Reddish color cast on photos.

[Sid836]

Pardon me if I post this to the wrong place. Recently I had developed a roll of Fujichrome Superia 200, and most photos came out with a reddish cast on them. This cast is quite pronounced on indoors shots taken with available light. Is that normal? Am I doing something wrong? Could it be the photo lab processing and printing it incorrectly? So far I had no problems with film as I have been shooting mostly black and white. 🙂

I have taken a quick photo of one of them. Pardon me for its low quality. I took it with my phone as I don't have a scanner and I have tried to get the white balance of the environment correct by using the white paper at the top of it.

Any help will be deeply appreciated.

 

[btgc]

This cast is quite pronounced on indoors shots taken with available light.

Is this available tungsten light? That would be an easy explanation.
Check back side of prints, there are codes indicating color adjustments. Operator can make your prints looking red, green, blue or whatever he prefers.

If you have option, scan your negatives, too. Scanning also can change look, but should give some idea how unadjusted scan looks like.

 

[Sid836]

It was just a sunlit room. No artificial lighting at all.
Could it be that the lab had made them look like this? I can recall developing a test roll of ASA100 film at the same lab from my Fed-2, and having asked not to try to apply any corrections the output had been a lot cooler.
I will scan the negatives the soonest possible.

 

[btgc]

Well, even if this is natural sunlight it can be reddish - summer morning and especially evening light. During summer months at evening my rooms are lit orange.

 

[Sid836]

Could a filter fix this? Something like a 82A?

 

[btgc]

At least, to some extent. You can also ask operator to adjust prints, if filter isn't giving full effect you want. Also this unfiltered images can be reprinted with much less reddish tone, you may have to ask them.

 

[Sid836]

I'll do so today! Many thanks for the advice!

 

[Ronald M]

I would give up photography if I had to rely on some incompetent to print my pics.

Second, use the film the way it is intended, sun or flash, or filter the shot appropriately.

 

[sevo]

If it is only indoors, it might be an issue with fluorescent light (with CFL and LED bulbs in just about every traditional socket, that is all over the place even where you don't expect it) - these have a discontinuous spectrum, which may be so far off in cheap or high intensity bulbs that it that cannot be completely compensated in printing.

If it also affects outdoor daylight shots and the negatives are reasonably well exposed, it will be the printer - all modern CN film has enough colour balance latitude that the lab must be able to correct every outdoor colour bias from polar night to sunset at the equator, unless you under- or overexposed by more than three or four stops.

 

[Photo_Smith]

Colour temperature varies, indoors under natural light it can be as low as 2,500°K (very warm) to 5000°K (warm white) your film is balanced to 6500°K so indoor pictures can look warmer. Outdoor between two hours after sunset and two hours before is normally in the 6,500°k but this is dependant on latitude i.e if you live in the mountains the mid day colour temperature can be 10,000°K or higher.

Look at the negatives on a lightbox (if you don't have one load a blank page in a web browser and sit them on your computer screen)
Do the outdoor images seem to be slightly different in colour? look especially at the clearer parts of the negative, which while having an orange mask should be a similar colour to the edge (rebate) of the film.

Often too low colour temperature will show as a blueish tint, it's hard to see with colour negative but comparing with a known OK negative any difference should be obvious.

Looking at your snap they look very red, but then again the white paper of the QSS envelope looks warm too so the light you photographed these in won't help us make a judgement.

Ask the lab to reprint? Also look on the back of the print (as suggested by previous poster) normally they will have N N N N if there have been no corrections applied.

I have owned Copal,Noritsu, Agfa, and Fuji minilabs so if you tell me whats written on the back I can tell you how they printed it.

 

[sevo]

It was just a sunlit room. No artificial lighting at all.

Sure? In a sunlit room it is all to easy to forget that the lights are on - I've certainly done it...

 

[Sid836]

Sure? In a sunlit room it is all to easy to forget that the lights are on - I've certainly done it...

100% Sure. I never forget to take care such things.

...
Look at the negatives on a lightbox (if you don't have one load a blank page in a web browser and sit them on your computer screen)
Do the outdoor images seem to be slightly different in colour? look especially at the clearer parts of the negative, which while having an orange mask should be a similar colour to the edge (rebate) of the film.

Often too low colour temperature will show as a blueish tint, it's hard to see with colour negative but comparing with a known OK negative any difference should be obvious.

Looking at your snap they look very red, but then again the white paper of the QSS envelope looks warm too so the light you photographed these in won't help us make a judgement.

Ask the lab to reprint? Also look on the back of the print (as suggested by previous poster) normally they will have N N N N if there have been no corrections applied.

I have owned Copal,Noritsu, Agfa, and Fuji minilabs so if you tell me whats written on the back I can tell you how they printed it.

I'll try it as soon as I get home as I don't have them with me.

Another quick question. Could having stored the exposed film outside the refrigerator for two weeks had done any damage to the film resulting to this colour shift?

 

[Photo_Smith]

Another quick question. Could having stored the exposed film outside the refrigerator for two weeks had done any damage to the film resulting to this colour shift?

Doubtful, keeping film stored in a cool place is important, but this doesn't look like heat damage to me.

 

[sevo]

Another quick question. Could having stored the exposed film outside the refrigerator for two weeks had done any damage to the film resulting to this colour shift?

Not unless you stored it inside a car parked in the sun - Greece may be hot, but indoors temperatures will not rise anywhere near the 50°C I've seen listed as the lowest immediate film damage threshold.

I have had heat damage on some unusually heat sensitive films (namely Pan F, Velvia and Ektachrome 400) in Kenya and Tanzania, but even there, I'd attribute it to camera bags carried in bright sunlight, in-car conditions and other similar heat spikes. It takes months or years for the amount of heat indoors even in the most extreme climates to have any visible impact on a modern ISO 100-200 CN film.

 

[sevo]

Oh, and another thing: The rooms weren't illuminated by sunlight reflected off colourful carpets, flooring or furniture?

 

[btgc]

Wouldn't heat damage more uneven? That said, I don't think it's the case here.

 

[Sid836]

Damn! No codes at the back of the prints, all frames seem to have the same tint on the film. I need to have my film scanned. For sure I will not use that lab again.

 

[locheeboy]

Looks like a combination of colour temp and overexposure. As photo smith said above, colour temp varies indoors under available light conditions. 😎

 

[Sid836]

Could a 82A filter correct this?

 

[locheeboy]

The 82a would certainly tone down the cast but ah'd still check exposure as well, either with a dslr or hand meter 'til you're confident with yer own judgement. Indoors, we all have a tendency tae go wide open when smaller apertures will suffice (depending on available light). 🙂