Do I need Tungsten64 film?

[Jamie123]

...when shooting streetlights at night?

I'd like to do some night exposures with slide film and I'm curious if it would be better to use tungsten film or not?

Thanks!

 

[David Murphy]

you will get better color balance - more white looking and less red

 

[Jamie123]

Thanks! In this case I think I'll try a roll.

 

[Finder]

WAIT!!!!!

What kind of street lights? Sodium vapor will look yellow whatever you use. Mercury vapor are green with daylight film and even worse with tungsten film. I have never seen tungsten street illumination so why would you want to use tungsten film?

 

[kaiyen]

Word to Finder. Tungsten film works basically for incandescent lights only. And I have almost never seen incandescents in the larger street lights, which are probably what you are referencing.

allan

 

[Jamie123]

Thanks guys!

I was unsure whether or not tungsten film is suited for only one type of artificial lighting or all types.

Does the same you said about street lights apply to indoor light bulbs? I basically want to avoid green color casts in photos taken in artificial lighting. Other color casts aren't that big a deal.

 

[Finder]

Jamie, green cast with interior lighting is usually from fluorescent lights. I would get a filter to balance the color - a lot of filter companies make them. Tungsten film is for the old fashion light bulbs which give a very warm/red cast to pictures. You can filter that as well. Using filters to balance light is a more flexible method. I would (and have) only use tungsten film when I know I am going to shoot the entire roll under tungsten lighting. If it is a mixed lighting situation or I am going to shoot under different lighting conditions, then I would daylight film and filter each sitiuation - it is really hard to filter tungsten film to fluorescent light.

Ourdoor lighting is mostly high pressure discharge lamps that have a discontinuous spectrum. There is nothing filtration can do with those types of lighting. It is best to use daylight film as you will be less surprised by the results.

 

[Jamie123]

I think I may buy a roll just to try it out. I would use it with my mf Hassy and have four backs for it so shooting an entire 12 exposure roll under the same lighting wouldn't be a big problem. Probably easier than finding the right filter in B50 mount.

 

[kaiyen]

You can also consider putting a magenta (cc30 or cc40, I think) gel filter _on_ one of your backs. If you cut it just right, you can put it in front of the darkslide yet still fit your back on your hassy. I think that the filter factor for that filter is negligible, and you wouldn't have to change your exposure or settings on your meter (others please correct me if I'm wrong).

That way, you just put that particular back on when you're under flourescent lights and you're good to go.

allan

 

[Jamie123]

I'm not so sure this would work very well for several reasons. I'm not sure if there's enough space between the darkslide and the film plane and it would probably scratch the film. I think, if I understand your idea right, there would also be a high risk of the filter falling into the camera when the auxiliary shutter opens. Also, putting a filter into the back would defeat the purpose of using a filter since I would have to shoot the whole roll with it and therefore could also simply use T64 film.

Having said that, I think gel filters are a good idea. I have an adjustable bellows lens hood that I think takes gel filter holders. On B&H the Hassy holders go for 25$ used but I think home made holder would do the trick.

I think the tungsten film option would still be the easiest way since I have several backs and a roll is only 12 exposures but I'm not sure if I can recognize what kind of light is tungsten light and what is a different kind. I'm basically looking for a solution that lets me make sure I get acceptably results in every type of artificial lighting.

 

[dmr]

I've found that the brand and type of film makes quite a bit of difference as to how the various urban lights are rendered.

In particular, it seems that Fuji (Superia 400, 800, and even 1600) films are far more tolerant of the various light sources.

This image here ...

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=43225&cat=500&ppuser=1182

... was lit from the front by incandescent (sodium? mixed?) street lights, and what shows through the window is fluorescent. You can tell the warmth of the front lighting, and the greenish tinge from the inside lights, but it's not unpleasant. This was done on fuji 800 with no tweaking of the color balance. This actually looks quite close to the scene as I remember it.

This next one ... I could never get right ...

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=26181&cat=500&ppuser=1182

This was taken at dusk with the Walgreens/Agfa 400 and when looking at the histograms, the blue is extremely weak. Too weak to be adjusted for a natural look. This next one is under similar circumstances, only a few blocks away but on a different evening, and was done on Fuji 800. No color correction.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=30154&cat=500&ppuser=1182

This looks far more natural.

They tell me (the ubiquitous "they") that Fuji's "4th Color Layer" actually helps with this. I can believe it.

I also remember when I was very young and still had my Brownie Starflash, I bought (splurged, I did this rarely) a roll of Kodacolor and the guy at the drug store told me that with the new Kodacolor I should use CLEAR and not BLUE flash.

Later when I got my first real camera, I remember that for color print film (Kodacolor 2? Kodacolor X?) the indoor color rendition (at least when printed on the machines the mass produced places used) was quite acceptable, but for slides there was a pronounced orange cast.

 

[Jamie123]

@dmr:

I think all of those images you posted (apart from that second one) look very acceptable. There color cast doesn't look unpleasant at all.

I would like a slide film solution rather than negatives. The Silverfast SE software I'm mostly using for my scans is always messing up on the colors with color negs. I bought a pro pack of Kodak E200 yesterday so I may try out a frame or two with this film.

 

[phototone]

Years ago, when Kodak first introduced its "higher" speed color negative films (such as Kodacolor 400), and its "higher" speed Ektachrome films, which came along at the time Kodak was introducing low light level super8 movie cameras, there was technology talk about the new emulsions "red" layer being "blind" to differences in intensity of the red component of light sources, and therefore would produce more acceptable results in indoor and mixed illumination than the previous film stocks. Does anyone besides an old relic like me remember this? I wonder if newer film stocks from Kodak and others have incorporated this concept? This was quite the talked-about thing in the photo mags such as Pop Photo, Modern Photo, and Petersons Photographic. Mid 1970's.

 

[dmr]

Years ago, when Kodak first introduced its "higher" speed color negative films (such as Kodacolor 400), and its "higher" speed Ektachrome films, which came along at the time Kodak was introducing low light level super8 movie cameras, there was technology talk about the new emulsions "red" layer being "blind" to differences in intensity of the red component of light sources, and therefore would produce more acceptable results in indoor and mixed illumination than the previous film stocks. Does anyone besides an old relic like me remember this? I wonder if newer film stocks from Kodak and others have incorporated this concept? This was quite the talked-about thing in the photo mags such as Pop Photo, Modern Photo, and Petersons Photographic. Mid 1970's.

Well, I don't know how old I want to admit I am, but when I first started shooting any color 35mm (around 1970) the Kodacolor of the day (Kodacolor-X?) was very tolerant of indoor plain old light bulb type incandescent light.

I really don't recall any talk about a red layer in Kodak films, but I do remember when they started hyping the "4th color layer" for Fuji.

I remember when they introduced what they called High Speed Ektachrome, which I tried and it did NOT work well at all with indoor lighting. The slides under incandescent were red-orange in cast and those under fluorescent were slightly toward the sickly green side.

In fact, every color negative film I've shot from that day on has worked well under almost all light, until recently, when the Walgreens/Agfa 400 produced a cast that could not be corrected easily.

I won't even talk about the abysmal results of trying W/A 800 for night scenes in Las Vegas! (Well, I guess I am talking about it, huh?) Green specks, coarse grain, and blown-away highlights. 🙁