Is color process could be made successful like a bw

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I really could not use this Rollei 35 S camera. And I have no lightmeter and it makes everything more complicated. I am generally use cheap kodak and fuji film and I select sun casted areas for their saturated colors. But at every occasion , when the sun little bit loose its energy , photographs tend to loose their colors faraway faster , they look like bw color scans. Yes , I can put the lost colors with photoshop saturation but this was not I expect from a Rollei.

I thought BW pictures of gallery and my gallery are faraway technically better than most color scans.

Now the big question , Can I shoot for shadow and develop for highlight at color photography like zone system ? What is the way to get same colors at lower illuminated places as eye sees ?

Umut

[holmburgers]

Generally with color-negative film, you can get more saturated colors by overexposing 1 stop or more. If your pictures in shadow areas are very low-saturation, they might be underexposed.

Since there is less flexibility in color processing, the old zone system adage might not work, but exposing for the shadows is still a good idea, depending on the scene of course.

[Athiril]

With colour negative overexposing will decrease your saturation. The amount of opposing colour will increase more than subject colour density, thus less separation and also less contrast.

Spot meter whatever you want to have maximum saturation. For sunset/sunrise, this means severely underexposed foregrounds, just like slide film or digital, so you'd use a gradual ND or gradual reverse ND anyway, which you should be doing anyway to get the high pictorial contrast unless you want flat pictorial contrast.

Some films like 160S don't respond well to sunset colours, low saturation/low contrast doesn't explain failure to reproduce colour, it still should reproduce the colour, avoid those.

[markbarendt]

With colour negative overexposing will decrease your saturation. The amount of opposing colour will increase more than subject colour density, thus less separation and also less contrast.

Well we need to remember that lightness and saturation are not the same. A thicker negative simply prints lighter at a given enlarger exposure than a thinner one.

So, extra exposure of the film requires a corresponding eNlarger exposure change to place the main subject at the same brightness on the paper. As long as the print is coming from the straight line of the neg there will be little if any difference for the main subject on negs that are exposed several stops differently.

What extra film exposure can do on C-41 film is give us better shadow color and tone separation by getting them up onto the straight line. Better shadow color can easily be viewed as providing a better/more saturated photo.

Extra exposure reduces graininess too.

Given the really long straight line available on C-41, some extra exposure has little if any downside.

[holmburgers]

With colour negative overexposing will decrease your saturation....

I always heard that it was the opposite effect. Granted, I've never done rigorous tests, but the thinking is that overexposing puts down more dye in the film, and thus stronger colours. The opposite is true with slide film, where more exposure equals less dye.

At any rate, mark is right about reducing graininess, and that's probably the biggest reason to do it.

[Athiril]

I always heard that it was the opposite effect. Granted, I've never done rigorous tests, but the thinking is that overexposing puts down more dye in the film, and thus stronger colours. The opposite is true with slide film, where more exposure equals less dye.

At any rate, mark is right about reducing graininess, and that's probably the biggest reason to do it.

Internet myth. It doesn't tell you the whole story. More dye is the reason it's lower in saturation. As there is a smaller difference in max density minus min density of a particular colour. High density increases at a lower rate than lower densities with more exposure.

Mid tones is where the maximum contrast and saturation is.


Ever increasing exposure works only when your real life saturated objects are not in the highlights, and generally are below mid tones at a normal exposure at box speed. Try it sometime on a vivid sunset. You'd walk away with the conclusion that C-41 is rubbish for landscapes.

[Athiril]

Well we need to remember that lightness and saturation are not the same. A thicker negative simply prints lighter at a given enlarger exposure than a thinner one.

So, extra exposure of the film requires a corresponding eNlarger exposure change to place the main subject at the same brightness on the paper. As long as the print is coming from the straight line of the neg there will be little if any difference for the main subject on negs that are exposed several stops differently.

What extra film exposure can do on C-41 film is give us better shadow color and tone separation by getting them up onto the straight line. Better shadow color can easily be viewed as providing a better/more saturated photo.

Extra exposure reduces graininess too.

Given the really long straight line available on C-41, some extra exposure has little if any downside.

Extra exposure increases graininess, try it some time. You can end up with a thin image (read: thin image) where minimum image density is close to max.

Better shadows does not equal more saturation. You are compromising saturation above mid tones, and the tones above mid tones get compressed.

The colour separation gets smaller and smaller on the negative the more above mid tones you go.

Try shooting a sunset some time, and expose the sunset colours as mid tones, then expose for the shadows on the foreground and see where you get.

[markbarendt]

Extra exposure increases graininess, try it some time. You can end up with a thin image (read: thin image) where minimum image density is close to max.

Not understanding what you are really saying here. Extra exposure increases image density. True of both paper and film.

I do this regularly. Ilford agrees with me on the grain issue too. http://ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/20061301945161573.pdf

Better shadows does not equal more saturation. You are compromising saturation above mid tones, and the tones above mid tones get compressed.

The colour separation gets smaller and smaller on the negative the more above mid tones you go.

On the film, the tones only start getting compressed when they reach the shoulder. As long as we print from the straight line portion of the curve then separation of tones remains constant.

On films like Portra there is room to place a normal scene easily 3-stops up from what an incident meter might suggest without losing color balance or detail. This does make for a thick neg and requires more enlarger exposure to place the subjects in the scene on the heavily exposed films at the same brightness on paper as those from a "standard" exposure, but the relationships remain.

Try shooting a sunset some time, and expose the sunset colours as mid tones, then expose for the shadows on the foreground and see where you get.

The problem your posing isn't really about "getting that huge range all on film", it's about "getting it all on paper."

The problem you are posing here is a camera work problem where the photographer allows the subjects to get too far apart exposure wise.

Shooting a trash shot doesn't help.

[Athiril]

No its not about getting it all on paper, you are making several assumptions, the colour separation decreases with exposure on the negative. Tones start to compress even at +1 stops, regardless of what you want to believe, you need to give it a go and analyse the actual negatives.


Extra exposure increases density, hence you get a thinner image on a denser negative. Minimum density increases faster than maximum does with increased exposure. This also causes increased graininess.

[2F/2F]

...this was not I expect from a Rollei.

Why not?