Color photography with black and white film

[Paul Kierstead]

The effective ISO is due to the fact that, without filters, you would have uninterrupted passage of light. But, with the interposition of a filter, there is a loss of light transmission which has to be compensated for.

Ahh, many thanks for your reply. It is just the filter factor then; that is a lot of filter factor. They must be dense indeed. Still, I love the ... "flavour" ... of this process, conceptually anyway. I think it is something that will have to be tried once or twice at least, maybe a still life or the like (clearly moving subjects offer a lot of grief, as we can see from the clouds...)

[eric t]

Assuming you are using TRIX 320

Originally Posted by Joanna Carter View Post
To translate another part of his article on tests that he did, he recommends allowing the following ISO ratings for the three exposures, assuming you are using 100 ISO film

Red : 32 ISO
Green : 20 ISO
Blue : 20 ISO
I've just read more of the "Test" article; Henri appears to go on to say that he finally settles on :

Red : 10 ISO
Green : 10 ISO
Blue : 16 ISO

[jb7]

This is really interesting-
about a year ago I bought a 47 blue,
to go with my standard b&w red and green filters-
I've always meant to give it a go,
but never got around to it-

The numbers that are coming out are useful as a starting point,
though the last set seem counter intuitive-
Am I missing something?
Which film do the numbers refer to?

My school French might not get me that far...

I've got some Fomapan 200, must give that a go...

I wonder which it's closest to?

[Struan Gray]

Silly question - how do you all differentiate which sheet is which color? Trial and error later, or are you marking them some how?

If you've scanned the negs, just shuffle which one is assigned to which colour channel in assembling the final colour digital image until it looks right.

One of the surprising things this process turns up, is how often something looks right, even when it is completely wrong.

Henri Gaud has taken an idle musing of mine and turned it into an investigation of pure colour - and our brains' acceptance of almost random colourings once they get away from looking at flesh tones or nature scenics. Despite the number of times my name crops up in his pages, the credit is entirely his:

http://trichromie.free.fr/trichromie...eux-trichromes

[Joanna Carter]

Assuming you are using TRIX 320

Apologies; I had misread/translated some of the article

[Larry Gebhardt]

There were also tri-color cameras that would take all three images at once. Then you had no registration issues. I've been thinking of building one, or trying to find a pristine older example.

[sanking]

In the past I did a lot of color separation work with B&W film, making three shots with a view camera. For in-camera separations the recommended filter set is 25 Red, 58 Green and 47 Blue. The 29, 61 and 47b set is recommended for making separations from transparencies. You mark the film holders as R, G or B, and before developing clip the R on one corner, the Green on two corners and leave the B as is. This helps to identify them later. Anyone who actually goes through this can combine the separation negative files, after scanning the negative, using the protocol in the attached document called MergeSeparations.


The best film for color separations is one that has a short toe and shoulder and a very long straight line. Either Tmax-100 or Tmax-400 work quite well. For best results you will need to expose and develop the three records individually, but if you have the luxury of curve correction in Photoshop just give +3 stops exposure for the Red and Green filters, and +2 stops for the Blue filter. Develop the Red and Green negatives for the same time, the Blue for about 50% more.

From the turn of the century until the early 1950s one-shot color cameras were manufactured that made three exposures at one time, one through the Red filter, the other through a Green filter, and a third through a Blue filter. This was achieved by means of pellicle beam splitters that transmitted a part of the light but reflected the other part.
These cameras were very expensive at the time. I am in the process of restoring a National Fotocolor 5X7 one-shot camera that sold for over $1200 in 1949. That would amount to something on the order of $25-35K in 2009 dollars. See attached file.

Sandy King

[jb7]

Thanks Sandy, very helpful...

[sanking]

Thanks. Hope you find the information useful.

Recently I have been scanning and merging in Photoshop some of the in-camera separations I did some two decades or more ago. Most have never been printed or seen as full color images.

The attached image is of Raven Cliff Falls in upper Greenvile County, SC. I made the original set of separations at about 7 am in very soft light, after a hike of two hours, following a drive of 1.5 hours to the site. The early morning shot was necessary because at this time of year the sun comes up almost directly behind the top of the falls. You can see the hot spot from sun illumination beginning at the top right of the image. 15 minutes later this shot would have been impossible because of contrast and flare.

The separations are on Ektapan 5X7, made through 25, 58 and 47 filters. I have printed in carbon other versions of this site, but this is the first time I have looked at the full color image of this separation set. The image at this point is pretty much direct from the separation set and could still use some corrections, but I think it gives an idea of the potential of LF in-camera separations with a regular view camera.

Sandy King

Thanks Sandy, very helpful...

[D. Bryant]

The attached image is of Raven Cliff Falls in upper Greenvile County, SC.
Sandy King

Sandy,

Have you ever photographed Cullasaja Falls outside of Highlands, NC? I'm sure you probably have but I have yet to make a stellar shot there. The shot of Raven Cliffs falls reminded me of Cullasaja Falls and Gorge. Water falls aren't usually my forte, but the falls around Highland are spectacular and challenging.

The premo spot I've found is to hike up the cliff across the highway from the spot that everyone stops at in the summer and fall. Setting up a tripod there is somewhat perilous but gives a nice elevated view of the scene. I would suspect local photographers have the good angles figured out by now but I've not seen anyone's work that I would consider outstanding of this particular scene. Another strategy is to climb sown from the highway edge but this is quite dangerous. I dropped my Nikon F2 there one day while attaching it to a tripod and watched it sail over the edge. Unbelievably I recovered the camera a few yards down with only a few minor scratches.

Don Bryant