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Perfect skies/clouds on film!!!

i once read that using a polarizer and a red filter will give you almost black skyes in b&w, but never seen an example. has someone here done it?
 
I also like polarisers for the intensity they give colour:



 
The digital shots you are showing us may well have been tampered with in photoshop and had extra sharpening applied. To get the same effect with film you need filters and also a decent sharp lens and adequate shutter speed.
 
DanielStone said:
is this from a 5x7, or 6.5x8.5?
-Dan
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Full frame 5x7 contact print. I learn with a Rolleiflex (6x6), then moved to 4x5. When I went 5x7, I got to appreciate its proportions. Now I am using the 8x10, but that's okay -- if I get too tired of the stubby rectangle, I make a couple 4x10's to get it out of my system!

Clouds:

I agree with Alex -- sharp lens, filters and a short shutter speed to get crisp clouds. TMax films help too -- they have a better balanced (closer to our ownw eyes) response to blue.

But dramatic skies get a bit over-used and tiring after awhile.

Vaughn
 
Big pictures throw me right out of this thread. To long to downsize.
 


This thing i tried. Perhaps, lessening the grain will get that kind of look. Now the clouds have neat edges and shape is well defined( i mean you can make out the borders of the cloud).
 
If you don't want any grain, use slow films (like Neopan 100 or TMAX100 or PanF+ or Delta100 or.......) with fine-grain developer (like Perceptol), or better yet, medium-format camera. You can get images that have NO visible grain at all at this size.

People who have shot grainy skies have probably made it on purpose, liking the grain. If you don't like it, there are alternatives available in film, also. There's no point in comparing to digital. Digital images can also be noisy if the shooter wants that way.
 
Here are three examples that I shot with a polarizer and orange filter, my favorite combination for darkening skies, and separating clouds from sky.
 

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It seems to me that when I want the sky to be blue I use a COLOR film.
 
DLawson said:
Do you have a reference (book?) for that picture?
I was unfamiliar with Salgado, but I think I just had a religious experience.
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Sebastio Salgado - do a google search - plenty of stuff online to start with.

He is a UNICEF rep so this bio is as good a place as any to start:

http://www.unicef.org/salgado/bio.htm
 
bob100684 said:
It seems to me that when I want the sky to be blue I use a COLOR film.
Click to expand...

LOL @ this reply.

I get the feeling a lot in this thread *might* be lost in translation as it were (seeing as we have a film theme going). Is it just me that reads that the op is concerned about the shape of the clouds? Which, if it is the case, I think we may be trying to compare probably cgi'd sky backgrounds costing millions with reality scanned on a perhaps less than commercial quality scanner.

:munch:
 
What I "usually" don't like about polarisers or orange or red filters is how they render green foliage... too dark and dull. Sometimes this works for the composition but not that often, IMHO. I also don't like the nearly complete loss of highlight detail on foliage... looks flat. Again though... just my opinion. I'd rather shoot big film, scan into PS and "filter" selectively. Analog purists please don't shoot me.
 
I shot these clouds in New Mexico using my lowly Kodak Brownie Hawkeye using Acros 100. I didn't process it though.

Rick
 

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I have used the near-IR films for various sky shots, you might poke around in here and see if any of that grabs you. If so... medium/large format Rollei IR or superpan or efke IR with an rm72 or #87 filter, or a red filter if you prefer a subtler effect.

My usual with thinking with clouds is this: go ahead do what you need to do to get lots of tone separation and definition in the clouds and sky, you can always step down the contrast in the print phase. What usually won't work is to start with no contrast in the neg and then try to put it in. If the tonal information just isn't there, no amount of manipulation will put it there, in a credible way.

Have a look at the clouds of Edward Weston and his contemporaries. Clearly, no modern processing effects nor fancy materials are required to produce very effective cloudscapes. If the contrast befits the composition then it will happen. What usually won't work is to take ordinary, blah clouds in ordinary, blah light and process/filter them to try to conjure more drama than was truly there. Sometimes we just have to look at the sky and say, geez that's nice, and leave the camera in the bag.
 
Bad scans and graininess made me think that good sky pictures are not possible without putting in extra effort. That test of mine made it clear that scanning is the culprit. Anyways thanks to all your replies, especially for adding the example photos.
@bob: Sure bob and everybody here knows that much.
 
Perhaps moving to MF might be the best thing i can do to reduce grain.
@keith: ya those were really awesome ones. thanks!
 


Wait on, you overlooked that POLs cut spectral reflection/glare which can influence meter readings. You can of course adjust the degree of spectral loss and how flat you want the image to be (this needs care in some lighting conditions). Too flat when just so? No problem. Lift the meter reading 0.3, 0.7. I'm talking about transparency (RVP) film, but I've applied the same methods in B&W.

I shoot 35mm always have and always will, produce to Ilfochrome Classic 30x50 and people always think it's done on medium or large format. What are others printing from large format? Postcards??

I do not scan into Photoshop or tweak any images. Shoot! What people see in Ilfochromes is entirely analog and will stay that way.
 
Sim2 said:
Sebastio Salgado - do a google search - plenty of stuff online to start with.

He is a UNICEF rep so this bio is as good a place as any to start:

http://www.unicef.org/salgado/bio.htm
Click to expand...

Um, yes. That was easy enough to find. Also easy to find is that he has at least a half dozen books on various subjects. Any of those books might contain that image. Or none of them. And without a title for the image, searching isn't much use (for me at least).

That image turns up twice in the first ten pages of Google images, and none of them give me any more information than the photographer's name.

Y'all may be able to fully appreciate this stuff on a monitor, but my take is that this was a shot I need to see at least a quality reprinting of (given the limited draw of Dayton for gallery shows).
 
For those who might be interested in this kind of work flow......I think i found the solution for my problem to reduce grain. All i need is to display my pics on my computer. I rarely print!!! Please do go through these links. Some of you will surely be familiar with this method. Cost effective too!

http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00UgKB
http://www.fencecheck.com/content/index.php?title=DSLR_Slide_and_Negative_Copying
http://shutterclick.smugmug.com/Pho...-100-35mm/6499685_dJwsh#676248506_pCZoc-X3-LB
http://www.thedambook.com/downloads/Camera_Scanning_Krogh.pdf
http://www.truetex.com/telecine.htm
http://www.scantips.com/es-1.html
Very less grain indeed.
 
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Oops, I think this may be a title for the work:

Sebastiao Salgado, Iceberg between Paulet Island and the
Shetland Islands on the Antarctic Canal, Antarctica, 2005

I hope that this helps with you tracking down a hard copy.
 
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