What's the exposure latitude of Color Neg film?

DREW WILEY · Jul 9, 2019

You bring up such memories, Adrian! My mother had a little box Brownie (the black kind), put an equivalent of Kodak gold in there, would get everyone in the viewfinder, then look back up and ask everyone to smile, trip the button, and every single picture she ever took was tilted! No meter. If a snapshot turned out washed out, the store got blamed. It takes a lot of patience working with other peoples negatives. I almost never did that. But I did do a number of complex photo restoration projects. In one case, there was only one surviving print of an entire family, and it had gone through a fire. That's why I kept Tech Pan and IR film on hand; these films can see through quite a bit. Those kinds of tasks are a lot easier today via digital copy and workflow. I've bought a fair amount of outdated 8x10 chrome film to save money, especially doing experimental things. If it's kept frozen the whole time, it's good for quite awhile, but once thawed can develop crossover much faster than new film, so needs to be used more promptly. Last year I found a single unused sheet of 8x10 ACROS over 20 yrs old in a paper safe I thought was empty. So I did a "what the heck" shot with it a few days later and it came out incredibly surreal - not exactly a solarized sun, but more of an eclipse-like veil. Mistakes are great at times. But making mistakes with other peoples' film, no, that's too risky for me. I have salvaged a few irreplaceable adventure pics for personal friends, as well printing select 4x5 chromes from my late brother's collection before they totally degraded form mildew or whatever; some of those were on ultra-grainy pre-E6 Agfachrome, but had marvelous color. But as an aside, I don't like people calling inkjet prints "pigment prints" - they're not, but ink blends including a number of fairly common dyes. True pigment printing is something entirely different.

Adrian Bacon · Jul 9, 2019

DREW WILEY said:
You bring up such memories, Adrian! My mother had a little box Brownie (the black kind), put an equivalent of Kodak gold in there, would get everyone in the viewfinder, then look back up and ask everyone to smile, trip the button, and every single picture she ever took was tilted! No meter. If a snapshot turned out washed out, the store got blamed. It takes a lot of patience working with other peoples negatives. I almost never did that. But I did do a number of complex photo restoration projects. In one case, there was only one surviving print of an entire family, and it had gone through a fire. That's why I kept Tech Pan and IR film on hand; these films can see through quite a bit. Those kinds of tasks are a lot easier today via digital copy and workflow. I've bought a fair amount of outdated 8x10 chrome film to save money, especially doing experimental things. If it's kept frozen the whole time, it's good for quite awhile, but once thawed can develop crossover much faster than new film, so needs to be used more promptly. Last year I found a single unused sheet of 8x10 ACROS over 20 yrs old in a paper safe I thought was empty. So I did a "what the heck" shot with it a few days later and it came out incredibly surreal - not exactly a solarized sun, but more of an eclipse-like veil. Mistakes are great at times. But making mistakes with other peoples' film, no, that's too risky for me. I have salvaged a few irreplaceable adventure pics for personal friends, as well printing select 4x5 chromes from my late brother's collection before they totally degraded form mildew or whatever; some of those were on ultra-grainy pre-E6 Agfachrome, but had marvelous color. But as an aside, I don't like people calling inkjet prints "pigment prints" - they're not, but ink blends including a number of fairly common dyes. True pigment printing is something entirely different.

All the photos my parents took when I was a kid was Kodak gold. I just love the modern gold 200. It’s like a blast from the past. Not a fan of ultramax 400, or ColorPlus 200. Picked up a 5 pack of the “new” (to North America) Kodak ProImage 100 to make a scanning profile and test shots with. We’ll see how it looks. I suspect it’s the same emulsion as Lomography CN-100. Once I make a set of curves for it, I’ll be able to tell if they match up.

Re: prints. My printer is the Canon Pro-1000. According to canon it’s pigment based inks, not dye based inks. They have another line of printers that use dye based inks. Whether or not it’s actually pigments, I don’t know, but the prints from it don’t look anything like prints from dye based ink jets. It’s color gamut is ginormous, for a printer. On Canon’s pro Luster paper (the printer has a built profile for that paper and built in densitometer for calibration) prints look excellent. They added a special clear coat tank that makes all the weirdness that you see when viewing from different angles with most inkjet prints basically go away. Printers have come a long way in the past couple years.

DREW WILEY · Jul 9, 2019

There's a misconception inherent to that kind of marketing. Yes, there are analogous dye printers per se. But ALL photo inkjet printers use INKS which are blends of fine pigments, lakes (dyed inert pigment particles) and actual dyes. It would be impossible to find all the necessary true pigments capable of that fine a dispersion at industrial scale. Look up the various patents. The holy grail of nano process colors has never been discovered yet. I know some researchers trying to get there, but so far it's proven a very difficult challenge. Nano pigments do exist in limited colors for sake of more transparent vivid automotive paints etc, but nothing suitable yet for color printing. The very finest grind true pigments available won't begin to fit through inket nozzles, which is the foremost priority with that kind of equipment. With that domino falls the myth that inkjet prints are dramatically more permanent than other photo media; but that's a very complex topic of its own, with a lot of variables. True pigment prints include tedious processes like Fresson, quad carbon, quad carbro, casein and gum printing, where respective CMYK process colors are individually dispersed in given layers of emulsion, which are then manually built up. So they're called assembly processes or printing, of which Dye Transfer would be analogous when dyes rather than pigments are involved. In other words, a lot of fussy work. Only a tiny handful of practitioners in the world have been able to make actual pigment prints in large sizes. There are still reasons for doing so - a particular look, claims of actual greater permanence, since some of these processes have a true track record which inkjet simply cannot have this soon, the sheer challenge of it, hands-on craft etc. But none of these is a democratic process like inkjet, which has opened up the door of convenient color printing to the masses. On the wall right in front of me there's an inkjet print of a really technically awful amateur faded Koda-whatever neg of my late father-in-law when he was on shore leave as a sailor in Hong Kong. I absolutely love the way inkjet in this case picks up those odd retro hues. For my own work, I prefer the greater transparency of dyes, whether dye-based papers and polyester media, which I've done for a long time, or dye transfer prints (which I'm a beginner at). It's all good, provided the shoe fits the foot.

Adrian Bacon · Jul 9, 2019

DREW WILEY said:
There's a misconception inherent to that kind of marketing. Yes, there are analogous dye printers per se. But ALL photo inkjet printers use INKS which are blends of fine pigments, lakes (dyed inert pigment particles) and actual dyes. It would be impossible to find all the necessary true pigments capable of that fine a dispersion at industrial scale. Look up the various patents. The holy grail of nano process colors has never been discovered yet. I know some researchers trying to get there, but so far it's proven a very difficult challenge. Nano pigments do exist in limited colors for sake of more transparent vivid automotive paints etc, but nothing suitable yet for color printing. The very finest grind true pigments available won't begin to fit through inket nozzles, which is the foremost priority with that kind of equipment. With that domino falls the myth that inkjet prints are dramatically more permanent than other photo media; but that's a very complex topic of its own, with a lot of variables. True pigment prints include tedious processes like Fresson, quad carbon, quad carbro, casein and gum printing, where respective CMYK process colors are individually dispersed in given layers of emulsion, which are then manually built up. So they're called assembly processes or printing, of which Dye Transfer would be analogous when dyes rather than pigments are involved. In other words, a lot of fussy work. Only a tiny handful of practitioners in the world have been able to make actual pigment prints in large sizes. There are still reasons for doing so - a particular look, claims of actual greater permanence, since some of these processes have a true track record which inkjet simply cannot have this soon, the sheer challenge of it, hands-on craft etc. But none of these is a democratic process like inkjet, which has opened up the door of convenient color printing to the masses. On the wall right in front of me there's an inkjet print of a really technically awful amateur faded Koda-whatever neg of my late father-in-law when he was on shore leave as a sailor in Hong Kong. I absolutely love the way inkjet in this case picks up those odd retro hues. For my own work, I prefer the greater transparency of dyes, whether dye-based papers and polyester media, which I've done for a long time, or dye transfer prints (which I'm a beginner at). It's all good, provided the shoe fits the foot.

I learn something new every day.

Prest_400 · Jul 9, 2019

Feels like walking into a room full of veterans, being a kid myself. Rather literal. I've been shooting for many years but still haven't sat to do the concrete theory, and well, letting part of the color do its own thing and accepting it. Of course, I do not have comissioned or paid work so it's just amateur rythm. Still I overly enjoy deep and technical insights.

DREW WILEY said:
Well, thank you Adrian. I see you've researched quite a variety of films, and that's certainly a feather in your cap by being able to offer clients a significant selection of looks. I feel black and white portraiture is currently under-represented in portraiture at the moment, but that's a slightly different subject. Lots of the techie crowd seems to like black and white imagery.

I also like to think about the impact of the labs, specially the new generation that just scans and sends them by the cloud. It really kicked in the look of pastel overexposed P400 & 400H from their main wedding clientele into the main public.
I once sat in a Frontier workstation of one of these labs and I thought lots of computational magic was happening. Quite manual scanning & post processing, which say yes or not, "fixes" a lot of issues that a film may have. Very dependent on operator as well. Therefore I find myself skeptical of Ektar pushed to 800 and HP5 at 3200 as being great (qualified by some photogs that work along these labs). Sure the scanner and post helps to make it a good look but I wouldn't want the nightmare of trying to fix that in darkroom or even with a home scan set up. Truth to be said, I've been seeing the results of people using DSLRs "repro scanning" film with the NLP plug in and seems excellent for an amateur rig.

I'm delving into B&W deeper, as since I joined the forum didn't have darkroom access until recently. I think B&W stocks carry blatant differences in the darkroom whereas lab processed and scanned homogenizes them. B&W is simply beautiful and gratifying, as well as being fast to turn around when one has access to a fully equipped darkroom.
So much that my Portra sits frozen, as I tend to wait and send out to a lab and I've been doing some Provia for color.

Adrian Bacon said:
All the photos my parents took when I was a kid was Kodak gold. I just love the modern gold 200. It’s like a blast from the past. Not a fan of ultramax 400, or ColorPlus 200. Picked up a 5 pack of the “new” (to North America) Kodak ProImage 100 to make a scanning profile and test shots with. We’ll see how it looks. I suspect it’s the same emulsion as Lomography CN-100. Once I make a set of curves for it, I’ll be able to tell if they match up.
.

Lomo CN is seemingly Kodacolor, and their 800 is interesting as being the only 800 CN film left alongside Portra 800. I still have to try it. Some dealers in Europe carry packs of Gold 200 for cheap so I've been using for my 35mm snapshooting, with the bonus of that "blast from the past" look.
I tape over the DX to force my Mju I to read it as 100, as I did have underexposed negatives perhaps due to highlights biasing the exposure.

Adrian Bacon · Jul 9, 2019

Prest_400 said:
Lomo CN is seemingly Kodacolor, and their 800 is interesting as being the only 800 CN film left alongside Portra 800. I still have to try it. Some dealers in Europe carry packs of Gold 200 for cheap so I've been using for my 35mm snapshooting, with the bonus of that "blast from the past" look.

CN-400 isn’t actually 400 speed. When I expose it at 400 and run it through my process, the grey card is a stop lower than it’s supposed to be and there’s a stop less shadow detail. If I expose it at 200, all is well. CN-100 is actually 100 speed. I haven’t gotten around to CN-800 yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s actually 400 speed. They’re all Kodak emulsions, and I doubt Kodak is going to spool up something they don’t already make for some market somewhere just for Lomography. If CN-800 is not 400 speed, then it’s possible it’s the same 800 speed emulsion in the Kodak funsaver cameras (you can actually still buy those).

Adrian Bacon · Jul 9, 2019

Prest_400 said:
I also like to think about the impact of the labs, specially the new generation that just scans and sends them by the cloud. It really kicked in the look of pastel overexposed P400 & 400H from their main wedding clientele into the main public.

I hate that look. Since I linearize as much of the curve as possible (including the shoulder and toe), you don’t get that so much with me, though if you go far enough over you start running into posterization problems on the highlights because you’re lower contrast due to being in the shoulder/near max density, and getting double whammied with not having a lot of discrete scanner tone values because you’re in the small part of the ADC.

Agulliver · Jul 10, 2019

Adrian Bacon said:
CN-400 isn’t actually 400 speed. When I expose it at 400 and run it through my process, the grey card is a stop lower than it’s supposed to be and there’s a stop less shadow detail. If I expose it at 200, all is well. CN-100 is actually 100 speed. I haven’t gotten around to CN-800 yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s actually 400 speed. They’re all Kodak emulsions, and I doubt Kodak is going to spool up something they don’t already make for some market somewhere just for Lomography. If CN-800 is not 400 speed, then it’s possible it’s the same 800 speed emulsion in the Kodak funsaver cameras (you can actually still buy those).

I beg to differ, though my experience is not backed up by any sort of scientific tests. I've used plenty of Lomography branded CN400 and it certainly *is* 400 ISO. But I would say it has less tolerance to under exposure than modern 400 ISO film. It is, in fact, very much like Kodacolor VR 400 in it's behaviour....they wouldn't be permitted by ISO to describe it as ISO 400 if it didn't at least match the ISO description.

The 800 I've shot in the dark and at gigs. I'm convinced it is a true 800 ISO film. I've tried Ultramax 400 in similar conditions and it behaves very differently. You get images at gigs, for example, but only the red is really well reproduced with the 400....again showing the known properties of Gold type film compared to VR. I am still unsure if Lomo 800 is Kodacolor VR1000 reborn, or the stuff they put in their modern single use cameras...or something else. I didn't use VR1000 and the Lomo 800 film does have that extra red sensitivity so common with Gold type films.

Adrian Bacon · Jul 10, 2019

Agulliver said:
I beg to differ, though my experience is not backed up by any sort of scientific tests. I've used plenty of Lomography branded CN400 and it certainly *is* 400 ISO. But I would say it has less tolerance to under exposure than modern 400 ISO film. It is, in fact, very much like Kodacolor VR 400 in it's behaviour....they wouldn't be permitted by ISO to describe it as ISO 400 if it didn't at least match the ISO description.

The 800 I've shot in the dark and at gigs. I'm convinced it is a true 800 ISO film. I've tried Ultramax 400 in similar conditions and it behaves very differently. You get images at gigs, for example, but only the red is really well reproduced with the 400....again showing the known properties of Gold type film compared to VR. I am still unsure if Lomo 800 is Kodacolor VR1000 reborn, or the stuff they put in their modern single use cameras...or something else. I didn't use VR1000 and the Lomo 800 film does have that extra red sensitivity so common with Gold type films.

If you correctly expose a grey card at the box speed, and then successively subtract a stop of light on each frame thereafter, you’ll have 5 frames after the normal exposure that shows density and the 6th frame indistinguishable from the film base plus fog. Ektar, all three portras, gold 200, ultramax 400, colorplus 200, and CN-100 all behave that way (not to mention all of Fuji’s film). CN-400 is indistinguishable from film base plus fog by frame 5, and has the same general contrast as the other C-41 films. Less tolerant to under exposure? Yeah., because it’s already under exposed by a stop if you expose it at 400. Anybody can do that test and see how much shadow detail they really have just by holding it up to light and looking at it. CN-400 hitting FB+F by the fifth frame is the exception, not the rule. It should have one more stop there just like all the other C-41 films. C-41 is not like black and white. If they’re correctly exposed, they should be hitting film base plus fog by the sixth stop down, not the 5th.

John51 · Jul 10, 2019

I thought that I'd fixed the sticky shutter on my new to me Kodak Signet 35 after many hundreds of activations. Shot a roll of Colorplus with it and dropped the film off at Boots. Then I realised that only 1/300 was a consistent speed. Luckily the light was good and I'd only used slower speeds a few times.

Got the prints back and some prints looked bleached and pastel. Focus was poor on those prints too. idk if poor focus and overexposure are related. No idea what the actual shutter speeds were but playing with the camera showed that 1/200 could stick for about a quarter of a second. The underexposed shots gave redder faces.

What's the exposure latitude of Color Neg film?

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency