I feel cheated! lol - Using colour film and converting

MindofMel

MindofMel

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This might be a bit silly but was reading the 'about' on a tog i came across and loved his black and white work and in his about FAQ - his film of choice superia 200... and i just thought "awwww maaaaan" that he shot in colour and then digitally processed.

Then I remembered that before i got into film, I converted pretty much every image i took on my dslr to BW..

:wacky:
 
I'm just in the middle of converting a couple that I took on some poundland Kodak colour plus. Some shots just lend themselves better in B+W IMO.
 
And so you should !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
MindofMel said:
- his film of choice superia 200... and i just thought "awwww maaaaan" that he shot in colour and then digitally processed.
Then I remembered that before i got into film, I converted pretty much every image i took on my dslr to BW..

:wacky:
Click to expand...

might have just printed them to black and white ,,,may not have been through a computer at all
 
If you see a series that features both black and white and colour, chances are it was all shot in colour. I learnt that about my favourite photographer Vincent Peters, he shoots film on an RZ67 but shoots it in colour (portra mainly I am lead to believe).

Does it matter to you that it was captured on film and then digitally processed? Post processing has always been around, whether it's done directly onto a negative, on a print, during a print, or on a scan or digtally captured image. Not many photographs of amazing quality are untouched to some degree.

The method of capture is important to me personally, and the printing, I love film/printing with a passion, but post processing is post processing when viewing other people's work, I couldn't care less whether it was on a computer or in a darkroom. Not saying I disagree with you, but it's all opinion and personal preference.

I know a few photographers that almost stopped shooting b&w but kept shooting colour, to convert to b&w in digital post. Ektar is well known for this conversion and works very well from what I've seen. One of them spends his days shooting the most famous people on the planet in his Hollywood studio.
 
Yea danny - agree with you 100% tbh.

But for some reason, I just had that little feeling of "aww maaan" - think I had sold the dream in my head that every BW film shot I saw was shot on BW film and was just a surprise and for a split second a disappointment for some reason.

was reading about ektar in that capacity somewhere online - if only i could dev it at home, I would try it out.
 
MindofMel said:
Yea danny - agree with you 100% tbh.

But for some reason, I just had that little feeling of "aww maaan" - think I had sold the dream in my head that every BW film shot I saw was shot on BW film and was just a surprise and for a split second a disappointment for some reason.

was reading about ektar in that capacity somewhere online - if only i could dev it at home, I would try it out.
Click to expand...

you can dev it in B&W chems then you wouldn't feel cheated!:p
 
Im still new to film and have only got back a couple of rolls of superia so far (got a roll of neopan in the yashica-mat though). A lot of the images Ive posted from these rolls of superia are converted to black and white digitally, because I try it out on most images when processing and mostly end up preferring it.

I don't see why not to be honest, the fun part to me with film has been the shooting, once I've got the scans on the computer I don't see any reason to treat them any different to any of my digital raw files to get an end result I like. :)
 
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MindofMel said:
didn't think that would work? :thinking:
Click to expand...

The colour negative C-41 developer used in the first step of the C-41 process is a B&W developer and also contains the colour activators to activate the colour couplers in the film which form the colours. This gives a B&W image on top of the colour one, the B&W image is subsequently bleached away to leave the colour one. Of course you can skip the bleach step to leave the B&W image there which desaturates the colours and raises the contrast. This is frequently used as an effect on motion pictures ('1984' with Richard Burton, 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'Minority Report' perhaps being the most famous)

Anyway, because of this you can use ordinary B&W developers to develop colour negative films although the contrast is usually quite high as the C-41 developer is deliberately designed to give low contrast.
 
I don't suppose once we are dealing with a scan of a film frame, it matters what we do with it because we've already put tomato sauce on our Sunday lunch...:(
Its just another caveat we have to deal with being forced to convert film to a more convenient (for the 21st century) format.

Have I done it ?

yes

Will I do it again ?

Unlikely, there's too much fablious b/w film available to faff with colour conversions...:)
 
joxby said:
I don't suppose once we are dealing with a scan of a film frame, it matters what we do with it because we've already put tomato sauce on our Sunday lunch...:(
Its just another caveat we have to deal with being forced to convert film to a more convenient (for the 21st century) format.

Have I done it ?

yes

Will I do it again ?

Unlikely, there's too much fablious b/w film available to faff with colour conversions...:)
Click to expand...

Have to agree with this really.
 
I think in colour and so I shoot in colour, simple as that. I don't really have a problem with converting to black & white in 'post' digitally (I've done it myself before) as I often print black and white using colour negatives in the darkroom for various reasons:

- Can use colour filters to control specific tones (just like the Photoshop "black and white" adjustment tool, or even on the lens of your camera while shooting, you can use them--as gels in the contrast filter holder--in the darkroom too)
- Much longer exposure times on the prints; makes for more precise dodging and burning as you don't have to rush as much
- For me, it works out a lot cheaper to shoot professional colour emulsions than it does black and white so more shots to choose from in the end

So don't feel cheated, it's just a different way of processing an image and just because it's done on the computer doesn't mean it can't be done using a physical method either :)
 
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