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Re: Re: [OM] Critique needed

Subject: Re: Re: [OM] Critique needed
From: Steve Goss <steveg3@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 22:10:25 -0600
Hi y'all - 

After posting my request for critiques, I realized there was some more
information I hadn't passed on.
First, They were developed at different places. The December roll was developed
at my normal quick location, The Tom Thumb grocery store. It has a small 1 hour
processing machine. So small, it does not have a monitor to look at the neg
before it gets printed. The November roll was developed at an Eckerd Drug store
1 hour machine. That one is larger, and I believe the operator can see what
will be printed, and correct really bad color imbalances before it gets put on
paper.
Second, the two rolls of film were not identical. The December roll was a 24
exposure roll of Superia, and the November roll was a 12 exposure roll of
Superia. Although one would think they would be identical, on the edge of the
neg, the December roll has "fuji s-400 g13", and on the edge of the November
neg it says "fuji 400 g11". I don't have any idea what the "G" codes mean.
Third, I may have dialed in some over exposure on the 2N in November. I know I
didn't do that with the G in December. After looking at the two sets of negs,
the December ones are definitely "thinner" than November.

A summary and follow-up of your critiques follows:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clendon Gibson wrote:
> Having looked at the pics, I decided to take a stab at it.
>
> The first picture looks like it was underexposed. I
> have noticed the same kind of graininess on pictures
> that I have underexposed.

I've seen this graininess before. I wonder whether it's actually on the neg, or
whether it's a result of trying to under expose the print.

> At a guess I would say the light meter had taken it's
> info from the left side of the frame where the
> streetlights and the pavement are bright., while it
> needed to expose on the dark, to bring out the detail
> there. Just guessing.

Sounds like a job for my 4T, which unfortunately is on Kodachrome duty for the
moment.

> The second picture, (the green one) looks like a
> classic color balance problem. You used film balanced
> for daylight under a light that has a different
> spectrum.

I just looked at the negs again, and there doesn't seem to be too much of a
difference between them, colorwise. (November's are definitely denser, showing
that December's are under exposed) I guess the operator at Tom Thumb wasn't
watching as they came, or just didn't bother to adjust and reprint.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Garth Wood added:
>>Flourescent gives a yellow tinge, and incandescant
>>gives a kind of sepia tone. I don't know what kind of
>>light would cause this extreme green shift though.
>
>Actually, fluorescent usually causes a sickly greenish tone 
>when used with daylight film.  I use a violet (FL) filter to 
>deal with the greenish cast, but it's not perfect.
>Fluorescent's just gross light for film.

I'll check out that filter.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Winsor Crosby seconded:
>I agree. I don't use color negative film much, but the one time I 
>used Fuji Reala for snaps of people at the office I was really 
>pleased with the results. I read that Fuji uses an extra layer for 
>green compensation in some of their films.  It does not add a color 
>cast, but seems to operate only when there is excess green. It seems 
>to help a lot.

That's one of the things that surprised me about these prints. This is Fuji
superia, which includes the fourth layer to handle these kinds of problems. I
guess it can be overwhelmed by *really* bad lighting.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Gries thirded:
>Agreed.  It seems that the meter was off, and thus under exposed the
>negative.
>
>I would advise a four layer Fuji film like NPS.  Though not perfect for
>fluorescent, it will control mixed lighting situations.

Ouch! I can't afford that pro stuff. Besides, Superia is supposed to be a four
layer film also.

>Best thing to control color is to shoot B+W film! ;)

All my black & white work is done by grayscaling...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Couch fourthed:
>Fluorescent lighting varies quite a bit in it's color temperature.
>Depending on the particular bulbs and particular film you can get
>anything from very little change to yellow to a (usually) very ghoulish
>green, especially with skin tones. Looking at the posted picks, that
>green looks way to green for even fluorescent lighting. It almost looks
>like someone shot the picture with a green filter over the lens.
>
>I would suspect reciprocy failure judging by the f-stops you were using
>Steve. What kind of exposure times were you using? I am guessing they
>were rather long. Was this the same film that you used last time?
>Similar exposure times? If not, I would say that was your problem.

Exposure times were no longer than a half a second or so. They seemed fairly
quick for being after dark, but the dealership was brightly lit. Almost the
same film, and similar exposure times.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Gomez fifthed:
>It appears that the basic problem is that you're *way* underexposed for the
>automobiles, themselves. In both shots, there are (relatively) much brighter
>light sources behind the cars than the light level of the vehicles
>themselves. You can especially see that in the first shot--where there is a
>brightly lit sign(?) in the upper right corner that is quite properly
>exposed.
>
>The other problem appears to arise from the type of lighting at the
>dealership. I'd guess they have mercury vapor or similar lights, which
>shifts all the colors really, really badly towards a pretty obnoxious
>green-yellow. I don't know if anyone makes a correction filter for that type
>of lighting; I just usually try and avoid it, or override it on the primary
>subject by using flash.

I was hoping to avoid flash...

>What I don't understand (which is probably something I'm overlooking) is why
>the OM-2N exposed properly and the OM-G didn't, under similar
>circumstances...

I must have told the OM-2N to overexpose.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gregg Iverson sixthed:
>These look like they are underexposed.  In addition, the green tinted ones 
>look like the light is from a mercury vapor light.  Could the combination 
>have caused this problem?  Assuming that premise is true, maybe the photo 
>finisher didn't try to color correct these because they were so underexposed.

I think you're right.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wayne Harridge seventhed:
>From my experience with scanning, the more underexposed the shot, the less 
>successful correcting for colour shifts is - possibly the same for 
>conventional 
>prints.

Yes, not enough data left to manipulate.

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