80A filter necessary if scanning neg. film?

[Augenblick]

I am about to shoot some Kodak Portra in artificial light, in a theatre studio. These will be shots of people creating and building a set (not an actual theatre performance) Most of the shots will be in either flourescent tube lighting, or tungsten lighting. Do I really need to bother buying and using an 80A or B filter for the tungsten, if I am scanning the film? I shall make adjustments in Adobe Camera raw, so presumably I can adjust the colour temperature then. Will I get an inferior result doing the adjustments in Camera raw?

 

[sevo]

In general, no. You might want it if you have to get accurate colour down to the shadows in a studio setting with stable 3200K (long burn time halogen) incandescent - but in a mixed light environment, it is not going to be visibly superior to a correction at scan or post-processing time.

 

[Tim Gray]

You can get by without it. But if you are going through the trouble of setting up lights, etc., I'd stick the filter on the camera. You will get better results with the filter, even if it is only a partially correcting filter.

 

[Sarcophilus Harrisii]

Perhaps a shot or two with a grey card in the scene as and when the lighting changes would assist digital colour correction? Either by writing off the frames (if you're burning enough film) or in positions from which it may easily be digitally removed? Or a colour chart of course, even better, if you have one.
Regards,
Brett

 

[Augenblick]

80a

80a

Thanks for your advice!

 

[Chris101]

Generally 80A is a color filter - specifically a color transparency filter. It converts daylight balanced color film to "low temperature" incandescent. A 200 watt halogen or 'GE Renewal' bulb tungsten incandescent bulb should look ok when shot using that filter (add a Wratten 82 series filter for lower wattage of the same type bulb.)

An interesting and ... 'nuevo' use of 80 series filter is to increase the 'atmospheric' effect. When an 80A (or other blue filter) is used for normal light black and white photography, skin blems as well as atmospheric haze is disproportionately amplified. Pix taken with an 80 are instantly grunge.

 

[Rhoyle]

If you can save your scan as a .dng file (I think Vuescan will do this...any others?), you can open it in Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom, or Aperture and adjust your color temperature that way. Also, versions of Photoshop (full) have an 80 filter in the photo filters pulldown

 

[benmacphoto]

I've always felt it to be easier, and wiser, to get the shot done right in camera.

 

[EdwardKaraa]

Because of the orange mask, uncorrected negative scans (like if you scan them as positive) will have a heavy blue cast, which works very well with tungsten lighting, requiring very little tweaking on my scanner.