Ektachrome Green Tint

[Joshua084]

Hello forum,

I've recently encountered this issue, and have really not found an answer despite constantly experimenting. Essentially, a while ago a roll (roll 1 in Google Drive) of my Ektachrome E100, it turned out to have a severe green tint on it (shot on Hasselblad 503, 150 f4). The local lab where I developed it told me it may have been an exposure problem. So I shot roll 2, where I essentially experimented with different exposure values on the ektachrome, and several using a GND filter, where I didn't found an issue in either overexposed or underexposed parts. I thought that would be the end of it, until recently I sent another roll for developing (roll 3), where it seems like the green tint has come back again. Even the white city lights seem to have taken on a slight green tint. The other roll of Provia I sent in with roll 3 turned out to be okay. The actual positives returned also have a green tint, so it should not be a scanning issue. Have anyone else encountered the same issue? Many thanks!

Examples of images: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bEvzhjTOxhD5jDd-fwZHFJOlL8YVsYZZ?usp=sharing

Joshua

[AJG]

I can't speak to the specifics of your issue,  but in the early 2000's when I was still shooting some film my then local lab began to have a problem with Fuji Provia and Astia running noticeably magenta.  I finally got the owner to confess to lower business leading to fewer rolls and keeping batches of chemistry around longer than he should have. I haven't used Ektachrome in decades so I don't know how it reacts to over age chemistry but it wouldn't surprise me if this is the problem.  Other PN members who know a lot more about E 6 processing than I do will hopefully weigh in to answer your question.

[chuck_foreman1]

Like AJG, my first thought is the chemistry, however, I remembered something that dogged me in the past and it was related to flourescent lights. I reviewed quickly roll 3 and noted mostly white backgrounds like walls and shelf suffered the most. Many images seem ok to a, well perfunctory once over! 

[AJG]

I took a look at some of your images and noticed that the exterior shots looked good but the interiors have problems with green.  I think that Chuck Foreman hit on the answer--fluorescent lights.  If the light source was fluorescent then you got exactly what I would have expected with a daylight balanced color transparency film that was processed correctly.  Your choices:  look into some magenta filtration to correct the color, shoot with flash to overpower the fluorescent lights or replace the fluorescent tubes with high quality daylight equivalent ones.  Don't expect these to be cheap or available at your local hardware store. Note also that fluorescent tubes age and change color over their lifespan, so even if you get the model number off the tube and look for the camera filter that should correct it you may still have inaccurate color, although most likely much better than the images you posted.

[Kent T]

I agree. This is how daylight balanced Ektachrome handled Fluorescent lights in the day. Green cast. 

[Joshua084]

Thanks everyone! I’ll pay more attention in the future