Color Saturation.

[Chris Dingley1]

Ok, I am shooting a super 16mm project. most likely on a 7218 film stock, although I will make my final decision after shoot tests. I am trying all the the colors to pop and I was told to over expose the the film by 1 stop and then tell the lab to not correct it.

 

But then I read that your supposed to under expose by 1/3 of a stop.

 

any suggestion?

 

Also if there is a super 16 film stock that you know of that is better for vibrant colors that would also be helpful.

[Toby L Edwards]

Not sure if this will help?

7285 is reversal stock, and is quite vibrant. Keep in mind 7285 is 100D. If your planing on using 7218 500T, 100D might be to slow for your project. Reversal fim also has less latitude as well.

Some examples would be MAN ON FIRE, DOMINO, and I think BLACK HAWK DOWN these films were also push processed I believe.

 

Fuji has a new VIBRANT stock 160 I think as well.

Good luck on your project.

Toby

[Zamir Merali]

The correct thing to do when using 7218 since it is a fairly high speed and thus rather grainy stock is to over expose by 1 stop. Since you are over exposing the colour saturation increases slightly but mainly the scene information is stored higher up in the film's curve. The higher area of the curve has less grain but make sure that when you print your film or when you telecine it, you tell them to darken it slightly (shooting a 18% gray card would really help). By overexposing you got less grain and more saturation but you darkened it to a normal brightness level so it looks much better. Under exposing would be the exact wrong thing to do since it would do the opposite of what you want (miky, grainy blacks and lower saturation).

[Chris Dingley1]

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

It's just a matter of taste, but I usually try to overexpose by no more than 2/3's a stop. 1 Full stop of overexposure, to me, you start to lose some color and it leans more towards white.

 

As far as what to tell the lab, just have then process it Normal, and if you're going to print, you'll definitely want them to correct it when it goes to timing. Same goes for telecine and grading it.

 

Underexposing by 1/3 mostly applies to video. When shooting DV or HD, it doesn't hurt to underexpose just a little bit to avoid blown out highlights and to have more information to pull from.