Shooting Colour film in bright sunlight with an M6 + 35/2

[tim_c]

I'm having a lot of problems getting good pictures from my M6 shooting colour film in clear sky/bright sunlight conditions. Please find attached example. They always have a blue cast on the pictures and seem be a lot more gritty/grainier. When I took pictures in these conditions with my Canon A1 this never happened and always got good colour rendition without the use of filters . Am I doing something wrong? These were taken using Portra 160vc but it's happened with all the other types of film I've used.
The Summicron 35 is a version IV:bang:

 

[uhligfd]

How do the pictures look on the film? Grainy normally means underexposed, so are the film densities really low?

Who developed, printed the Kodak 160 vc? A competent technician could make your pictures look with a cast like anything he/she would like: brown cast, yellow cast, blue cast (as yours did), green cast etc. There is so much latitude in printing, it is probably the lab that has neither a clue nor quality control.

The lens plays almost no part in this cast and grain problem, it is almost irrelevant (99.9% irrelevant) with negative film.

So do look at the film, maybe your light measuring technique is off, or the meter is busted ... How does the sunny 11 or sunny 16 rule compare with the exposures actually taken in camera?

 

[tim_c]

How do the pictures look on the film? Grainy normally means underexposed, so are the film densities really low?

Who developed, printed the Kodak 160 vc? A competent technician could make your pictures look with a cast like anything he/she would like: brown cast, yellow cast, blue cast (as yours did), green cast etc. There is so much latitude in printing, it is probably the lab that has neither a clue nor quality control.

The lens plays almost no part in this cast and grain problem, it is almost irrelevant (99.9% irrelevant) with negative film.

So do look at the film, maybe your light measuring technique is off, or the meter is busted ... How does the sunny 11 or sunny 16 rule compare with the exposures actually taken in camera?

Thanks for the response Uhligfd. I shot 2 rolls of Portra 160vc; 1 roll got processed at a reputable pro lab and and the other at Boots chemists. Both turned out the same. It was an experiment to see if this problem was down to my inadequacy or theirs (I've had this problem before). The negatives have good contrast at first glance as the images are a metal framework against a clear sky but then I noticed that they lack detail within the light and dark areas.

I'm a Photoshop whizzkid; 11 years a proffessional Graphic Designer and I use it 8-10 hrs a day, everyday. No amount of adjustment could get the colours & image quality correct; I could make the colour cast warmer but there's so little colour variation in the negatives. That iron structure in the pictures is usually completely submerged underwater. Imagine the multitude of colours that I saw through the viewfinder🙁

It's good to know that it can't be the camera (was wondering if it was too much UV; bright day and sky reflecting in the water) and I've eliminated the bad processing theory. Means it can only be over exposure🙄

Thanks again, Tim

 

[arseniii]

Looks quite normal for a VC film to me! Ask you lab to scan film and put it on CD and see if the results are still the same.

 

[Prosaic™]

I'm having a lot of problems getting good pictures from my M6 shooting colour film in clear sky/bright sunlight conditions. Please find attached example. They always have a blue cast on the pictures and seem be a lot more gritty/grainier. When I took pictures in these conditions with my Canon A1 this never happened and always got good colour rendition without the use of filters . Am I doing something wrong? These were taken using Portra 160vc but it's happened with all the other types of film I've used.
The Summicron 35 is a version IV

The A1 has a smarter metering system than the M6. If you still have the Canon, try to use it side by side with the Leica and check exposure. There is also a chance the shutter speeds on your M6 are off. Happens over time and can be serviced.

 

[palec]

If you are shooting close to river or sea, you might want to use skylight or warming filter to reduce the blue cast.

 

[Rob-F]

If you are shooting close to river or sea, you might want to use skylight or warming filter to reduce the blue cast.

I'll second that. In fact, if this seems to be a chronic problem, why not just leave a skylight filter on all the time. A little warming never hurts anything!

 

[tim_c]

I'll second that. In fact, if this seems to be a chronic problem, why not just leave a skylight filter on all the time. A little warming never hurts anything!

This is what I was wondering. I don't mind colour casts from reflected light on the whole; I shot some pictures of friends in some woodland and the subtle green cast was really nice but sky bouncing of sea seems a little too much.

I did some reading up on skylight/haze filters and there seems to be mixed opinions about them. Many claim that they are useless as modern lenses have a degree of UV filtration built in🙁

 

[payasam]

Tim, the pictures look all right to me, both for colour and for exposure. Maybe you will prefer the colours that Fujicolor gives.

 

[Prosaic™]

Tim, the pictures look all right to me, both for colour and for exposure.

This

and seem be a lot more gritty/grainier

is an exposure issue. The scanner compensates for it.

 

[rxmd]

Who scanned the negatives? Sometimes they are simply badly scanned. If the negatives look OK density-wise this would be the first thing I'd be thinking of.

See attached a couple of shots that look gritty and grainy, from a 1200 dpi scan of correctly-exposed Kodak Elitechrome 100, not exactly a grainy film. Even in the downscaled version of the full image you can see the grain, at 600 by 400 pixels! It was a pro lab that did these scans for me, but nevertheless the scan quality was completely unacceptable. This was what motivated me to get a good film scanner.

 

[tim_c]

Automatic scan settings are used at labs; you'll always get better results if you do it yourself.

That grain doesn't look too bad to me for such enlarged details. This is 35mm film photography were talking about here!