Shooting Tungsten In Daylight

Bighead · Sep 15, 2005

I bought some post dated E6, tungsten balanced film... I think I have seen some good examples where individuals have used a strobe or flash to get normal tones on their main subject but allowed sunlight on the background to get a bluish color??

Anyone else have any ideas for this slide film? Would Cross processing yield anything different??

Sorry, I can't remember the brand.. I think is a Kodak 160, of some kind.

Konical · Sep 15, 2005

Good Morning,

A simple conversion filter should do the job. I'm going from memory here, but I think that an 85B is the proper one; if I recall correctly, it requires about a 2/3 stop increase in exposure. Some years (actually, decades!) ago, I used some tungsten film indoors with an acetate filter taped over the flash head instead of a filter on the lens; that allowed the auto-flash on the flash to operate as usual. Syncro-sunlight is a little tricky, but can be done. It's a lot easier with a between-the-lens shutter instead of a focal plane shutter.

Konical

Eric Rose · Sep 15, 2005

Barunbaum uses tungsten film quite a bit for his color work. Yes he does shoot color. He especially finds it useful for subjects that are predominately in the shade. Bruce also says that the tungsten film has better shadow detail and tonal range.

I have a box of the stuff in the fridge, but have not had an opportunity to use it yet. One of the things I wanted to experiment with was using it for table top stuff lit with strobes.

If you use a Nikon N90 or camera of similar features you can use the matrix meeting integration with the flash. Just put a conversion filter over the flash head and the camera will balance fill with background illumination automatically. Pretty slick stuff.

jd callow · Sep 15, 2005

I think you meant hot lights on the models instead of strobes or flashes. If you are out doors and light your subject with halogens or tungsten lights the subject will be more or less balanced and the area outside the reach of your light will be about 30cc blue and 15cc green.

Eric,
If you use T film on subjects in the shade they will be really really blue/cyan or maybe I'm reading your post wrong.

T film does record shadow very well and generally has great reciprocity characteristics.

If you tell me which T film you have I can tell you what to expect when you cross process it.

Eric Rose · Sep 15, 2005

mrcallow said:
Eric,
If you use T film on subjects in the shade they will be really really blue/cyan or maybe I'm reading your post wrong.

I believe Bruce still uses a conversion filter, but I'm not sure which one. Anyone can email him at barnbaum@aol.com He is quite willing to share info. I'm not sure if he is in town right now, but give it a try.

Bighead · Sep 15, 2005

mrcallow said:
If you tell me which T film you have I can tell you what to expect when you cross process it.

I will do so... I'll check the fridge when I get home.

mrcallow said:
If you are out doors and light your subject with halogens or tungsten lights the subject will be more or less balanced and the area outside the reach of your light will be about 30cc blue and 15cc green.

This is exactly what I want to do... I assume I need to but them in subdued lighting. If I put them in strong sunlight, I would probably have a hard time balancing it back out with a flash... But, maybe I'd like the outcome...

Maybe I'll just do what I should have done to begin with, try it out

jd callow · Sep 15, 2005

If the model or subject is outside in daylight or shadow there will probably be some daylight creeping in on them/it regardless of how much tungsten light you pour on them. That might be just fine and dandy though. The area's that will show blue/cyan will be the shadow areas which should look ok if not very nice.

Again I assume you mean halogen or tungsten and not flash (flashes are daylight balanced and sometimes a little cold ~2-5cc blue or blue/cyan).

jd callow · Sep 15, 2005

There is only one 160T chrome film and that is made by Kodak. This is an older, grainy film that is very dependable. Crossprocessed it has a strong cyan/blue cast which is easy to filter out and big clearly defined (sharp edged) grain. It has a wider latitiude than most chromes cross processed, but still less than the contrastest neg film. It can be shot as rated or over exposed by 2/3 of a stop. It perfomes best in high contrast settings.

Kodak 160T Crossprocessed
Dead Link Removed

Bighead · Sep 15, 2005

mrcallow said:
Again I assume you mean halogen or tungsten and not flash (flashes are daylight balanced and sometimes a little cold ~2-5cc blue or blue/cyan).

I do want to use my flash, hoping to filter it..... I actually want to do a two flash set up where one is filtered and the other isn't.......

John Koehrer · Sep 15, 2005

Bighead,
If you filter one of the flash units with an 85b or Roscoe equivalent that unit will be correctly balanced. The non-filtered unit will go blue. It's a little more portable than hot lights(Assuming portable flash).

Bighead · Sep 16, 2005

mrcallow said:
There is only one 160T chrome film and that is made by Kodak.

What I bought must be a consumer grade.... Its Elite Chrome 160T.....

jd callow · Sep 16, 2005

Bighead said:
What I bought must be a consumer grade.... Its Elite Chrome 160T.....

I'd bet it is the same thing.

Bighead · Sep 16, 2005

Well, I hope so..... Their original price on it was like $11 a roll..... Half off for the 08/2005 ex. date.... So, this weekend, I will shoot three rolls...

jd callow · Sep 17, 2005

Big Head check this out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/s...tml?ex=1127102400&en=cb905c1bb8ea0678&ei=5070
You will need to register to see the images and articles (its free and you won't get spam from it).

The 'women of extremes' slide show may have been done as you are thinking or it may be simply lighting and cool colour balancing -- essentially what you are attempting.

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