We have a word for that Ektar overexposure statement, Pere, that you might want to look up ... "malarky". Interneg interjected another pertinent term, "crossover", which he has explained specifically.
We have a word for that Ektar overexposure statement, Pere, that you might want to look up ... "malarky". Interneg interjected another pertinent term, "crossover", which he has explained specifically.
I've printed Ektar in the darkroom and I find it a difficult film to color correct. It tends towards the magenta side and I found the need for making under 1 point corrections in magenta/green which is difficult. Portra is far more predicable for color correcting and not sensitive to overexposure in my experience. The previous notes on overexposure dangers for Ektar are news to me. Perhaps I will try shooting Ektar at box speed next time and see if that may help with color correcting sensitivity.
Probably getting off topic for the OP at this point. Suffice it to say, it seems like the consensus is for one of the Portra films for this particular case.
Remember decades ago when Kodak Ektar film was introduced. Did not take long to figure out it MUST be treated and exposed similar to a color transparency film, overexpose you're in trouble. During that first year of Kodak Ektar it caused the color printer folks a LOT of grief as many photographers were treating it like a wide exposure latitude color negative film. The color printer folks struggled with trying to get a semi-acceptable print from over exposed Ektar negatives. The results were Un-happy color printer, un-happy print customer.
But if you got exposure and all correct, Ektar works pretty good.
Bernice
Yes... with optical RA-4 correcting color shifts from Ektar overexposure is difficult, because you would need a different color correction depending on local density.Originally Posted by agregov
What's for Hybrid, there is no problem, those shifts are easily corrected by bending the red/blue/green curves selectively, still easier (for kids) if using an advanced color management like 3D LUT Creator. Optic RA-4 printers have been abandoned a lot by the industry since digital minilab dawn: many of the color papers are made to suit the hybrid requirements optimally, color films got optimized for the hybrid. Today RA-4 printing is an epic endeavour that still yields impressive works, but the printer man has to fight aganist many things.
Anyway for the hybrid, that is 99.99% of the RA-4 printing, Ektar can be abused because those shifts are easily corrected in Ps, at least this is my experience. Also sensitometry tells that, amazingly Ektar film is not shouldering much by +6 stops:
What we see in the curves is the warming effect of overexposure, I guess emulsion design was tailored for that (Kodak clearly has technology to do this or the counter thing!), if you look at the blue curve you find that (beyond +3 overexposure) Blue density increases relatively more than the green or red, allowing to pass less blue it delivers a yellowing/warming of the extreme highlights. This is a very nice effect !!!!! Wonderful !
Problem happens when we place our mids in the Ektar highlight region because it takes that color shift. In my experience this is never a problem in the hybrid (if having basic color management skills) because we adjust color at a glance, but the very, very scarce optical printers remaining around may suffer... yes...
This sounds like you have never seen what Ektar should look like and that your usual guessing is based off that. Kodak designed the film to be used correctly exposed, without the larger latitude of Portra etc. What it does outside of the intended exposure latitude isn't relevant to the intended characteristics - unless you really enjoy teal and orange effects. Some of Ektar's unusual characteristics are related to it being a faster emulsion set dyed back to 100 with a neutral dye.Yes... with optical RA-4 correcting color shifts from Ektar overexposure is difficult, because you would need a different color correction depending on local density.
What's for Hybrid, there is no problem, those shifts are easily corrected by bending the red/blue/green curves selectively, still easier (for kids) if using an advanced color management like 3D LUT Creator. Optic RA-4 printers have been abandoned a lot by the industry since digital minilab dawn: many of the color papers are made to suit the hybrid requirements optimally, color films got optimized for the hybrid. Today RA-4 printing is an epic endeavour that still yields impressive works, but the printer man has to fight aganist many things.
Anyway for the hybrid, that is 99.99% of the RA-4 printing, Ektar can be abused because those shifts are easily corrected in Ps, at least this is my experience. Also sensitometry tells that, amazingly Ektar film is not shouldering much by +6 stops:
What we see in the curves is the warming effect of overexposure, I guess emulsion design was tailored for that (Kodak clearly has technology to do this or the counter thing!), if you look at the blue curve you find that (beyond +3 overexposure) Blue density increases relatively more than the green or red, allowing to pass less blue it delivers a yellowing/warming of the extreme highlights. This is a very nice effect !!!!! Wonderful !
Problem happens when we place our mids in the Ektar highlight region because it takes that color shift. In my experience this is never a problem in the hybrid (if having basic color management skills) because we adjust color at a glance, but the very, very scarce optical printers remaining around may suffer... yes...
Sure, you can design a LUT to sort out the colour crossover etc, but what you end up with won't look like Ektar. If you spent a great deal less time producing infinite logorrhea that you 'can fix it in post' and just metered intelligently with the right equipment, you'd learn what Ektar really looks like a lot faster.
Original Ektar is only very tangentially related to current Ektar, apart from the narrower latitude and higher saturation.
Not used Kodak Ektar since it's introduction in the 1990's. Think Kodak discontinued the original Ektar, then introduced "Royal Gold?" before the current version of Ektar.
There is much value in getting the exposure and all spot on at the film exposure moment. The idea of fix it later often results in a lot of wasted time and frustration or more. For some, this is much of what this Foto stuff is about, tinkering in software, others not at all.
Regardless, back to the original topic of film for night Fotos, color neg film with good reciprocity characteristics should be higher on the list of priorities. Color accuracy is iffy at best due to the vast potential for mixed lighting sources of various color temp tungsten, mercury vapor, sodium vapor, mono color light sources (usually ok), LED and more.. much more about effect than color accuracy.
Night Foto in B&W, mixed lighting is a lesser issue than color. Resulting images are different in many ways.
Bernice
Ektar 25, Royal Gold 25, then a long gap until Ektar 100 was the sequence as I understand it. Royal Gold apparently solved a crystallisation issue that Ektar 25 was prone to.
It's the belief that aimless tinkering with calibration (often of precisely the least relevant thing!) will make someone a better imagemaker in artistic terms that seems the most bizarre ideology. It's usually an unwillingness to see and think outwith the mentalité of a technician.
That's about the sum of it - the technical stuff is really pretty simple compared to any artistic decision making. Overcomplication (or pseudocalibration) of technique is usually a sure sign of compensation for a lack of willingness to actually make creative imagery.
I'm not guessing, I've shot lots of Ektar, have you ?
That recipe instructing to shot Ektar like Provia is for beginners not knowing what's Ektar, you should be aware.
Internet, look... I usually expose Ektar like everybody does.
But probably you may understand that some challenging scenes have a large SBR, in those conditions (me and many others) we may expose to not loss some shadow detail, resulting some areas of the scene quite overexposed if we want to conserve that shadow detail.
What I'm explaining you is that if having to overexpose some areas of the scene then we have no problem, because Ektar allows a lot of overexposure without damaging detail, and those Ektar color shifts in the highlights are corrected easy in Ps if we want.
Beyond that, if you shot subjects in backlight conditions, with Ektar, you may expose normally your subject and allow the background go +4 or +6 if necessary, no problem, you still will have all detail there. That fairly overexposed background will shift clearly to warm, which is a powerful aesthetic effect, think in sunsets for example with subject backlighted: Ektar reacts amazingly nice with backgorund at say +4.
Additionally, if you make a mistake (with Ektar) and you overexpose +3 you can perfectly recover that shot, simply you have spend some 20 seconds adjusting R-G-B curves individually with Ps.
Ektar cannot be compared to Provia. With provia at +4 you have nothing, with Ektar at +6 you have total detail in the highlights, with a highlight warming delivering nice aesthetics in the highlights. Ektar is shot like Ektar, not like Portra and not like Provia
Back in those days of do by film, do it proper or suffer the market realities of paying client expectation, one HAD to do if technically proper with creative artistry. There were NO options if you're trying to put food on the table and a roof over your studio-home.
Having grown up and deeply experienced that era, it's pretty well ingrained to habit and expectations.
It is much about learning the technical aspects GOOD, knowing precisely what the technical limitations of film, processing, print making, camera, lens, lighting and all involved then applying them as tools to achieve a creative-artistic result and goal.
Seems what has happened today, SO many are wanting to tinker with sheet film IMO partly due to the easy availability of LF hardware, scanners, image bending software, YouTube videos (IMO, most are done by very iffy folks) and near instant Foto info via Google search (which may be incorrect and not ALL photographic technical and other information is available via Google). This is OK as the mass interest can keep photographic suppliers producing these materials making LF based images possible. BUT, the space for abusing information is vast. Much like dis-information and Alternative Facts, stuff folks read can be taken as De_Facto orthodoxy. Seems only barrier between this and what once was are old-moldy codgers that once actually worked with this stuff to put food on their table and a rood over their studio-home. Share the realties, Facts and Truth of what it once was based in sound technical backing, one can get abused in various ways by folks who ~Know Better~ based on what they read on the web via Google search... and these are the same folks who might have never pulled or struggled for hours and hours burning LOTs of materials trying to achieve a decent print in a darkroom.
Enough ranting,
Bernice
Or more simply, there's Steve's rule;
"If in doubt, try it out"... ;-)
Steve K
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