Tunsten Film in Daylight

[ClaremontPhoto]

How does tunsten balanced film render colors in daylight?

A lot of my photos rely on color and I have very good southern European light, similar to Californian light.

Over the past year or so I have been using Fuji Sensia E6 slide film and having it crossprocessed as C41 with some very pleasing results. The color shift is fairly predictable in clear sunlight, and less so in overcast conditions or sunrise and sunset.

Now my stock of ten year old Sensia is coming to an end. I'm not sure whether to continue with E6 with some one year out of date Fuji Velvia I've found (cheap) or whether to move onto tungsten in daylight.

None of the local shops stocks tungsten so I can't try one roll and see. It would need to be a bulk order.

Any information would be very much appreciated.

 

[jlw]

Tungsten-balanced film gives excellent results in daylight when used with a #85 (light amber) filter. This filter costs you only about 1/3 stop -- back when I used to shoot a lot of Ektachrome 320T film, I would add the filter and rate it at 250 for daylight shooting. Color rendition is very accurate.

If you don't use the filter, daylight pictures on tungsten film have muted colors and a cold, bluish cast. Some people find it effective for getting dramatic sky color in twilight shots, but in general it's nowhere near accurate.

Few people remember this now, but back in the days when Super 8 movie film was popular, all common Super-8 film stocks were tungsten-balanced. The cameras had a built-in #85 filter, which was engaged by default. When you would screw in a movie light (or a special key for available-light shooting) the filter would be retracted to restore the film to its natural tungsten balance.

I'm not sure what this has to do with cross-processing, or why you would want to do it rather than using a daylight-balanced film in the first place, but it's no problem and works well.

The reason I used to do it was for museum photography. The galleries were lit with tungsten light, but the atrium was lit by daylight. If the museum wanted pictures in both locations, I'd load up with tungsten film, use it unfiltered in the galleries, then add the #85 filter for shots in the atrium. Daylight is normally more plentiful than tungsten light, so the filter's 1/3-stop absorption was no problem.

It certainly was a much better solution than trying to go the other way: shooting daylight-balanced film and adding a blue #80B filter for tungsten shooting. The 80B filter is very absorptive (nominally 1 stop, but usually I'd need to add 1-2/3 stops because it cut out so much of the spectrum) and color rendition was only marginally OK.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

If you don't use the filter, daylight pictures on tungsten film have muted colors and a cold, bluish cast. Some people find it effective for getting dramatic sky color in twilight shots, but in general it's nowhere near accurate.

jlw: Many thanks for a fast, full and informative answer. A cold bluish cast sounds interesting and probably worth going after for some of my weirder photos.

 

[RayPA]

A nice effect is to shoot tungsten balanced film in a situation where you can play the warmth of the tungsten light against the colder tones rendered by daylight. Think of photographing a house late in the day from the outside, with the windows lit by tungstem, or normal household light. Household lights vary in color temperature, so they always seem to render warmer even with tungsten balanced film. I believe tungsten film is balanced film at 3200 degrees kelvin, while household lamps can get down to around 2800K.


🙂

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Nice idea RayPA.

I've been thinking about streetlights, lights for monumants, shop/office lights all at night. And supermarket lights, imside, anytime because there's no windows.

 

[Kin Lau]

I have a few very blue filters meant for shooting in tungsten lighting with daylight film (mainly E6). They should be very easy to find. I got mine as a part of a lot of filters given to me and some via Ebay as package.

Anyhow, that gives you an idea of what tungsten balanced film will do, basically it's just a lot more blue to balance out the very yellow light of tungsten.

 

[methinks]

Jon,

Not sure if this helps at all but as you mentioned cross processing I have to say I found cross processed tungsten film to be quite interesting; I think I used old Kodak tungsten film and the cross processing gave the usual punch to the shots but also kept the slight blue tint. I'm not sure if it might be a bit overbearing in dull light however, as I took mine on a very bright summers day...
The first 3 shots here were taken with tungsten film... not fantastic examples but they give you some idea perhaps?

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

methinks: Thank you. Those three photos give a good idea of t film in daylight without any correction filters.

 

[grainhound]

In July I found a (20 exp...) roll of Ektachrome tungsten dated 1983 in my freezer. High speed, too, at 160 ASA. So what the hell, I shot it & had it cross-processed, with prints. I found a few shots interesting, but the scans (of the negs) were ridiculously bad, so I haven't posted them. The exterior late evening shot showed a very deep blue sky, & a couple of interior shots at the Eaton Centre were contrasty, with a somewhat less than accurate, but interesting colour balance. If I get one of my inoperative flatbeds going (or buy an Epson V700/750), I'll post. In 2007...
A few years back, my son did some shots of a model with cross-processed tungsten, maybe in late evening, with his Pentax 6x9, & they had an interesting look. I'll try it again, but in my experience, the results are somewhat unpredictable. I've shot a few rolls of slide film cross-processed, but just the one roll of tungsten. I would bracket exposures quite a bit the next time.
Good luck.