That certain look...

[csaunders]

Hi all,

I've been shooting exclusively on black and white for the past year, but I think that I'm ready to start trying some colour again.

I used to shoot on Velvia 100, slavishly using what all the mainstream photography magazines promoted, but I would now like to experiment properly with different emulsions.

Mainly, I want to know how you get that muted, 1970s kind of look. See Jeff Mermelstein's work here for the look I mean.

Is this the film stock, or a developing/printing technique?

Hope you guys can offer some advice. Thanks.

-Christian

p.s. I would preferably like to shoot colour negative film, and not transparency, in order to keep processing costs to a minumum...

 

[drewbarb]

The great thing about negatives is that you can vary your results in the print stage. Muted colors can be achieved with most color neg stocks, depending on how you handle it. Stay away from the stocks promoted to have really bright, punchy or high contrast colors, obviously. For "pro" films, try Fuji's "S" films- not the "C" films; and Kodak's "NC" rather than "VC".

You might also like to try shooting some chromes and have them cross-processed into negatives. This will can yeild muted colors, although you are more likely just to see a decisive shift in one direction or another.

Of course printing, whether digitally or not, gives the person running the process control over the look to a great extent. If you assume that you are going to scan and work digitally, you have even more control with software. Learn to mix color channels and you can pretty much get whatever you want- within reason.

 

[csaunders]

OK; I'll look out for the Fuji S and Kodak NC films.

I was hoping that somehow there was a film that had those qualities out of the box, rather than having to rely too much on faking it in Photoshop.

Anyone else had any experience trying to achieve this look?

 

[IGMeanwell]

If I were a betting man ... I would probably say he uses Kodak Slides

It has the look of older ektachrome or even older Agfa 64 has that look to it

Also, I think the Fuji Provia slides also have the cooler color schemes.

Onto Negative Film ... the only film that has that muted colors are the Portra NC films; which if you use try to get the new batch as the older film can be quite grainy

Here is a small scan from the summer of 160NC

 

[Krosya]

I love that dog photo! Great looking pup!

 

[IGMeanwell]

I love that dog photo! Great looking pup!

Thanks, Angus in the warm morning sun is a hilarious combination ... Bulldogs are a special breed 😛

Its the Yashica T4 using fill flash setting (which 9 times out of 10 will give you perfect exposures during the day time when there is not enough light for no flash)

but back to the topic, as much as that film turned out I just can't really attach myself to the Portra films after using recently using Kodachromes ... I don't know why but it has completely changed the way I perceive my images to look; I don't know if I can say that about slide films in general

BTW, another very subdued negative film as far as colors go is Fuji Reala 100, though the colors tend to be on the warm side when I have used it

 

[LKSC]

You can try Rollei CN400. It is muted, warm and very 1970s looking.

 

[csaunders]

Thanks Pete, that's really helpful.

The colours in your dog shot really show the kind of colour interpretation I'm after. I'm off to the local photo store tomorrow to see what I can get hold of at a decent price...

 

[lZr]

You can also use filters. Look for Fog or Double fog versions for your camera. Very interesting results