The Light in your Country

[Stephen Frizza]

ok this thread is about what companies say about light. Has anyone seen the Boxes of Indian Kodak consumer film (gold 100, 200 and max) which say on them "This films is perfect for Indian Light" do any other countries have film labled perfect for their light?

 

[fschifano]

I'm pretty sure that a lot of it is marketing hype. India is a big country and covers a lot of territory from north to south. Lighting conditions change dramatically with latitude, proximity to open water, mountains, etc.

 

[Stephen Frizza]

Oh itsd totally marketing hype, but it was a funny selling line. Ide love to know if there were any other countries that marketed the film according to their light.

 

[Photo Engineer]

There is a small but real color temperature varation at different latitudes, seasons and time of day. There is also a substantial difference in the amount of UV present at the different latitudes. This does affect the way film should be color balanced. Whether it is or not, is another matter.

PE

 

[Lee L]

Maybe that film was good at reproducing "Indian Red", a color that Crayola Crayon company was forced to rename because it was perceived as a racist take on native North Americans, rather than as the color of an mineral earth pigment found in India.

Crayola did hold a contest to rename Indian Red in the late 80's early 90's. My favorite entry in that contest was "the color formerly known as Indian Red".

Now back to your regularly scheduled topic.

I had a nice conversation with Ruud about this last week about Dutch (Nederlands) light. We talked about the specific conditions of light filtering through the clouds onto the shallow water of the enclosed seas and then reflected back up to the clouds from below. I got some very nice shots in Frysland, Ameland, and Schiermonnikoog a few weeks ago that seemed to have a softer light at midday than typical, perhaps due to latitude. I definitely preferred it to the light in Scheveningen in late December.

Lee

 

[accozzaglia]

"India Mineral Red" would have been perfectly sufficient to alleviate the controversy. But alas.

 

[Klopstock]

No, never saw something similar. But, of course, some artists in ad agencies always find an excuse for an expensive trip to southern areas, it's the "mediterranean light" that is required to take some shots of that new budget fashio line...

Tuesday is fun day, please forgive me for some shafts of satire from Berlin...

It's just a rumour, but the chinese Lucky films have quite a lot of these slogans on the package:

1. "Made in communist dark age."

2. "Table of exposure:

Sunny, nature, outside China - f11, 1/500

Sunny, inside China (including Taiwan and Tibet), light smog - f4, 1/60

Sunny, inside China (including Taiwan and Tibet), normal smog - f2, 1/30, push +2

Sunny, chinese industrial area - use flashlight and gas mask or tripod and respiratory mask/oxygen cylinder"

3. "Develop in total darkness (strong smog day), D-76, 8 minutes, fix in Jangtse river 4 minutes. Wash in clean water (if available)."


Chinese advertising for these films is also quite informative:

"For good photo of neighbour talking with foreign journalist."

"Good film. Will make chinese female athlet look like woman."

 

[Aurum]

There is a small but real color temperature varation at different latitudes, seasons and time of day. There is also a substantial difference in the amount of UV present at the different latitudes. This does affect the way film should be color balanced. Whether it is or not, is another matter.

PE

I've seen this as well with colour matching of cosmetics and paint pigments. The overall colour "look" of the same colour can be markedly different between say Europe, the US, and Australia.
When colouring products like Shampoo, we always use a light box with various types of illumination, usually Tungsten, artificial daylight, and one called TL84 which is the grade of flourescent tube used in most retailers in the UK. They can give strikingly different results

 

[Ian Grant]

Back before the change from E4 to E6 I started using pre-processed Fujichrome which gave far better tones compared to the E4 Ektachromes, but still not close to Kodachrome. Fuji E$ was like grade 2 B&W contrast compared to the Kodak Gd3

When the Kodak & Fuji E6 films were launched in Europe I tried both, and have stuck with Fuji ever since, with no problems.

Ron (PE) however talks about Fuji E6 films having big problems with their colours etc when finally launched in the US market. Was this a case of trying to alter the film to suit what they perceived US photographers wanted. It may have been a case that the US Fuji plant just wasn't fine tuned. Back when I started Tr-X was slightly different depending on where it was manufactured and dev times were given for US, Canadian and UK Tri-X.

Ian

 

[Photo Engineer]

Ian;

The Fuji launch was simply a process compatibility problem. You may note now that Fuji recommends a different 1st developer time for their products in E6. The problem was very big at the launch. I suspect it was a seasoning problem.

Also, within the last 2 years, Fuji has had a problem of compatibility with Ektachrome in some cases in which the dyes in the Kodak films migrate to the Fuji films and stain them. I have not confirmed this, but I have seen examples posted on PN about 2 years ago.

PE

 

[Ian Grant]

That would make some sense. Fuji E6 in the UK has always been superb, I used quite a fair amount, mainly 35mm & 12o but also some 5x4.

In the last few years my E6 throughput has died a death, clients don't want film, they have to scan it But the odd E6 job still comes along.

Ian