Colour neg for architectural exterior at dusk

[Andrew Ross]

I'm looking for some recommendations on colour neg film that would work well for an architectural exterior at dusk. The western sky will be in the background and the building is well lit by sodium lights with yellow gels. The interior lights are a real mix, including fluorescent and tungsten.

The client wants that nice, rich, blue sky that you get about 20 minutes after sunset and my digital test shots indicate an exposure of about 30sec at f22. I've done some homework and it looks like tungsten film such as Kodak Portra 100T would be best. All the daylight balanced films I've looked at are not recommended for exposures over 2sec.

Is tungsten film the best choice? I know the sky will go quite blue, but will the colours be believable?

This is a bit off topic, but I'm planning to use a Rodenstock Grandagon 90/6.8 that I have borrowed from a friend. Will I have to worry about fall off? He said no, but I just want to be sure.

Thanks very much,

Andrew

[Bruce Watson]

I've done this exactly once. But I got a good print out of it and a happy client.

The film will record the colors it sees. What you expose it to will not be what the film is balanced for. Daylight film assumes, what, 6500 degrees K? Tungsten assumes 2800 K? I don't remember the exact numbers, but it doesn't matter - you aren't going to give the film the lighting it's designed for no matter what. IOW, you can expect a color cast.

The way around this, for me, was to scan the negative so that I could color correct the image using an image editor. I found that my scene went way blue, just like you'd expect when the main light source is a dark blue sky. When I backed out the blue cast, I found the grass was still green, the pine tree bark still that brownish gray, the tungsen lights on the outside were yellowish, and florescent lights on the inside were greenish. All of this can be corrected if you want to spend the time and effort - my client wasn't interested in more that removing the overall blue cast.

I had the pro lab that processed the film (4x5 160PortaVC - daylight, and yes, 30 sec. at f/22) also make a custom photograpic print. Their print was just amazingly far off - they couldn't cope with it at all. The print I made after scanning and colour correcting was spot-on. My client couldn't believe how much better my print was than the pro lab print. But clearly, YMMV.

[Mark Sampson]

Sodium vapor lights don't have "yellow gels", they are inherently yellow/orange and emit no other color. So they'll photograph as orange no matter what. "Mixed tungsten and fluorescent light" is a large set of variables. Daylight color film is meant for short exposures, and 5500K sunlight. It will most likely suffer from color shifts and reciprocity failure in your application. Your best bet is to use tungsten film. This will allow at least some of the interior lights to reproduce correctly and produce that totally-saturated cobalt glow in the sky. See Norman McGrath's book for a fuler explanation, and practice beforehand if you can.

[Kirk Gittings]

I use NPS for everything, all lighting situations, and have for years. I do my own printing for clients and scanning for local and national magazines. It corrects back regardless of the light source and is very forgiving in mixed light sources.....No filters. I also know people who use NPL for everything including daylight and it corrects back beautifully. Fuji and Kodak want you to believe that you need two films. You don't.

[Kirk Gittings]

A note of example. I learned this from Joel Merowitz years ago. He used tungsten neg film for all of the Cape Light & St Louis Arch images regardlesss of the time of day. It all corrected back.

[Andrew Ross]

Thanks for all the quick replies. This is a great forum.

Mark, I scouted the location and they have actually added yellow gel filters to the exterior lights. So it is very yellow, but they obviously like it that way.

It definitley sounds like Kodak Portra 100T is going to be good choice.

Thanks again,

Andrew

[Kirk Gittings]

Go to this web site to see some examples of exactly what you are talking about. All of the images on the profile page are mine and all are done on unfiltered NPS.




http://www.jonandersonarchitect.com/profile.htm (http://www.jonandersonarchitect.com/profile.htm)

[giancatarina]

i will go for the portra 100T, and maybe a second shot with portra 160NC just in case... but i pretty shure that you will choose the 100T at the end. Anyway, you will have color cast, but using the 100T it will look better !

A lot of people are using Fuji NPL for this kind of application, i just don't like it, a question of taste ...

[Andrew Ross]

Very nice work, Kirk. It looks like NPS is working fine for you.

I haven't shot much film at all for a few years, and when I did it was mostly transparencies. With trannies I would bracket in 1/3 or 1/2 stops, but with the latitude of negs is it okay to bracket in full stops?

I was thinking I would use my digital to get a base exposure and then bracket over and under two stops in one stop increments every five or ten minutes until the sky goes black. Does that sound like a good idea?

Thanks again for all the feedback. It's been very helpful.

Cheers,

Andrew

[ronald moravec]

If you have control, keep the lights off for the sky and then double expose for for the interior lights after the sky goes conpletely dark.

Another possibility is to expose for the sky just before the building lights come on. You will pick up a bit of building facade. Then after it is really dark, expose for the interior lighting.

Use filtration to adjust tungsten to daylight or daylight to tungsten and you can have the advantage of both on one piece of film.

The extra time for all this is really worth the trouble. Practice with a roll of 35mm and keep records.

You can also merge two images in photoshop if you know how.

[Henry Ambrose]

Kirk nailed it. I further suggest you use NPS, rate it at 100, don't bother with brackets under, full stops are what you want - you'll never see any difference in third or halfs. I'd shoot metered and then one over and two over. If you are printing digitlally shooting a "sky shot" exposed to give a very saturated sky can be a good thing to blend in to a piece of film that is right for the building. Last, if you do use 100T I'd like to see the results.

[steve simmons]

This is amazing to watch this process. You have gotten good advice fom a working architectural photographer and he suggests using NPL and explains why. You still seem to want to use Portra film Why???

steve simmons

[Andrew Ross]

"You have gotten good advice fom a working architectural photographer and he suggests using NPL and explains why. You still seem to want to use Portra film Why??? "

Hi Steve,

As I read through the responses I still see more votes for tungsten than daylight. I also asked this question on a smaller forum that I participate in and a couple photogs said tungsten would be the best choice. Even Kirk, who uses NPS, said he learned from Joel Merowitz that tungsten film was a good choice and could be corrected back if need be. I also saw a magenta cast in a couple of Kirk's photos. It works in his images and I don't now if this was intentional or caused by reciprocity, but it's not something I want to worry about in this particular shoot that I am working on.

I'm also inclined to believe the manufacturers' recommendations when they say their daylight films are not recommended for exposures longer than 2sec.

Cheers,

Andrew

[Kirk Gittings]

The images you saw are scanned by my client from my color prints with who knows what kind of scanner or for what browser etc. I doubt seriously doubt that there was a magenta cast in the originals. I support my family on my architectural photography and I do it right. Google my name and see what you come up with.

My point about Joel is that he uses tungsten for everything and it works. I use daylight for everything and it works. The point is it is irrelevant which you use, one neg film will do it all. To me in the SW tungsten film shot in daylight underexposes blues and renders them too dark. So many years ago I tested daylight films in all situations and found it superior. I like simplicity and if I can find one film for all purposes, I will use it. Understand that I teach this at two universities, the University of New Mexico and The Art Institute of Chicago. Allot of my proceedures are corraborated by the experiences of hundreds of students.

I have been at this for 25 plus years and usually test the new films. A couple of years ago I tested the Portra films (not the most recent batch) and found them much less forgiving in mixed light sources than the Fuji films.

All negative films are seriously overated for speed. I have never seen a 160 film that was not really 100.

Also the color temp of the sky at twilight can be like 20,000 degrees kelvin. That is blue not yellow. If there was ever a reason to use daylight film it is on twilight shots.

I do not bracket negative films. I meter big lit windows, place them on Zone VI or VI wait for the sky to drop one stop lower and add a stop for reciprocity. Or on a brightly lit fascade I place the wall on Zone VI and wait for the sky to drop a stop below it, add a stop for reciprocity and always shoot two negatives.

Along time ago I decided the shortest route to quality work was to take the advice of people I admire, see if it works and use it, modify it and move on. There are lots of people on the web who act like they know what they are doing but who actually have little or no experience. What good is a consensus amongst people who may or may not know what they are doing? I have seen some of the dumbest suggestions in my life on this forum and also some of the best. In my experience the Kodak films are currently inferior products for architectural photography. That actually applies to transparency films also.

[tim atherton]

"I'm also inclined to believe the manufacturers' recommendations when they say their daylight films are not recommended for exposures longer than 2sec. "

Portra (daylight) is 10 seconds, Astia (transparency) is 32 seconds

[tim atherton]

I happen to prefer Astia for a lot of architectural work.

I use either NPS or Portra depending on the circumstances. I don't see as much difference between them as Kirk seems to, and I find the Portra closer to being 160 (though maybe not quite) - NPS @100

It also feels to me like Portra has improved/been tweaked in the last couple of years or so - it certainly seems better/nicer than when I tested it when it first came out.

BTW - Kirk - was it NPS that Fuji announced they were going to mess with/replace?

[Andrew Ross]

"The images you saw are scanned by my client from my color prints with who knows what kind of scanner or for what browser etc. I doubt seriously doubt that there was a magenta cast in the originals."

Hi Kirk,

It wasn't my intention to criticize you, but the magenta skies in a few images did jump out at me. You've definitely convinced me to give NPS a try and I'm going to pick-up 10 sheets tomorrow. You've been a big help, but I would like to clarify one more thing: Do you expose at 100 and develop normally at 160? Or do you have the lab process it as 100 as well?

"Portra (daylight) is 10 seconds, Astia (transparency) is 32 seconds"

Thanks for the clarification Tim. I've been looking at so many data sheets I'm starting to mix up the details. I can't wait to get out and actually shoot something.

Cheers,

Andrew

[Kirk Gittings]

No sweat.

Two things-after looking back at those images. Some of them are 20 years old and you are right a couple of the skies are magenta, but not because of reciprocity.

Follow this-the old films were not as forgiving with mixed light, i.e. flourescents showed up much more green than they do now on daylight film. Green and magenta are a trade off when printing c-41 color so you add magenta to offset the green you see through the windows inside the building. In doing so you add magenta to the sky which turns it kind of purple. Actually the image for the Landrover dealership was so popular that it was picked up by LR nationally and I made some good stock fees off of that. The magenta was not a drawback. It was an asset and sometimes I wish newer films reacted that way.

I think you will find that twilight shots are not about color accuracy but about impact. I have had probably hundreds of covers over the years and most of them are twilight shots. They acomplish two things. First they suck you in from a distance at the newstand-i.e. they have impact and as verticals they leave room for mastheads and areas to drop in type. Some photographers shoot twilights earlier than I do, when the sky is not quite as dark. It gives a flatter scale to the image. I settled on the one stop darker timing because it makes for a very dramatic image which in my experience magazines love. Timing is critical and their is only about a five minute window when things are right. You will learn to recognize it because the building will start to glow! I have been asked many times at talks like the VC conference why I get so many magazine covers. It is simple-I get covers because I specifically shoot vertical shots that are dramatic, leave room for the masthead and draw people in on the rack. Covers are not luck. They are about planning and maximizing your chances.

Twilight shots are what I am known for and the images that I am most fond of creating. They create a sense of drama and mystery that a daylight shot can not approach. There is a monograph and exhibit coming up about my work next year. It is entitled "Shelter from the Storm: The Photography of Kirk Gittings". It has three architecture portfolios, pre-historic, historic and contemporary. The contemporary portfolio is almost all twilight images. That is not surprising because they are so dramatic. Master twilight shots and interior lighting and you are three quarters of the way there in terms of skills.

Good luck.

[Kirk Gittings]

Also, no I do not alter the developement of the EV 100 color neg. It is underexposed at 160 ASA not underdeveloped.

I had to laugh when you mentioned that you were inclined to believe the maufacturer that daylight film was limited to two seconds exposure. Maufacturers lie about the asa's of films all the time. Allot of their technical claims have to do with marketing strategies not sensitometry.

[steve simmons]

IMHO the issue should not be tungsten vs daylight. In some tests a few years ago View Camera magazine showed that the Portra films had slightly more contrast than the NPL/NPS films but that the NPS/NPL had much better ability to blend mixed light sources. You have a mixed light source situation.

Also, if you are going to do serious architectural photography you will do all kinds of things to film the mfg's will say can not be done. Get over it.

steve simmons

[Kirk Gittings]

Tim,
Unfortunately what I heard was that Fuji was going to redue their whole color negative line to make it more "scanner friendly" whatever that means. These redesigns of film scare me. The films scan now incredibly well. I worry that in a declining market that this is an attempt to cover a way to lower film manufacture costs by lowering the quality somehow.

On the other hand this is the golden age of color film in general. Films have never been faster, finer grain with better color, less reciprocioty problems and better saturation than ever before in history. The film issues with arch. photo have never been so easy to deal with. I feel lucky to be working now in that regard.