can you use daylight film in tungsten light?

[disconnekt]

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I recently came back to film photography after going fully digital for several years. I love the colors you can get from shooting slides, but I shoot both indoor and out and don't want to have one camera for tungsten and one for daylight film. Since it's been so many years since I shot film, I was wondering if anyone else has experience printing and/or scanning from slides shot on daylight film in tungsten light. Is it possible to correctly color balance? I don't mind not having the original color-balanced, but for scans and prints obviously it's a necessity...

 

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Michael-IIIf]

Daylight film used in tungsten lighting will have a yellow colour cast. It is possible to correct this in PhotoShop - add a Curves Adjustment Layer and mess around with the curves. You could also try opening the file in Adobe Camera Raw and playing with the colour balance.

 

If you end up with an image that you just can't get the balance right, then simply convert it to black and white. That's what I do

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[xjr]

Use filter,deep blue I think.

[rob_x2004]

For example have a look through the series 81s, 82s depending on the sort of film HOYA FILTERS - The Difference is Clear Everyone does em.

[waileong]

I recently came back to film photography after going fully digital for several years. I love the colors you can get from shooting slides, but I shoot both indoor and out and don't want to have one camera for tungsten and one for daylight film. Since it's been so many years since I shot film, I was wondering if anyone else has experience printing and/or scanning from slides shot on daylight film in tungsten light. Is it possible to correctly color balance? I don't mind not having the original color-balanced, but for scans and prints obviously it's a necessity...

 

Thanks in advance for your advice.

OF course you can. That's what filters are for.

[Mark Antony]

Is it possible to correctly color balance? I don't mind not having the original color-balanced, but for scans and prints obviously it's a necessity...

 

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

Open in Photoshop, open up the curves dialogue box, click on the white eyedropper (far right) click in the image the part that should be white– the image should now be balanced.

 

Mark

[disconnekt]

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Yes, the filter, of course, but it reduces the sensitivity by more than half, which kind of defeats the possibility of being able to shoot handheld indoors....

 

I was wondering if anyone had experience converting tungsten shots in Photoshop and if it's possible to get a good result or not? Of course, I can always convert to B&W to save a shot but that's not ideal.

[zapp]

Yes, the filter, of course, but it reduces the sensitivity by more than half, which kind of defeats the possibility of being able to shoot handheld indoors....

 

I was wondering if anyone had experience converting tungsten shots in Photoshop and if it's possible to get a good result or not? Of course, I can always convert to B&W to save a shot but that's not ideal.

 

That's what the white balance is there for. Even your chemical photo lab will adjust color prints to neutral colors. In Photoshop it is much easier and you have the controls at your finger tips. At the same time you will not have to worry about filter factors (losing light) or even worry about buying blue filters for different filter threads - Photoshop is your friend here.

[disconnekt]

Good, so would you say that in Photoshop, one has as much leeway in terms of color correction with color positive as one has with color negative? What about for straight photographic prints?

[Mark Antony]

I was wondering if anyone had experience converting tungsten shots in Photoshop and if it's possible to get a good result or not? Of course, I can always convert to B&W to save a shot but that's not ideal.

 

Yes, like my previous post stated, its easy in PS:

 

Do it all the time, like others have stated, PS can do it.

Mark

[disconnekt]

Excellent, thanks for the tips!! I get my first test roll back this afternoon and will immediately scan it and try this out.

[disconnekt]

I scanned my test roll yesterday and I must say that I cannot get a satisfactory result using PS's white balance tools to correct shots in tungsten light. I tweak and tweak away, but the photos are impossible to correctly color balance. The yellow is just too strong, and when I get close to a balanced color, the colors look dull and washed out, like an old photo.

[ghammer]

I scanned my test roll yesterday and I must say that I cannot get a satisfactory result using PS's white balance tools to correct shots in tungsten light. I tweak and tweak away, but the photos are impossible to correctly color balance. The yellow is just too strong, and when I get close to a balanced color, the colors look dull and washed out, like an old photo.

 

You try to do the impossible. A slide has not enough latitude for this kind of correction. Look at the channels of one of your slides exposed under tungsten light. The blue layer will be underexposed and the red layer overexposed. To be correctible there must be corresponding details in all layers. But for that the slide would have to be very flat. And this is the reason why shots on negatives can be corrected to a much larger extent. But even then: For best results you have to use filters, even rather strong filters. Sorry for you. Digital has advantages.

[rob_x2004]

Post an uncorrected slide here and give us a look. Might be an interesting exercise.

Also, this seems pretty concise Filter_factor and lets face it, one stop, actually less than, isnt the end of the world.

[ghammer]

Post an uncorrected slide here and give us a look. Might be an interesting exercise.

Also, this seems pretty concise Filter_factor and lets face it, one stop, actually less than, isnt the end of the world.

 

For conversion from tungsten to daylight you need a KB15 or KB12, so factor 4 or three.

[rob_x2004]

You need to go that hard if you are not using lamps and photofloods?

[disconnekt]

You try to do the impossible. A slide has not enough latitude for this kind of correction. Look at the channels of one of your slides exposed under tungsten light. The blue layer will be underexposed and the red layer overexposed. To be correctible there must be corresponding details in all layers. But for that the slide would have to be very flat. And this is the reason why shots on negatives can be corrected to a much larger extent. But even then: For best results you have to use filters, even rather strong filters. Sorry for you. Digital has advantages.

 

I think you are right, I was trying to do the impossible. It must certainly be true that negative film has much more latitude, not only for color but also for exposure.

 

In case anyone wants to have a go at it, here is one of the pictures to play with.

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[rob_x2004]

Yea you are probably right. I missed the bit about slide too. Give it a decent go later.

 

....

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[ghammer]

The picture has not to much contrast. So there is some hope. But for this kind of picture you are better with bounced flash. My quick fix:

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Hallo,

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[disconnekt]

Wow, you both did a much better job than I did. The colors still lack punch, but the balance is good. I used the white balance eyedropper in Lightroom on the white edging of the bib, which gave me quite a poor result which I then tweaked unsuccessfully. What did you do?