Film and camera metering

[Blasted]

HI there,

I'm wondering if someone can enlighten me. I recently shot some Ektar 100 with an Xpan and after scanning the negatives it seems that some have a funny tint (yellowish) which can be improved if I adjust the white balance in Lightroom. Can this be caused by cameras metering? I have scanned other films shot with the Xpan and generally get good results colour wise.

 

[Taimoor]

Hi
How did you scan them? it seems it could be possibly the chemistry that was used to develop the film or perhaps the film itself. Film had great latitude and xpan can not go wrong

 

[excalibur2]

HI there,

I'm wondering if someone can enlighten me. I recently shot some Ektar 100 with an Xpan and after scanning the negatives it seems that some have a funny tint (yellowish) which can be improved if I adjust the white balance in Lightroom. Can this be caused by cameras metering? I have scanned other films shot with the Xpan and generally get good results colour wise.

It's usually the scanner than causes these very small problems...if you want perfection you calibrate the scanner/software to the characteristic of the film AND also calibrate your monitor (a pro monitor ain't cheap). And then someone seeing your shots might see it differently on some cheap laptop
This guy doesn't say if he had any problems scanning but interesting about the lattitude of film:-
http://petapixel.com/2015/08/10/how-much-can-you-overexpose-negative-film-have-a-look/

 

[ChrisR]

Ektar is notoriously sensitive to exposure and light, IIRC... I find scanning negative film difficult, in terms of getting accurate colour, and prefer to leave it to the professionals.

What scanner and software are you using?

 

[Graham Serretta]

My guess is that the scanner has not been profiled for the film. The camera used does not come into the equation unless an optical filter was fitted - highly unlikely on an X-Pan. I can't think of any circumstance where Ektar 100 would have a yellow cast because of processing error. A green/cyan cast is more likely.

 

[Blasted]

I didn't think the camera would have an effect but I thought I best check just in case I was missing something blatant.

The scanner I'm using is a Screen Cezanne Elite, I turn off all settings and only use the embedded profile for Ektar 100. I did look at getting a scanning profile for negative films but read somewhere that it wasn't really worth it due to film variation and that they were more relevant to slide film. Monitor wise I have a calibrated Dell 2713H.

What I don't understand is that I get great colours from 120 Ektar using the same set up. I'm going to run a few comparisons and see what I can find as I also have a V500.

Thanks

 

[Blasted]

I ran a few tests, I thought that maybe scanning the negative frame might skew the reading but I don't think it does. I also compared the default range of 20-245 to my usual setting of 0-255, at the end I switched from a standard profile to the ektar profile. The ektar definitely brings out the green more but also increases the overall tone.

Is it just a case of better understanding how film responds to the scene?

Epson V500, 1200dpi, no colour adjust, no sharpening

cezanne 1200px test -0832 no border, standard, colour adjust, sharpening, 20-245

cezanne 1200px test -0833 no border, standard, no colour adjust, no sharpening, 0-255

cezanne 1200px test -0834 border, standard, colour adjust, sharpening, 20-245

cezanne 1200px test -0835 border, standard, no colour adjust, no sharpening, 0-255

cezanne 1200px test -0836 border, ektar 100, no colour adjust, no sharpening, 0-255

cezanne 1200px test -0837 border, ektar 100, no colour adjust, no sharpening, 20-245

 

[excalibur2]

H'mm surely with scanning or printing in the dark room you have mainly two choices (or combo)....to reproduce what you saw by eye OR how you would like the shot to be. I made a mistake of mentioned someone's shot by saying "it looked too blue", and the guy replied that was the effect he wanted as it was very early in the morning