The problem with Kodak gels, other then being fragile, is that they were made from dyes that changes over time and exposure to light. So are all of yours still the original values?Originally Posted by Drew Wiley
The problem with Kodak gels, other then being fragile, is that they were made from dyes that changes over time and exposure to light. So are all of yours still the original values?
Of course they are, he never actually takes them out of the boxes into the light
Don't worry. All the filters I actually use for any serious color shooting are multicoated glass. I'd never use gels in the field. Too many things can go wrong; and
real gels aren't cheap by any means. What's nice about the Wrattens are all the specialty types they once made, some of which are invaluable in technical darkroom applications (typically contact work, so the light is not image-forming). And yeah, I do have a full set of Lee poly "gels" for similar applications or trial lighting shots (back when I did some architectural shooting) - a nice way to test the effect before investing in expensive glass filters. The Kodak filter handbook was wonderful. It gave not only the spectrograms of each but the fading characteristics relative to various light sources. And yeah, Bob, I do test them for fading from time to time. But all kinds of filters are made from dyes. Try to find a cyan one that isn't fugitive (though I've never found a need for one of those myself). Various flavors of magenta filters are highly useful in certain color reproduction techniques. These were commonly used back in graphics arts days with highly specific characteristics. You can't just substitute magenta colorhead light and get the same effect. But again, strictly a lab or darkroom application - nothing you'd use in the field. If Stone wants a 600C Fujinon bad enough, that should collapse his filter budget for a couple of decades anyway.
and heat...
I've got all the filters I need, I do need that lens
I don't see this mentioned, but fluorescent light color correction is not in the realm of degrees Kelvin (K) light temperature correction which ranges from blue to amber.
Lots of glass filters share the same pitfalls with heat and light as gels. Traditional Tiffen filters are dyed tissue cemented between pieces of glass. Certain colors of
filters can only be made with fugitive dyes, regardless of how those dyes are dispersed, like into optical acrylic. So regardless, ya wanna keep your CC and LB
filter set in a dry cool environment. Some of our more commonly used taking filters and skylights etc are more robust; and some even rely completely on the coatings. Speaking of coatings; did you know, Stone, that those Fuji C coating are really really nice?... heh! heh! (as I slowly torture you)
Fugitive is not the word I would use. Fugitive dyes typically last less than 24 hours.
Fugitive was the word routinely used for most non-pigment color printing processes containing dyes for decades. It's a standard term even when comparing various options for categories of artist's pigments themselves, and has been a common term for this far longer than I've been alive. It's a term entrenched in the relevant literature as well as art technique textbooks. But it's relative, just like the opposite term, "lightfast". Very few hues are truly lightfast. If you want o know which ones, look at the surface of Mars. And those of us who do have reason to discuss color dyes a lot (not on this forum) use the term "fugitive" frequently. We even used it in an industrial paint and pigment context. But in what manner something is fugitive depends. That's why Kodak published three distinct categories of susceptibility for every single Wratten filter they offered. Fugitive could mean hours, days, years, whatever. All depends. But it does mean
ya gotta be aware of specific susceptibilities.
FWIW, Kenko took over the Minolta meter business. The Color Meter IIIF still lives, as the KCM-3100:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...mperature.html
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