Film Test Summary

Each student was asked to shoot 4 rolls of Film:

1. Normal Slide/Chrome Film- Daylight:
Kodak E100G- scans very well, fairly neutral


2. Vivid Slide/Chrome Film- Daylight (choose 1):
Kodak 100VS- vivid color emulsion
Fuji Provia 400
Velvia 50 or 100 ISO (colorful film, vivid)


3. Tungsten Color Film: choose any tungsten film (slide or negative: your choice)
I suggest 64T Slide Film
64T tungsten slide film
also at B&H


4. Daylight Color Negative Film:
Kodak Portra Film

Observation Summary:
After looking at everyone's slides and contact sheets, and after reading everyone's written observation summaries, the overall impression is that the neutral slide film (Kodak E100G) was actually more vivid and had more contrast than the Vivid Slide film (Kodak 100VS). The negative daylight color film (Kodak Portra) was surprisingly neutral, did not have much contrast and the colors were rather dull. Negative film has a greater latitude than slide film. This means that if the negative film was a stop overexposed, you'd still have detail in highlights, whereas if the slide film was overexposed, detail in highlights would very likely be lost.  The Tungsten film (64T) that should have been shot indoors, had different results in different rooms and buildings- depending on the color temperature of the overhead lighting. Not all lightbulbs are the same! If daylight came through a window, this also affected the colors of the tungsten film. Tungsten film shot outdoors in daylight obviously made everything blue if a corrective filter was not used.


Almost across the board, everyone's favorite film to shoot with was the neutral slide film, Kodak E100G. It is sharp, contrasty, and made colors vibrantly "pop" while not oversaturating skin tones and has fine grain.

Major factors in recording color:
Subject Matter
Exposure (slightly under exposing makes colors more rich)
Lighting situation (intensity of shadows affects color and contrast)
Weather
Time of Day
Color temperature shifts in Shade vs. Fog vs. Sun



E-6 = Slide Film Processing
C-41 = Negative Film Processing

Color Negative film (often with "color" in its name) has 3 layers of emulsion each sensitive to one of the RGB additive primaries.  During development, the developer oxidizes and combines with color chemical couplers in the emulsion to create the CMY dyes in our negative.  The blue-sensitive emulsion layer basically forms the yellow dye and so on.  Once all the light-sensitive silver is removed (different than B&W!), you are left with a negative image created solely from CMY dyes.

Reversal film (often with "chrome" in its name) produces a positive image called a chrome, slide, or transparency.   

Exposure latitude is the extent to which a light-sensitive material can be over or under exposed and still achieve acceptable results.  This makes it somewhat subjective.

It is not to be confused with Dynamic Range, which is the range of light intensities a medium can capture.  A recording medium with greater dynamic range will be able to record more details in the dark and light areas of a picture. Latitude depends on dynamic range. If the same scene can be recorded using less than the full brightness range available to the medium, the exposure can be shifted along the range without clipping data values in the shadows or highlights. Greater exposure latitude allows one to compensate for errors in exposure while retaining quality.

Push Film Processing: (brightens the film, and adds a bit of contrast) Over-development of the film, compensating for under-exposure in the camera.

Pull Film Processing: (darkens the film, and flattens the contrast a bit) A technique that compensates for overexposed film by under-developing it at the processing stage  

Cross-processing is developing color print or slide film in the wrong chemicals.

• Processing positive reversal film in C-41 chemicals (normally for negs) results in negative image on a colorless base 
• Processing negative print film in E-6 (normally for chromes) results in a positive image with the orange base of a normally processed color negative