Tungsten Film--- What happened

David Reynolds · Mar 15, 2021

I was out of the photo world for a few years but now I am back. During the period I was gone tungsten film disappeared from the film world. Why did that happen? I used 3200K lighting and tungsten film for over 30 years as it was the standard for my studio work. I guess today one uses daylight film with filters to balance to 3200K lighting. Who wants to look thru blue images to take a photograph.

Paul Howell · Mar 15, 2021

Other than this is the black and white film thread, the only Tungsten on the market is respooled movie film, some with the ramjet backing removed for standard C41 processing, others you need to remove or send to lab that has the correct color chemistry. What killed tungsten film, digital sensors.

ic-racer · Mar 15, 2021

I had a similar experience when I went to buy some more Cibachrome.

Tim Gray · Mar 15, 2021

While I agree digital did most of the doing in, high quality daylight balanced lights probably helped.

Cholentpot · Mar 15, 2021

I shoot the cine T balanced film. I don't even bother with a filter. With scanning and where it's at these days I just WB after the scan. Looks a little cool but perfectly usable.

Sirius Glass · Mar 15, 2021

Color tungsten film was discontinued because the lighting systems moved away from incandescent light to lower energy light sources that do not use 3200 K output. No one film can handle all the different artificial light sources.

M Carter · Mar 15, 2021

I still have 2 rolls of bought-new EPJ (Ektachrome 320T) in the freezer. It was my favorite color film for some time, especially pushed 2-4 stops. Stuff was magic.

Danner · Mar 15, 2021

LED lighting, don't need to burn kilowatts of tungsten anymore.

David Reynolds · Mar 16, 2021

Paul Howell said:
Other than this is the black and white film thread, the only Tungsten on the market is respooled movie film, some with the ramjet backing removed for standard C41 processing, others you need to remove or send to lab that has the correct color chemistry. What killed tungsten film, digital sensors.

Sorry about that. Can this be moved to the color film thread?

perkeleellinen · Mar 16, 2021

Auto White Balance killed it

Kino · Mar 16, 2021

David Reynolds said:
Sorry about that. Can this be moved to the color film thread?

You can click on the "report this post" icon on the lower left side of any reply to alert the admins and ask them to move it.

Tel · Mar 16, 2021

M Carter said:
I still have 2 rolls of bought-new EPJ (Ektachrome 320T) in the freezer. It was my favorite color film for some time, especially pushed 2-4 stops. Stuff was magic.

I used to shoot a lot of theatre photography back in the 70s and 80s (when Kodak called it ET). Rated at 160 but it performed very well pushed to 320 and I loved the look of it too.

Sirius Glass · Mar 16, 2021

Kino said:
You can click on the "report this post" icon on the lower left side of any reply to alert the admins and ask them to move it.

I did for him. And he can do it too.

David Reynolds · Mar 16, 2021

I also alerted Sean to make the change of threads

Mainecoonmaniac · Mar 16, 2021

Danner said:
LED lighting, don't need to burn kilowatts of tungsten anymore.

They do have LED light panels that could balance to tungsten. Neewer makes a panel with a knob that controls the color temperature from 5000K to 3200K.

Lachlan Young · Mar 16, 2021

HMI, Kino-Flo and then LED ate into the market a long time ago - there were never any stills oriented fast tungsten neg films, and the widespread adoption of professional colour neg only accelerated the move away from tungsten for those who wanted to work with continuous light in higher end commercial/ advertising/ fashion work etc.

Sirius Glass · Mar 16, 2021

Mainecoonmaniac said:
They do have LED light panels that could balance to tungsten. Neewer makes a panel with a knob that controls the color temperature from 5000K to 3200K.

You completely missed the point that when one takes a photograph in the wild, one has no control of the various light temperatures. Most of us do not live in a studio.

Mainecoonmaniac · Mar 16, 2021

Sirius Glass said:
You completely missed the point that when one takes a photograph in the wild, one has no control of the various light temperatures. Most of us do not live in a studio.

True. Even LED bulbs for home use are 32k. I use them. I like the warmth. I noticed that LED street lights are no longer as yellow as before.
https://petapixel.com/2014/02/05/le...-change-look-big-city-night-photography-good/

perkeleellinen · Mar 17, 2021

M Carter said:
I still have 2 rolls of bought-new EPJ (Ektachrome 320T) in the freezer. It was my favorite color film for some time, especially pushed 2-4 stops. Stuff was magic.

Tel said:
I used to shoot a lot of theatre photography back in the 70s and 80s (when Kodak called it ET). Rated at 160 but it performed very well pushed to 320 and I loved the look of it too.

Another fan of 320T. You both might enjoy This:
http://www.jackandsuedrafahl.com/magazines/photographic/pdf/93JanKodak320T.pdf

relistan · Mar 20, 2021

Cinestill packages the Vision3 500T tungsten balanced film as Cinestill 800 and that’s widely available if you are looking for something to shoot.

Ian Grant · Mar 20, 2021

A point missed is that studio flash units became more readily available and more compact in the 1970's and people moved away from Tungsten lighting. Another factor was high end commercial work moved from Film ti Digital and it was the big commercial studios who had used a lot of Tungsten film.

Interestingly Ilford used to publish the Daylight and Tungsten ASA/BS film speeds for all their B&W films. These days it's often forgotten that a B&W film is slower in Tungest light, in the case of FP4 it was Daylight 125 ASA, Tungsten 80 ASA. Now Otho Plus is the only film Ilford publish Daylight and Tungsten speed for, ISO 80/20º Dayligh and ISO 40/17º Tungsten.

Ian

David Reynolds · Mar 20, 2021

relistan said:
Cinestill packages the Vision3 500T tungsten balanced film as Cinestill 800 and that’s widely available if you are looking for something to shoot.

Thanks for letting me know about Cinestill film. Never knew it existed.
I would prefer a transparency film balanced for tungsten as that is what I shot for many years in my studio. Is there any available?

relistan · Mar 20, 2021

David Reynolds said:
Thanks for letting me know about Cinestill film. Never knew it existed.
I would prefer a transparency film balanced for tungsten as that is what I shot for many years in my studio. Is there any available?

Alas, no. No transparencies. AFAIK the only remaining tungsten balanced films are some of the Kodak cine films—and they are negative films for transfer to prints or for scanning. Kodak makes Vision3 200T and 500T but only the 500T is widely available in a form ready for C-41 processing. Cinestill remove the remjet layer. This means it works fine as normal negative film, but has reduce anti-halation qualities. 200T is only available from eBay sellers (with remjet) or in 400 or 1000ft spools.

Mainecoonmaniac · Mar 20, 2021

When I did more studio work, I preferred hot lights so I shot a lot of tungsten film. I preferred it over daylight film with a blue filter. Tungsten film allowed me to shoot long exposures without reciprocity failure and it’s weird color shifts and crossovers. I still have boxes of Fuji RTP in the fridge and and hanging on to it.

btaylor · Mar 20, 2021

relistan said:
200T is only available from eBay sellers (with remjet) or in 400 or 1000ft spools.

I imagine you can also purchase directly from Kodak, like their other MoPic films. 400ft on a core is usually the smallest packaging.

Tungsten Film--- What happened

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