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Home >> Learning >> e-Book on Photography Table of Contents Photography e-Book Chapter 11 - Film Choices With all this talk about equipment, I seemed to have forgotten one vital piece that makes it all possible, the film. For those not yet down the eventual path of zeros and ones for digital photography, film is the manner in which we actually record or create our images. Just as there is a plethora of equipment available to the budding photographer, so too is there an abundance of films to choose from, hundreds in fact but most photographers are probably only ever going to need to be familiar with a half dozen, if that. There are two main types of films to choose from, negative and positive, otherwise known as transparency, chrome, or slide. Within the negative types of films there is black and white (B&W) and color. I am not so familiar with B&W films and cannot provide an intelligent explanation on the differences between Kodak Plus-X, Tri-X, or T-Max films other than that T-Max films are among the sharpest and most archival of ALL films. B&W films can also be “cooked” to a certain flavor with the choice of chemicals in the darkroom and the choice of papers for printing. It is more than I am willing to pursue and I would much rather digitally cook my images with Photoshop and Epson printer papers than spend countless hours smelling foul fumes in the dark (no disrespect to those who do). It is not something I enjoy but many others do and I wish them all the best in the darkroom. Negative films I can at least offer some comments on color negative films, the choice of the vast majority of the world’s consumer photographers and the product that keeps Kodak and Fuji afloat so they can invest big R&D money into digital. Just as there are do-it-all lenses such as the 28-200mm or the 28-300mm lenses, there are films that try to be all things to all people. Films such as Kodak Max, an ISO 800 film (with an ISO 400 brother now) attempt to be your low-light film, your action-stopping film, your be all, be anything film that just never seems to do anything really well. I suggest you choose and use your film just as you would your photographic equipment, use the right one for the job. If you need action-stopping qualities of a high-speed film then use a good high-speed film instead of a do-it-all type. Forget the marketing hype that Kodak throws around about Max because it is meant for users of zoom lens Point and Shoot cameras that have slow maximum apertures when zoomed out to their focal length extremes. If you are using an SLR with a fast or even a consumer lens with a plodding f5.6 max, you probably do not need ISO 800 unless you are using very long lenses or shooting in low light or both. Unless I have a specific need for ISO 800 films, I tend to stick around the ISO 400 range for most of my color negative film needs. Kodak and Fuji have very nice consumer films in this range that can provide good results when processed and printed by someone who cares but if you do a lot of family snapshots you probably want to buy into the better, professional grade color negative films. Kodak calls its pro films Portra and has ISO 160, 400 and 800 speed films in this range. Within Portra, you can also buy NC (natural color) or VC (vivid color) types of films to help out with the background colors while preserving good skin tones. Fuji, has the N series of films in NPS and NPC 160, NPH 400, and NHG 800. NPC 160 is a newer film that seems to competing with Kodak’s Portra 160VC film. Why use the pro-grade films? Skin tones for the obvious choice. Ever shot with the cheaper consumer films and received prints in which everyone looked like they had just come back from a Hawaiian vacation? But you had in fact shot in the middle of winter and nobody had seen the sun for weeks? Consumer films have pretty good saturation that add pizzazz to your prints but that pizzazz also contributes to a pronounced skin tone quality that is generally not pleasing. Fuji films some times give subjects that pending heart attack color unless the printer really works on the prints. Consumer films also have high contrast to go along with those boosted colors, meaning being able to balance dark subjects with light subjects becomes a one or the other decision because you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Pro-grade films are moderate contrast and offer that ability to balance out the extremes, which is why professional wedding photographers choose the good stuff. Black tuxes and white wedding dresses are as high contrast as they get and pro films offer the hope of not only getting the details in the tuxedo but also in the expensive wedding dress. If you ever get stuck in a wedding shoot and you have to figure out which to compromise for with your consumer film, go with the wedding dress, as that is far more important than the groom’s penguin suit. Pro films also offer more realistic color balance and gets away from the hyper saturation of consumer films. When looking at prints of the same scene of subjects taken with a consumer film and a pro film, most people will notice a distinct lack of snap to the print from the pro film. However, if the shot had some blue sky in the scene, the pro film should reveal the blue in balance whereas the consumer film has likely blown out the blue sky to a white mass. Consumer films have difficulty handling the low contrast of background skies and either provides vivid blue skies if the scene is highlight based or blows them out if the scene has lots of shadow detail. In short, I guess I am saying use the expensive pro films for your good family shots but if paying $10 CAN per roll of 36 exposures before processing and printing gets a bit much for you, stick with the better consumer films such as Kodak’s Royal Gold or Fuji Superia. If all of your shooting is in bright outdoor conditions then by all means use ISO 100 speed films but since we don’t often do this, using ISO 400 films is a nice compromise and as it is very likely you will not require anything beyond a 4x6 size print, you will not notice the difference in grain. That is the fact of life of consumer photography, that the vast majority of the images taken around the world will never see a life beyond the 4x6 print. I shoot the same way too when using 35mm color negative films, I generally do not expect to shoot anything that needs to be larger than 4x6 and when I do shoot for enlargements, I use my medium format system. Now that I have a Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera, I do not expect shoot very much 35mm color negative film anymore. Transparency (chrome) film or positives For most serious photographers, chrome film is where the action is as it provides a more honest representation of what we are trying to create or capture. Photographers learning the craft need to know where they are making exposure errors and chrome film provides that lesson very well thanks to the lack of printing stage and to their narrow exposure latitude. Transparency (or slide or chrome) films are usually slow to middle ISO speeds because their grain structure is not as tight as negative films. Until recently, an ISO 400 transparency film was avoided by serious photographers like the plague because the grain structure was akin to golf balls. My own subjective opinion on the older ISO 400 transparency films is that the grain resembles what you would receive from an ISO 3200 negative film. This has apparently changed with Fuji's introduction of its latest Provia F 400 and now offers photographers with a viable ISO 400 film - note though I offer second hand comments as I have not used the new Provia F 400 and have only had recent experience with an ISO 200 film from Kodak, the E200 (quite decent). Most users of transparency films stick within the ISO 50 to 100 range but there are exceptions of course. Kodachrome still has many followers and you may still be able to buy some old stock of Kodachrome 25 as Kodak has discontinued this film after many decades of existence (as of July 2001). Kodachrome 64 and 200 are still available though and some pros such as Steve McCurry, prefer them for their archival qualities. Kodachrome is actually a black and white film that has the color added during the complex and rather toxic processing stage. Unfortunately, Kodak has many quality control issues with Kodachrome, which is why I do not use it anymore - that and the horribly long turnaround times of two to three weeks to send the film to New Jersey or New York for processing as Kodak shut down all Kodachrome facilities in Canada. There may still be some independent processors though. The king of the transparency films is Fuji Velvia. Now a decade old and still going strong despite the rise of its stable mate Provia F 100 and Kodak's excellent E100 series of films. In this day of Photoshop enhancement, having to deal with Velvia's ISO 50 speed is probably not required anymore as Provia F 100 offers even superior grain structure than Velvia, which use to be the finest grain slide film. I confess that I still buy Velvia when I want to get serious about my photography despite having rolls of Provia or E100 in the fridge too. There is nothing like looking at super saturated 6x6 chromes on a light table to amaze one at how good today's films are. The colors can really pop out at you and even the lower saturation Provia is quite amazing. Oh yes, why are films classified as negative or positive? When you look at a slide, you are seeing the colors as you saw them in reality, highlights are highlights and shadows are shadows. It is a positive representation of the scene. A negative is the opposite, shadows are the light portions on the film and the highlights are the dark portions of the film. With color negative film, there is also the orange mask that adds the color cast. The printing process filters out the orange cast and corrects the negative aspects of the film on paper. General rule of thumb for shooting negative films is to bias your metering to open up the shadow details and let the highlights fall where they may due to the generous latitude of negative films. Negative films benefit from a small amount of overexposure too so your highlights benefit from an exposure for the shadows. Positive films are the oppostite and require biasing for proper highlight exposure and letting the shadows fall where they may. If you blow out the highlights on positive film, the detail is lost forever and more often than not, ruins the chrome. If the highlights are correctly captured on film, post-development editing can be done to extract the details from the shadows, easier to do if you work within a digital darkroom environment. Color balance of film Film have color balances you must be aware of. The vast majority of the films in use today are daylight balanced, meaning they provide neutral color casts when shot in daylight but neutral has to be kept in perspective because daylight means sunny noontime conditions, hardly what many photographers would consider to be ideal lighting. When using color negative films for prints, the processor/printer will usually be able to compensate effectively to correct the color balance but when using slide film, you get what you shoot so be aware of the lighting conditions and the effect you desire on film. Tungsten films are favored by some studio photographers using flood lamps to provide a neutral cast for the warmer lights used. Tungsten films have pronounced blue tones and will render a scene wholly blue if used in daylight or with electronic flash.
Film Grain Your choice of film speed will have a direct result in the quality of your enlarged prints. The slower the film ISO the smaller the grain and the larger your print can be without grain effects. The faster the film ISO, the larger the grain and the less you will be able to enlarge while keeping the grain in check. Film grain is the random silver particles of the film that constitute the image and provides you with recognizable subjects. Fast films have larger grain particles due to their superior sensitivity to light. In certain conditions such as sports photography in ambient light, professionals use fast films in order to obtain the fast shutter speeds required to freeze the action. For most photographers, grain is something to be avoided for quality prints but for some fine art photographers, grain, especially those from black and white films, offer another method of creative expression.
Ever flip through National Geographic Magazine and view the images from a more technical perspective? Before becoming interested in photography, I would read through my issues with more of an interest in the writing and merely glanced at the images with only the most compelling ones forcing me to look again. After taking up photography and becoming more interested in the images of the magazine, I noticed so many of the images had pronounced film grain visible, especially the double page spreads. I am not so sure if I personally would find that kind of grain to be acceptable but when it comes to National Geographic and their images, it is often the case that the subject is so compelling enough that the technical merits of the image are secondary. Protection for Film
I use Printfile Archival sleeves, available at most if not all of Vancouver's serious photo stores. They are not extravagantly priced and offer thick and durable sleeves that do not stick to the film or prints like other sleeves purporting to be archival in nature. I use various types of Printfile sleeves for the films I shoot and the prints I store away in binders.
Since I have limited space to store my film and slides, I use regular office binders to store the sleeves and file them away on a bookshelf. Eventually I will have the space to setup a hanging file system with a dedicated filing cabinet to keep the film completely in the dark. I use to go to the trouble of archiving and labelling my negative films too but I found that I was shooting too much of the stuff for me to keep up with it and I abandoned the negatives. After receiving the prints and film back from the processor I leave the film in the sleeves from the processor and toss them away into a box that is a step above the common shoebox. With a digital point and shoot camera in hand, the box should remain stable in size. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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How
about after you have had the film processed, what do you do with it?
You need to protect the film in some manner to ensure that they will
be available when called upon at a later date. Since many serious photographers
choose to use slide film, I will discuss this first.