Eterna 500

[Aleksandar Bracinac]

Hello people,

 

I've shoot last weekend some commercial on Eterna 500. I have very strange red color in shadows. Guys in lab told me that even chemistry in machine is redish and that thay have the red color every time when they put Fuji in machine. Every time I must use primary CC in Tk to fix that and that cost me a bit of grain and less space to work with colors on daVinci. When we put into the Tk any of Kodak's negative and test 35mm received from Kodak the balance is ok, but with Eterna - NO.

 

In samples I did simulate the red color we had in Tk.

 

Anyone can help with that? Maybe Tk showing bad colors with Fuji because Kodak has brought and serviced that machine for our lab? :D

 

 

 

 

Thank you,

 

Aleksandar Bracinac

Edited February 24, 2006 by Aleksandar Bracinac

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Strange. I just did a music vid on Eterna 500 and had no such problems. It was also shot at very low light levels and even pushed one stop to 1000ASA. Maybe the lab screwed it up?

[Andy Sparaco SOC]

Anyone can help with that? Maybe Tk showing bad colors with Fuji because Kodak has brought and serviced that machine for our lab? :D

 

 

Looks like the film has been flashed at a low level. Like heat or xray fogging to me.

[Aleksandar Bracinac]

To be more precise, not only mine projects has red in shadows. All Fuji stock they have processed has the same problem :blink:

[Stephen Williams]

To be more precise, not only mine projects has red in shadows. All Fuji stock they have processed has the same problem :blink:

 

Hi,

 

I would like to see Kodak test film on the telecine first. Everytime something does not look correct I insist on putting up test film. It's usually clear that there is a problem with the telecine.

 

Stephen

[Aleksandar Bracinac]

Hi Stephen,

 

I've put Kodak test film into the telecine and the colors look very good.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Hi Stephen,

 

I've put Kodak test film into the telecine and the colors look very good.

 

It could be that the Fuji film is more sensitive to something in the process that is causing an elevated level of fog in the red-sensitive layers.

[David Mullen ASC]

Obviously the lab is doing something wrong. Why not take your film to another lab for a comparison? No reason to pick a film stock based on which ones your labs can't screw up, afterall.

[John Holland]

Dont belive Kodak guy , Mr Mullen is correct lab f- up . try another one if you can . john holland .

[David Mullen ASC]

Oh, I think John could be right (he know more about this than any of us)... but obviously the lab shouldn't be processing it in such a way because I'm sure even the Kodak stock therefore isn't being processed in the best manner possible if it's on the edge of causing a color layer to fog like that.

 

Any reputable lab would be calling Fuji and sending samples to them, perhaps even getting a Fuji technician out to the lab. Labs talk to Kodak and Fuji technical reps all the time.

[Dan Goulder]

Since the red band appears in the same place in both samples, the problem is doubtfully a result of the photochemical process. If their telecine checks out okay, then they've just been developing the image you've been handing them. My guess is something happened to the stock somewhere between the time it left the Fuji factory and the time it was given to the lab for processing.

[John Holland]

David , bit unfair , that comment , just have been let down by Kodak over the years , so not a great supporter , miss Agfa . john holland

[Stephen Williams]

No reason to pick a film stock based on which ones your labs can't screw up, afterall.

 

David,

 

I often choose a stock for that reason!

 

Stephen

[Tenolian Bell]

In the AC article about Munich, Kaminiski says he loves Fuji stock but doesn't use it too often because most American labs are calibrated for Kodak stocks.

[sinisa.kukic]

i shot eterna for the last few projects i did. processed normal, pushed one stop, some scenes even two stops. no red color shift. the colors held up well even with a two stop push. had everything processed at fotokem.

[Mike Williamson]

I shot some tests of Eterna for a feature last year comparing regular and push one processing, and the pushed stock picked up a SLIGHT magenta bias in the skin tones that I didn't like, nothing like what you're seeing however. I agree with David that there's something going wrong at the lab, I've seen Eterna 500 sent to three different labs now and I haven't seen anything like what you're getting.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Dont belive Kodak guy , Mr Mullen is correct lab f- up . try another one if you can . john holland .

 

All I said was that the Fuji may be more sensitive to something in the lab's process that is causing some fogging. Kodak tries to design its films to be relatively insensitive to process variations.

[Charles MacDonald]

Obviously the lab is doing something wrong. Why not take your film to another lab for a comparison? No reason to pick a film stock based on which ones your labs can't screw up, afterall.

I have to agree. (David REALLY knows what he is doing, so I almost always learn something from his posts)

 

Fuji says right on the data sheet that they expect the process defined by Kodak is the one their film should run in. If you have to use that lab, ask them nicely to talk to the Fuji technical rep. I ma sure that Fuji would see it in their best interest to get to the bottom of the problem.

 

I don't know is fuji offers test strips to run in the ECN2 Process, but I would hazard a guess that the Kodak test strips may turn out to be off if the Fuji does not process right. Again the Fuji rep can quickly compare the labs records. If Kodak does supply the lab, I would not be surprised if the Kodak Rep might not be interested, as if the process is a bit off, the same problem may start to show up on Kodak stock if it drifts out of spec just a bit more.

 

NOW the posibility that the stock may have been cooked or other wise damaged has to be considered. Does Fuji have an office in your country? Did you get the film directly from them, or though a third party? IS their a posibility that the film might have been exposed to high temperatures etc.?

 

Can you shoot a test roll (even a few feet) with a colour chart and grey scale and ask the lab to run that to see if the process is still off?

[Aleksandar Bracinac]

I will send a piece of the same negative in other lab and I will see what will happen. I think that is the best way to start now. I have another shooting in few weeks and I don't want to play with colors again.

 

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Aleksandar

[Aleksandar Bracinac]

Laurent, are you serious? :D

 

The pictures are split-screen between the original film and corrected in Tk :)

 

 

Cheers,

Alex

[Dominic Case]

John Pytlak's answer was perfectly OK. If a lab process is slightly off target, but still within tolerance, it can affect some stocks more than others. And it's more likely that the lab will be running a process that is optimised for Kodak stock because Kodak provide considerably more support to labs in terms of sensitometric control, chemical analysis etc, than any other manufacturer does.

 

So the "don't believe Kodak guy" response was (in my opinion) not only uninformed, but out of order to Kodak in general, and incredibly unfair to John Pytlak personally, who invariably provides objective, expert and relevant answers based on facts, to discussions on this list (and several others) that often stray into unsupported opinion or blind guesswork.

 

And he didn't pay me to say that :rolleyes:

 

Moving on, John's theory is one possibility. Another concerns the telecine itself. Is it balanced for Fuji neg? The d-min on Fuji stocks is a litle different from Kodak's, and the normal colour balance is different too. It's not a right or wrong thing, they just are different, so the telecine needs a different basic line-up and masking set.

 

In other words you can't set it up for a standard Kodak test neg, then throw in the Fuji and NOT expect to have to correct it.

[Laurent Andrieux]

Laurent, are you serious? :D

 

The pictures are split-screen between the original film and corrected in Tk :)

 

 

Cheers,

Alex

 

:lol: :lol: :lol: I didn't see that point in the thread ! Thanks

 

(I deleted my useless post, don't bother).