Color photography with black and white film

[Rodney Polden]

Fascinating and informative discussion. Thank you all for some very fine images.

[Mike1234]

...old Devin Tricolor camera. Purpose built for technicolor-like still photography...

It would be intriquing to build something like this to shoot 6x12cm with. It would be a heavy/bulky monster though.

[sanking]

It would be intriquing to build something like this to shoot 6x12cm with. It would be a heavy/bulky monster though.

I am in the end game of restoration of a big cousin (5X7 National Fotocolor) of the 6X9 Devin one-shot. Everything is finished but I am having a devil of a time aligning the pellicle beam splitters. The one to the green filter negative fell into place perfectly on the second try, but the one to the blue filter negative is giving me fits.

You can actually get much better results with a regular view camera making three separate exposures through Red, Green and Blue filters, but as in stitching multiple shots with a DSLR you must have a subject that will cooperate and lie still while you make the three exposures.


Sandy King

[Mike1234]

Sandy,

It doesn't surprise me you're having alignment issues... must be a real bugger. However, once it's pretty close you can scan the films individually and align in PS. The advantage of the splitter system is that the exposure is made to all colors silutaneously which eliminates the artifacts caused by subject movement.

[sanking]

Sandy,

It doesn't surprise me you're having alignment issues... must be a real bugger. However, once it's pretty close you can scan the films individually and align in PS. The advantage of the splitter system is that the exposure is made to all colors silutaneously which eliminates the artifacts caused by subject movement.

Yes, if you can get the alignment close enough PHotoshop will merge them. At this point I am ok with the Red and Green records but the Blue is still too far off. As you say, the advantage is that all three shots are made at one time. The disadvantage is that a 5X7 one-shot camera is way larger than a typical 5X7 view camera, and you have to compose through the filters and pellicles, which costs more than four stops of light light loss (three for the filters, one+ for splitting the light into three parts.

But still, this is all quite interesting.

Sandy

[jb7]

Applying the same movements to all three must be a bit of a pain...

I was thinking that making a turret for the filters (I only have the screw in type)
might help speed things up a little-

Still mean to try this-

[Arthur Nichols]

I would think that using the same approach as described above in this post one could photograph a scene uising color film (or direct digital capture), scan it make all adjustsment is PS and split it into the three colors and then using a film recorder output each color to a separate black and white negative. I know this sounds cumbersome but it would provide a very stable long term storgae medium for color images. I personally don't like digital for long term storage. I am an engineer for my day job and sometimes have to access old CAD drawings. There can be problems opening them, they contain artifacts and sections which cannot be edited. I have had enough problems trying to access old digital information that when I project these issues out to 20 or more years it looks like big problems and lots of lost information.
I hope others feel that this is a relevant post and not an attempt to start another digital vs film dialogue.

[Mike1234]

Arthur,

Your post is definitely relevent.

Yes, one could use the R, G, and B channels from a direct digital capture to output to separation negs but the quality would be better just leaving the image digital. Creating separations for your color negs is a different story. But since I'm into hybrid photography anyway I would just scan mine. Regards to the file format becoming obsolete... since most digital photographic files are universal rather than proprietary to certain software there really are no worries regarding inability to open them long after they we made them. If an issue comes up with a particular format we'll have plenty of time to deal with it. That said, there certainly are proprietary image formats such as Adobe PSD. Just make sure your images are all converted to up-to-date formats. Batch processing should make this a quick/painless task.

[Joanna Carter]

Everything is finished but I am having a devil of a time aligning the pellicle beam splitters. The one to the green filter negative fell into place perfectly on the second try, but the one to the blue filter negative is giving me fits.

Sandy, have you thought of using dichroic mirrors to split the light based on colour? then you would not need the filters as well.

[sanking]

Sandy, have you thought of using dichroic mirrors to split the light based on colour? then you would not need the filters as well.

I have not thought of that and have no information about the subject. Can you direct me to a source for these type of mirrors?

Sandy