what film for LF interior?

[stefan_marquardt]

hallo, a question for the architectural and interior-professionals:

 

which transparancy film do you prefer to use for architectural

interiors when you have to deal with a mix of different light-sources?

(astia?)

 

background: I have to photograph about 40-50 buildings (interiors and

exteriors)on 6x9 rollfilm. the time-budget is very tight (8 to 12

different shoots per day) so I can´t spend time geling windows or the

like or even to do test-films. I prefere to use ambient light and if

needed the use of 1 or 2 strobes for fill. (The pic has to look right

on the chrom - so sadly now photoshop fiddeling is accepted)

equipment: arca swiss 4x5 with roll-fim-back and two studio-strobes.

 

which combination of polaroid film and chrom-film do you think works

best to evaluate exposure and the color-temperature of the lights?

 

thanks stefan

[scott_walton2]

If your going to scan them Stefan, Shoot a negative and the one I recommend

is Fuji Reala. It has a magenta layer already built in for the flouro lights and

has worked beautiful when I have had situations like yours!!! Polaroid Pro 100

is a great match. You have a real headache on your hands if you shoot

chromes because of all the different temps of flouros alone. Do yourself a

favor and shoot negs!!!!

[stefan_marquardt]

thanks for your answer Scott,

but I am afraid I have to shoot chromes (and suffer the headaches).

I won´t have to scan them myself. That´s why the color should be OK on the chromes, because the person who is going to scan them won´t have seen the real setup.

do you have an idea how tungsten film will handel mixed artifical lighting? (I have never used tungsten film for those conditions, I usualy tend to go for the ambient daylight an switch of or dim other ligth-sources).

regards stefan

[tedharris]

I would use either Astia or Provia depending on yoru preferences. Provia

would be my choice because of its exposure latitude. You can get workable

chromes across a 4-5 stop range.

 

If you can do sme scanning and manipulationthen you can easily deal with

either blown out highlights (e.g. sunlight streaming through windows) or

correct for under exposure.

 

The attached shot responds to exactly the situation you are describing. I

needed to get the pewter table settings but the client absolutelywanted the

morning sun streaming into the cramped room, etc. etc. etc.

 

Provia underexposed then tweaked in Photoshop.<div></div>

[tedharris]

A quick follow on before someone else notices .. there was no way to correct

the keystoning ... had to work with a Fuji GW690 handheld.

[john_luke]

If your are in areas that are predominatelty lit by daylight, such as a lobby or atrium, strobes and Provia should look fine.

If you are totally inside with incandescent lighting such as a theater, your stobes may look blue. Either go all available or tungsten fill, with 64T or you could gel the strobes to match the ambient, but there is a light loss because of the filter density. Careful about using tungsten film- If there are any windows in rthe shoot, it will look very cyan out there and can be distracting. Even if you shoot at twilight to keep the contaminated ambient down, it will appear as a funky deeep blue. Some people like it, some don't

 

If you are going to go available, ie no fill, use a color temp meter. They actually can work.

 

Regarding poalroid- if you will be mixing srtobe-"fast ligh"t- and ambient-"slow light" there is often a discrepency in the effective ASA's that the polaroid sees those both of lights. Use Type 55( sorry, 4x5 only) for a polaroid that has reciprocity characteristics that most closely match chrome. Case in point- you are exposing at F22 @ 5 seconds with strobe fill. You get a polaroid that looks good. If you are using T664 or T54, it is seeing the strobe at ISO 100, but unfortunately, those polaroids slow down in speed after about 1/10 second. It may be seeing the ambient at ISO 50. If you expose based on the polaroid, you ambient areas will be most certainly be overxposed on the chrome. Basically, between 1/4 and 5 seconds, cut your ambient by 1 stop. At 10 seconds, cut your ambient by 2 stops. Pain in the neck trying to compesate all this.

 

For interiors, I only use T55 because I don't have to do this. It sees fast and slow light at the same relative ISO as the film does. ( you do need to close 1 stop for chrome because the T55 is ISO 50, but this cuts the strobe and ambient equally) It's too bad there is not a 120 polaroid with that emulsions characteristics.

[garry edwards]

I've messed up this type of mixed lighting job myself and I've learned that the best solution is to use neg film.<br>If you really <b>must</b> use transparency then Provia is probably your best choice.<br>Use daylight, not tungsten.

[stefan_marquardt]

thanks a lot to all of you for your help.

regards stefan

[doug_salin]

Stefan,

 

I would emplore you to go with the Neg films. Particularly Fuji NPS for all the shooting(Interior and Exterior). I shot transparency films for 20 years and it is quite a challenge to master it. I've been there. The past six years I've worked exclusively with Fuji NPS. The film is amazing. I have seen some truly amazing work recently done on Kodak Portra 400 & 800. Many seasoned pros have made the switch to Neg films for Architecture. Remember that each different light source type and lamp type is a different color on Transparency films. Not so on Neg films. Generally what you see is what you get.

 

Please be bold and educate your client. Neg is the way to go. What is the intended use of the final images. That might make a small difference, but I doubt it.

 

Doug Salin

San Francisco<div></div>

[stefan_marquardt]

hi doug,

the pics for this job are going to get scanned and stored digitaly for multi purposes, most likely web and printing.

What do you give you clinets as an endprodukt? a print or/and a file. do you scan the pics? Here in Germany everybody expects chromes. Of course I would much rather use negs.

the competition here is very hard at the moment. lots of photographers offer to work for next to nothing. Yesterday I got the news from the client (for wich job I asked th above question - 40 buildings in germany) that they have reduced the budged for photography by half but still expect the same work to be done (for half the money, not paying for expenses or traveling!).

So trying to educate some clients is quite difficult, if there are allready a few photographers on the doorstep to do the job wichever way the client want´s it done.

stefan

[armin_seeholzer]

Hi Stefan

 

Warum machst Du nicht beides?

Why not both negs and chromes?I think the film is always the cheapest in the chain!

I got very nice pictures with the Fuji RTP Thungsten film If there is not a window in the picture!

For contrasty scenes I take Astia and but a blue filter in front of it if I like the light not to warm!

And for the rest I take Provia 100 F, but as others already stated for very tricky situation take also a roll of a NPS or an other film with 5 layers!

Good light!

[stefan_marquardt]

what do you do with the negs? do you give them to the client, do you make prints to give to the client or do you scan the neg. and hand the file/print? or all the above? I just don´t have any experience with negs (clients always semm to demand chromes). Do they scan as easy as chromes?

I usualy use provia F and a little filtering. but since I quite often use extrem WA-lenses I have problems with where to put the filters. Any filterholder in front of the lens (on top of the CF) is going to show up in the chrom. I tried to put a gel-filter behing the lens and that seemed to work ok. but than I read somewhere that this can reduce the quality a fair bit. plus with all those filters you end up opening the shutter for many minutes and test-polaroids are getting quite useless.

[john_luke]

It is tricky putting filters on an ultra wide lens. Gelatin CC's can go on the rear, if it's just one. Two filters sandwiched together may intoduce ghosting near strong highlights. (Anything thick like a polarizer or resin filter will shift focus and introduce interference with the wavelenghts of light and there is a risk of loss of quality.) I do not use the Lee holder for anything wider than a 75. It simply gets in the way. I had a custom ring made that is a wide flat ring with threads on the inside. That keeps it very close to the lens. I simply tape my square polarizer on it, or any other filters I need to use.

 

As far as neg- Clients can be very particular. Chrome scans are a breeze. Scanning negs is a bit of an artform. Not every service bureau can do them, bt the ones that can, do them well. I typically shoot color neg, send out for drum scans, deliver colormanaged RGB TIFF files with and embedded ICC profile on CD and the prints I deliver are either from the negs or from the digital files, depending on the nature of the shoot.

 

To help "sell" delivery on CD (that way it makes no difference what film you shoot with as far as the client is concerned) discuss handling any retouching for them. This way, they will get a much more complete product. They have to pay the scan guy or the design house scanning fees and retouching fees anyway to handle distracting utility lines, dead foliage, and that rusty car that suddenly appears out of nowhere as you make your exposure :-) Why not have them pay you instead?

 

If you are not proficient in digital workflow, this may be a bit to much to chew at first given the size of the job. You may end up spending a week behind your computer for that many images, and if your not charging properly, it can ruin you.

 

I've been at a few seminars hosted by European location photographers, and you are right, they all shoot chrome. Delivery on disc is not very popular now, but will have to be as technology moves along.

 

With the budget cut in half, it creates a tough spot for you. Even if you convince then to go with neg, and you intend to deliver perfectly dodged/burned/color balanced prints for them to scan, there appears to be no budget for those prints. Good prints are expensive. When you shoot chrome, your'e done.

 

John Luke

[stefan_marquardt]

lots of good points john,

this digital workflow (4x5chrom - scan - retouching -printing) is what I usualy do for my clients. Wich are happy with the extra service they get - and I dont have to worry to much about the color-cast. One click in the scanning-programm and it´s gone. And I feel the quality is better than a bundle of gelatin-filters (I have noticed those ghostings!)on or behind of the lens.

It´s just this new client - who prefers chromes to digital files but then again doesn´t want to pay for material! But that´s the way things seem to go at present.