

[Lachlan Young]

I scanned them as positive and then inverted manually, i.e. exactly the same workflow as with a camera.

In which case, would you be prepared to share a piece of the uninverted scan with some negative rebate?

I have a suspicion that the gamut the inversion was done in and/ or how the mask was corrected may be playing a role in not getting things heading where they should.

 

[DREW WILEY]

On my screen at least, and in comparison to most web images, the example you posted, Steven, looks overall too bluish-magenta, period. The whole color balance is off. Even the shaded skin areas are purple-inflected. Can't blame the film on that! Something is calibrated wrong in your workflow.

 

[faberryman]

On my screen at least, and in comparison to most web images, the example you posted, Steven, looks overall too bluish-magenta, period. The whole color balance is off. Even the shaded skin areas are purple-inflected. Can't blame the film on that! Something is calibrated wrong in your workflow.

Doesn't really explain why the purple flowers aren't purple. But let's gloss over that in favor of criticizing Steven's white balance.

 

[pentaxuser]

On my screen at least, and in comparison to most web images, the example you posted, Steven, looks overall too bluish-magenta, period. The whole color balance is off. Even the shaded skin areas are purple-inflected. Can't blame the film on that! Something is calibrated wrong in your workflow.

So what do you suggest that Steven does to make his scans better, Drew and more importantly for the Portra and optical printing amongst us, what you believe that under an enlarger there is a Y and M combination that will render the print from the negative much better than the scan of the girl's dress and hanging flowers, the latter being very wishy-washy in terms of looks, wouldn't you agree?

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[Steven Lee]

On my screen at least, and in comparison to most web images, the example you posted, Steven, looks overall too bluish-magenta, period. The whole color balance is off. Even the shaded skin areas are purple-inflected. Can't blame the film on that! Something is calibrated wrong in your workflow.

I see exactly what you're pointing at. For privacy reasons I do not want to post the full image.

It was exposed during golden hour, the girl is sitting in the shade. The skintone on her face is very different than her hands. That's because the skin on her hands is heavily tinted by the light reflected off that dress, and the hue of that light is also affected by this gamut limitation. The rest of the image, particularly well-lit areas, looks completely normal, on the warm side actually.

Sure, I could color-balance for the shadow in this case, but there is no way to make that dress color match what I see in the real life.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Oh, reflected purple? Yeah, that could explain it too. But one more reason to set up a completely objective test using the same film and a standardized target, shot at the correct color temp.

Pentaxuser - Since I only darkroom print, and only shoot film, that eliminates the intermediate variable of scanning.

 

[pentaxuser]

Pentaxuser - Since I only darkroom print, and only shoot film, that eliminates the intermediate variable of scanning.

Yes I appreciate that Drew. I was simply trying to elicit from you whether you felt that Portra optically printed should be able to produce a much better representation of the dress and especially the hanging flowers.

Steven's scan of the girl does show her upper chest and from that picture the scan does seem to show normal skin colours.

pentaxuser

 

[DREW WILEY]

It's all purple-inflected, pentax. It's just not quite as evident in the brighter areas.

 

[Steven Lee]

It's all purple-inflected, pentax. It's just not quite as evident in the brighter areas.

Forgot to mention: her hands are covered with purple-tinted face paint (pink+violet was the birthday party theme), here's a fragment from another shot where it's better visible:

I'd leave the overall color balancing to me, somoene who was there and knows how the scene looked. The issue isn't that. The issue is the single color which is off by a mile. That mile can't be covered by minor inversion alterations. I am still intrigued though... Will see if I can RA4 print this negative in my area...

 

[Helge]

Forgot to mention: her hands are covered with purple-tinted face paint (pink+violet was the birthday party theme), here's a fragment from another shot where it's better visible:

View attachment 345136

I'd leave the overall color balancing to me, somoene who was there and knows how the scene looked. The issue isn't that. The issue is the single color which is off by a mile. That mile can't be covered by minor inversion alterations. I am still intrigued though... Will see if I can RA4 print this negative in my area...

All of the skin including the snippet of a hand on the left has some purple in it.
The white patch on the upper right does too.
Unless all the light was filtered purple that is where your problem is.

 

[faberryman]

All of the skin including the snippet of a hand on the left has some purple in it.
The white patch on the upper right does too.
Unless all the light was filtered purple that is where your problem is.

If you read the OP and look at the image of the flowers, which are supposed to be purple not light grey, the problem is with the film not correctly capturing purple, not with the lavender cast. If anything, correcting the lavender cast will make the problem worse not better. The lavender cast is a problem, not the problem.

 

[brbo]

My situation is that I noticed that one very specific color never shows up properly on my Portra 400 scans. It gets cooler and desaturated. The color is somewhere between pink and purple, maybe someone would be able to nail the name, it's basically the darker color of this girl's dress:

View attachment 344185



View attachment 344191

Judging by these digital images and your scans the span of hues that Portra is blind to is quite big. Since this discovery Kodak might as well label Portra as a C-41 BW film...

Hey, maybe this is the second newly (re)introduced Kodak film we were "promised" this year?

 

[pentaxuser]

All of the skin including the snippet of a hand on the left has some purple in it.
The white patch on the upper right does too.
Unless all the light was filtered purple that is where your problem is.

Yes the flesh colour on the chest area looks fine to me. This suggests that the purple doesn't extend over the whole image and what Steven has said about why some flesh has a purple tinge sounds accurate to me

pentaxuser

 

[Ian C]

This problem was discussed in an article in either Modern Photography or its successor Popular Photography after the publisher of the latter absorbed Modern Photography and incorporated MP’s format and features into PP.

The article discussed the color reproduction of the color of periwinkle flowers as captured on various brands of color film, including Kodak and Fuji. It showed examples of the color captured by various color films and a DSLR. The article conclude that the digital camera did somewhat better than color film in recording this particular color.

It concluded that the problem wasn’t the fault of any particular color film. Rather, it was a shortcoming in the technology of color film to accurately record this color. Apparently, this limitation still exists. Due to the current nature of the film manufacturing business, it’s unlikely that that Kodak or Fuji will expend any further research and development costs on what for most users is a small foible. I don’t recall which of these two photo magazines carried the article I referenced or the year or month of publication.

If the problem is currently limited to Kodak Portra, then the answer is obvious. Use a different film that gives you the color response that you find satisfying.

 

[pentaxuser]

Judging by these digital images and your scans the span of hues that Portra is blind to is quite big. Since this discovery Kodak might as well label Portra as a C-41 BW film...

Hey, maybe this is the second newly (re)introduced Kodak film we were "promised" this year?

Would your explanation also explain why the purple flowers in the scan seem so grey and washed-out whereas the purple in the dress from the scan of the film looks a distinctly different shade from that of the digital camera but is not washed out

Can I put it like this: If I had been shown only the scan of the girl's dress and had not seen the digital picture I would not have said there was anything wrong. On the other hand the washed-out look of the flowers looks distinctly wrong even if I had never been shown the digital picture

If that scan of the flowers represent the best that can be obtained by Portra then I agree with your quote. This is a major colour problem with what appears to be an otherwise OK film and is one of Kodak's most expensive, if not to say eye-wateringly expensive offerings

pentaxuser

 

[BrianShaw]

Can Film Actually Capture the Color Violet

cinematography.com

 

[faberryman]

Can you imagine the hue and cry if this were a shortcoming in digital, but since it is film it gets an "oh well".