Skylight 1B and Ektachrome

George Mann

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I am shooting Ektachrome with a Hoya HMC Skylight 1B filter instead of my B&W KR1.5 to see how much they really differ.

Have any of you done anything similar?
 

BrianShaw

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Not me. It never seemed worth the effort. Looking forward to your results and assessment!
 

MamiyaBronica

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I can't imagine there would be that much of a difference between those two.

Skylight filters are from an age when colour films tended to take on a bluish cast in open shade and bright light. However, they have such a narrow-band of effectiveness it really comes down to which version you like better. I remember in the 1990s that there was a lot of talk about how Skylight filters were becoming redundant as film makers figured out how to adjust their emulsions to lessen the bluish effect. Folks seemed to switch over to multi-coated UV filters, which are even more precise in what they alter.

I have personally always found B+W filters easier to clean than the Hoya's - something about the coatings on the Hoya's give them quite a bit of "tooth" and are harder to de-smudge.

What did you find?
 

DREW WILEY

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What is your rationale for doing that? High altitude or beachside UV? Or just a tiny color tweak? I've only done one round of testing with the new E100 product; and the roll I used seemed to be spot on 5500 K balanced (used my color temp meter etc for a very objective test). But most of my experience is actually with the similar previous E100G product. With that, I discovered that the best way to deal with distant shots at high altitude was with my Hoya 0 "colorless" UV filter. I do routinely use skylight and warming filter for Ektar color neg film, but that's a different story. The Hoya 1B trends a tiny bit magneta, whereas the KR1.5 is stronger and more to the red-amber. Does that make a difference? - sometimes, yes. The only way to know is to try both of them yourself. But technically, KR1.5 is more of a color-cast correction filter than a skylight filter per se. I'd use KR1.5 when the overall scene color temp is a bit too blueish, like under an overcast sky, whereas the 1B is designed to correct for any over-reaction to UV in the film itself, under open sun circumstances.

Regarding cleaning, I always found Hoya HMC's (multi-coated) easier to clean and keep clean than B&W equivalents; but I use both brands due to the very distinction in question on this thread - which is better for what?
 

ProfessorC1983

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I'm planning a summer trip to Hawaii and want to try Ektachrome E100 for the first time (actually, first attempt with color film of any kind!)... I've gone so far as acquiring a Sputnik to make MF3D slides.

I'm looking for very high color saturation and warmth, to the point of seeming unrealistic. I suspect mostly low altitude, full sun, blue skies, high humidity. Lots of flowers, typical Hawaii vacation scenes. Will mostly be shooting at f/22 or f/32 to maximize DOF and ideally seeking one (well, single pair) filter to leave permanently attached.

Would a Skylight 1B be most appropriate for that use or should I be looking more at an 81B?
 

Nicholas Lindan

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ProfessorC1983 said:
I'm planning a summer trip to Hawaii and want to try Ektachrome E100 ... Would a Skylight 1B be most appropriate for that use or should I be looking more at an 81B?
Click to expand...

Use a polarizer. Skylite & UV filters are warm beer. Another filter you might want to play around with is a didymium, works sometimes - good for fall foliage and bright flowers. Stack the two if you like - though this will give some on the forum fits of apoplexy. To further insure apoplexy I'll recommend against expensive filters.

And get a lens hood. And a light weight tripod - if it's too heavy it gets left behind (and I have a closet full of heavy left behind tripods to prove it).
 

NortheastPhotographic

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With Provia I find a slight warming filter to be a great idea. Ektachrome reads a bit warmer but given how subtle the effect is, the filter won't do any harm.
 

JPD

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The Skylight 1B is pinkish while the 81B is more like amber, so the 81B would be the better choice. The lighter 81A is also nice as an allround warming filter for colour when you want the effect to be subtle.
 

DREW WILEY

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Scanning can't correct certain errors best handled at the time of the shot itself, outdoor over-reaction to UV being one of them. A true warming filter, ever so slight like a KR1.5, would be overkill for Ektachrome unless the sky were overcast and the subject matter a bit too blueish due to that. In fact, I would never leave a filter in place without a specific reason for it. I have em all : no.0 colorless Hoya UV filter (which worked best for high altitude UV per se with the immediate predecessor film, E100G), a 2B Sylight, 81A,B, and C, B&W KR1.5 and 2.0 (a little redder than the 81 series), the Singh-Ray KN, a Tiffen equivalent to a 1B and 81B combined, and an 05 cc M filter. No - I don't carry around all these at the same time! Most are only for sake of fine-tuning specific color temp issues characteristics to Ektar CN film and its own functional predecessor, Portra VC. I'd probably just leave em all home if shooting Ektachrome except perhaps the 1B and an 81A, which address entirely different issues.

Polarizers are like sugar and cream in coffee. Not for me. Spoils the signature flavor. Didymium filters? - poor man's Fauxtoshop. Cheap filters rather than reliable multicoated glass ones? - why bother?
 
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George Mann

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Alan Edward Klein said:
What do you intend to do with the result. If you're scanning it, couldn't you adjust any casts when editing?
Click to expand...

If you are referring to me, I never scan slide film.

I use these filters for color cast and uv correction. The K.R.1.5 was sufficient at higher altitude than I am at now, so why not experiment with the 1B.

I have 82 series cooling filters for early evening as well.
 

ProfessorC1983

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Alan Edward Klein said:
What do you intend to do with the result. If you're scanning it, couldn't you adjust any casts when editing?
Click to expand...

I intend to make stereo slides for use with a backlit viewer, so in this case getting the "right" color cast onto film is important.

Thanks for the help, all! I'm thinking I'll throw caution to the wind and go with the 81B (which should also block UV if I understand correctly?) for this adventure. Polarizers would be a bit unwieldy on a stereo TLR but I'll have one for my other camera just in case the need arises!
 

DREW WILEY

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Are you confusing a 1B skylight filter with an 81B warming filter, or made a typo? An 81B will be distinctly yellow-amber under normal lighting conditions, kinda a Godfather movie look. I'd only use one of those under deep blue shade conditions. Even 81A will be too much unless you have an overcast blueish sky. Ektachrome is neutral balanced to 5500 K photographic daylight. If you place any 81-series filter on it, you are distinctly yellowing and warming the look - total overkill if all you want to do is control UV.
 

Alan Edward Klein

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So would you use a 1B skylight?
 

benjiboy

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JPD said:
The Skylight 1B is pinkish while the 81B is more like amber, so the 81B would be the better choice. The lighter 81A is also nice as an allround warming filter for colour when you want the effect to be subtle.
Click to expand...
If the new Ektachrome is anything like the old one( and I have shot many hundreds of rolls of it) it was notorious for going blue in overcast conditions and I used to use an 81B filter with it.
 

DREW WILEY

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No - E100G and E100S prior to that weren't notorious for anything. They were very well balanced, and just doing exactly what a true "photographic daylight" film is supposed to do. If the actual color temp is cooler or bluer than 5500K, that's what's going to show in the film unless you filter for the difference. Some chrome shooter like the uncorrected blueish look, some don't. At one time Kodak made a warm version of Ektachrome with a degree of built-in amber. Many older chrome shooters lamented the loss of Ektachrome 64 because they loved its overt blue reaction in certain kinds of landscapes. But E100G and the current E100 are quite neutral in that respect. Long ago, the Impressionists began rendering shadows under open blue skies as bluish, because that's what they actually saw. Sometimes I've had to resort to an 81C to correct for that kind of situation, when I wanted a neutral rendering. 81A or KR1.5 is more appropriate for general overcast.

In general, Fuji chrome films were a little warmer balanced than Ektachromes. From my testing, it seems that Fuji's own "daylight" standard was more like 5200K rather than 5500K. Maybe that's why Ektachrome products seem excessively blue balanced to some shooters.

With color neg films, Portra 160 and PORTRA 400 are somewhat artificially warmed for sake of "pleasing skintones" under a variety of lighting. Ektar is not, and is relatively neutral, though it's blues can easily get inflected with an annoying cyan flavor towards the extremes of the scale, so I keep various warming filters on hand.
 

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George Mann

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I will take some shots in all of the varying conditions without a filter. Should be interesting.
 

DREW WILEY

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Matt - I never personally cared for the look of the X version. But my logic was more along the lines, it's easier to put an 81A warming film on the film once in awhile than to need an 80A cooling filter far more frequently. Minor changes can be made on the colorhead during printing anyway. But a warm balance in combination with a cooling filter leads to a bit of neutral density in an already contrasty film. It might have been a different story for portrait photographers, but I don't remember ever using Ektachrome for portraits - Provia, yes, and the lovely old gritty high-speed Agfachromes, and a range of color neg films of the era.

George - yes indeed - have some fun at it under various lighting situations and compare the results. That's the best way to figure out what you actually need without enduring an anxiety attack.
 
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MattKing

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E100 GX, IIRC:
 

DREW WILEY

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Well, you certainly seem to have obtained a lovely glow in that one, Matt. I think the last time I ever used Ekta X was in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming many years ago, likewise for sake of a special evening glow. I stumbled onto that old 4X5 chrome sorting through a box a couple weeks ago.

But I had a huge gripe with both Fuji and Kodak during that era. Both were coating their chrome films on triacetate, which is not dimensionally stable. I was doing Ciba printing, which requires attached contrast control and hue correction masks, which of course, must be in perfect register. That acetate curse is haunting me to this day, because now, instead, I'm taking select chromes and making very high quality internegs from them for sake of chromogenic RA printing, and doing so in an ideal fashion also requires a registered mask. It wasn't until Kodak came out with E100G that they began using superior estar base (they now use it for their color neg sheet films too). And Fuji only used it for the last version of Astia sheets, 100F, and for Velvia 100F. Ironically, Kodak used estar base for their early Ektachrome 64, and all the masks I made for that particular film are still in perfect register. It had a much cooler look than the current Ektachrome.
 

flatulent1

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That reminds me I have a pile of E100GX 120 in the freezer, been there since it was discontinued. I'll have to take a wander over the mountains this fall.
 
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