Re: [Leica] "Filters for the 75/1.4M indoors?"- Certainly! Especially for negatives!

[Mark Rabiner <mrabiner@concentric.net>]

Dan Post wrote:
> 
> AS a photofinisher, in a one hour lab, I have to sqeak up, at this point.
> The problem with balancing color negative film to tungsten, without filters,
> is that the blue sensitive layer is usually so underexposed as to have very
> little information on it.... this is the yellow dye layer, and you can add
> as much yellow filtration- in the negative process of printing this yields
> blue or minus yellow in the print, and if the information is not there, it
> is JUST NOT THERE! You get an overall blue pgoto that looks like.... crap!
> Either over exposed the film so you get SOME information on the blue layer
> or use a blue filter- either way, you reduce the efective speed, but you'll
> get much better color!
> Flame all you want, but from where I sit, at the printer, it is a lot easier
> to correct to a decent color balance when you have sufficient information on
> the negative in all three layers, to get a fair representation of the
> subject!
> The hardest task I've ever had was explaining to a lady that even if she
> used a white backdrop to photograph her craft items with tungsten light,
> that if I balanced the sheet to look white, everything else was a funny
> color- had to show her the densitometer readings where the blue sensitive
> layer had a density of .22 and the red and green layers had densities of
> about .80!
> If you do use filters, and want good correction- shoot a frame or two with a
> neutral gray card- modst printers balance to a gray. I can read the
> densities of the gray card on the negative and get a ballpark correction- or
> read a test print of the gray card and know the amount of correction to key
> in for that roll. Some one hour labs, however, may balk at taking the time
> to do this, or they may have operators that use the PHD button to print
>  Push Here!, Dummy!).
> Try it with filters and a gray card- you'll be pleasantly surprised.
> 
> Dan ( The Sixty Minute Man....)
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: apbc <apbc@public1.sta.net.cn>
> To: Leica Users Group <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 1999 6:42 AM
> Subject: [Leica] Donning his asbestos suit, he asks: "Filters for the
> 75/1.4M indoors?"
> 
> > >When you folks are shooting color film with your wonderful 50/1.0 or
> > >75/1.4, how do you avoid the dreaded orange glow from incandescent
> > >lighting?
> >
> > 64T, 160T, 320T or a professional printer of negatives all do very
> > nicely, thank you.
> >
> > Bests
> >
> > Adrian
><snip>

Do you have any experience or how do you feel about, Dan, instead of
using that dark blue correction filter for the full recommended
correction absorbing many stops use a cooling filter of only a couple
a hundred K; light blue. That would give you enough "information" to
work with and may be the best way of working. 

Those light blue filters are also usable when you want your sunsets to
not make your subjects grey suit go tan. 

Also for black and white so the tungsten doesnt make for pasty skin tones.
Mark Rabiner