Color film suggestions?

[stradibarrius]

I need some suggestions for a color film in 4x5 to do product shots with tungsten hot lights.
I have use Ektar 100 in 35mm and MF but it always had an orange cast to it.

[Drew Wiley]

You need to know the color temperature of your bulbs - 3200K or 3400K, or whatever.
Then go to the tech data sheet for the type of film you are using and there will be a
recommendation for the correct blue filter to balance the color. You can put filters over the camera lens, but a better method is to get polyester balancing filters by Lee or Roscoto place over the light source itself. Make sure you have the right kind of bracket to keep a safe distance from the hot lamp and the filter. These filters are
typically 12x12 inches and not very expensive. A fancier way of doing it would be to
buy a color temperature meter, but these are expensive. Films balanced for tungsten
are getting harder to find, would be transparency film, and you would still need to match the bulb temperature to them.

[vinny]

expired fuji rtp in quickload format on ebay is going to be your best bet.

[Roger Cole]

RTP is also available in 120 if you want to shoot it in your RZ or get a roll film back. Or, at least, Freestyle lists it as currently out of stock but expected in store March 4th.

[tgtaylor]

Alternatively you could use an 80A filter (3200K => 5500K) or 80B (3400K => 5500K).

The 80A "Balances daylight film for use with most standard tungsten lighting, studio lighting and copy stand lighting" and the 80B "Balances daylight film for use with photo flood lamps."

Thomas

[mrladewig]

There are no tungsten balanced color negative films on the market any longer and there haven't been any for a long time. If you want to shoot tungsten with a current film, you'll need the correction filters. Or you can switch your lighting to flash lighting, which is close enough to daylight that only minor correction would be needed if any.

If you find it, Fuji made NPL as their last tungsten balance color negative. Kodak ended their line of tungsten balance slide film a long time back and there color neg film even further back I think. Fuji RTPII is still available through ebay, but I don't think its being made currently.

That said, if you are scanning the film, you might be able to get away with Portra 400 or one of the previous generation Portra NC films and some correction in scan and photoshop. I've successfully shot some of the faster and less saturated color negative films in tungsten and balanced them in scan. Ektar would not be a good choice for this method though because its inherent saturation is going to be difficult to remove.