Film processing

[Blade]

I was wondering if someone could explain the process when you send your film to the lab:

 

When someone sends say a 400 foot roll of 16mm film get processed is the chemical process always the say no matter what stock is it?

 

When you send the film to the lab and you tell the lab to process "best light" what does that entail? is that part of the chemical process or the transfer to tape process?

 

Thanks,

Tom

[David Mullen ASC]

All motion picture color negative stocks use the same ECN-2 process (color negative still film usually uses C-41). The only variations are whether you want normal, push, or pull processing (and unusual processes like skip bleach.)

 

"Best Light" has nothing to do with processing, only printing or telecine transfer of the processed film. It's a compromise between the cheaper "one light" printing (entire roll printed at one light) or scene-to-scene correction (every shot adjusted to look good).

[Blade]

All motion picture color negative stocks use the same ECN-2 process (color negative still film usually uses C-41).  The only variations are whether you want normal, push, or pull processing (and unusual processes like skip bleach.)

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David,

 

If say that I had a shot that was dark and needed to be "pushed", if a I did not request it. Am I out of luck or can I still "push" it say one stop during the transfer? or another way?

 

Thanks,

Tom

[Sam Wells]

You can't process "normal" and "pushed" on the same roll !

 

The dark shot could be printed "brighter" i.e. numerically lower (as this is negative) printer lights, or made brighter in telecine transfer.

 

Typically with color negative it's better to work the other way around, "print down" i.e. darker when you need to.

 

-Sam

[David Mullen ASC]

Pushing or pulling has to be determined before you shoot the shot because you can only do the special processing instructions to the entire roll, not shot-by-shot, so if you had one shot that needed to be pushed, you'd have to make sure it was on its own roll. You don't want a bunch of stuff already shot on the roll, exposed normally, to get pushed, you'd have to break the roll and put the to-be-pushed material onto a new roll.

 

After processing was done normally, you can't change your mind. At that point, you're talking about color timing the print to be lighter or color-correcting the video transfer to be brighter if needed.

[Dominic Case]

Pushing refers to an increase in deveping time, in an attempt to compensate for under-exposure. (It's a compromise at best).

 

Obviously you can't push (or pull, ie iunderdevelop) part of a roll. (The lab couldn't even cut the problem shot out of the roll and process it separately, because no-one can see the image to cut it, until after processing.)

 

The standard process is usually controlled to within 0.1 of a degree temperature, and within 1 second of the normal dev time (3 minutes). Pushing one stop is about a 20% change.

 

Lab processing machines operate on a continuous basis, with several thousand feet of film passing through each chemical solution in turn. In order to vary the process for push processing (sometimes also called forced processing), it's necessary to run several thousand feet of dummy leader into the machine before changing the speed, or temperature, etc. That takes a lot more time than ususal - hence the surcharge you invariably have to pay for push-processing.

 

Printing up, or correcting on telecine, are different processes - theydon't affect the negative at all. Don't refer to that as "pushing" - it's only confusing to do so.

[Dirk DeJonghe]

Dominic,

 

In my opinion, pushing a negative does not really help the to increase the film speed because D-Min also increases. Pushing and pulling will change the gamma and the printing lights but will hardly gain any additional information.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Dominic,

 

In my opinion, pushing a negative does not really help the to increase the film speed because D-Min also increases. Pushing and pulling will change the gamma and the printing lights but will hardly gain any additional information.

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The "real" speed increase for a push-1 process is usually much less than one stop. You get a denser negative that prints/transfers closer to a "normal" negative, but since you don't really get a full stop of speed increase, you lose shadow detail. Others have noted the change in contrast and the increase in granularity.

[Dominic Case]

I quite agree with Dirk that you don't really get much increase in speed by push processing. If you measure speed in the scientific way, you would find that there was only a slight increase in actual speed (the exposure needed to reach a certain density above d-min when processed to a certain gamma etc etc). The d-min goes up - though not as much as the mid-scale densities - which reduces the measured amount.

 

What you get, by pushing, is an increase in mid-scale density that is equivalent to the loss in density caused by under-exposing. That means that you can print the negative at the same light as if you had exposed and processed normally, and see a roughly correct image. As the d-min is increased slightly, the blacks are a little less black, and that may allow you to see very slightly more into the shadows without having to print lighter. But (as John says) it's certainly not as much as a stop.

[Greg Gross]

I agree with John, I'm experienced in dark room with b&w and color film

processing and also with printing both. A lot of the time with pushing and

pulling you don't get the desired effect as you wish,its at times more subtle

than you want. The age of the chemicals will definitely effect the outcome.

In the late 80's I used to do some color development of film and custom color

prints in my darkroom. I believe I could use my color development chemicals

(film) for about 20 rolls of 35mm film,36 shots. I believe I was using Agfa chem-

icals and I do not remember any Kodak chemicals being available. At the time

I was a stickler for controls(still am) its my German photography training. I only

developed 5 or 6 rolls(36 shots each) and then started using fresh chemicals. I

always got very good results,better than lab. For prints I would use a drum sys-

tem for agitation and would pour chemicals in and out of a drum. I'm speaking of

color prints. I had a color enlarger with built in filters in its head. Someone told

told me one time that I could not do color work in my darkroom. I made a tele-

phone call to my mentor and got the low down on color. I built a system of water

baths that were heated with professional aquarium heaters to maintain temps. of

chemicals. I used Kodak paper for my color prints(custom,hand made). Today I

do my own custom b&w creative,film processing and printing. I also make custom

b&w prints for other photographers in the city. Pulling and pushing is just a matter

of timing during processing. You may not get what you really want.

[Greg Gross]

My girl friend Stephanie is a graduate of a film school in Philadelphia. She's

a cinematographer and I'm a student cinematographer. This past Sunday I

left her shoot a roll of Kodak b&w film (35mm,36 shot) on my Nikon F4S. We

then went in my darkroom and I talked her through developing the film. Well

you should have seen her face when she took the film out of the wash un-rolled

it from the reel(stainless steel) and hung it up to dry! She started looking at each

negative and was just amazed. What is this thing called love?, I mean film.

Maybe film is love? It never ceases to amaze me how people react the very first

time they process the film they have shot. Maybe all student cinematographers

should process at least one roll of film for the experience. Stephanie really flipped

when we started to print some of the negatives, when she saw her images come

to life in a tray full of Kodak paper developer. At one time I was married and had

four stepdaughters,thats right,I lived in a house with five women. Well I loved

those girls more than anything in the world,turned them all in to photographers

and spoiled the hell out of them. I was like my hero,John cassavettes with a still

camera. I will never forget the look on their faces the first time they saw an image

come to life in a tray full of paper developer. Ah!...the magic of film. I wish I could

process movie film and print it like we do still film.

Greg Gross,Professional Photographer

Student Cinematographer

[GeorgeSelinsky]

I wish I could process movie film and print it like we do still film.

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In case you're interested, http://www.geocities.com/gselinsky

 

Actually, processing movie film for me (at least reversal 16mm which you can put on a projector as soon as it's dry) was even more fun than 35mm B&W still neg. It's like "wow, I just saved myself $10 and did it myself!".

 

But it's a pain in the ass with the long rolls and large amounts of film you have to shoot for any decent project. It's not exactly the same thing as rolling around that little Omega stainless steel tank. Also, the issue of storing lots of chemicals and having to monitor them, replenish them, etc. makes it much less fun to do than still photography (unless you're just gonna mix and dump, which is much less economical and also not as environmentally sound) - that and fighting off the dust.

 

Super 8 may be the only feasible exception (especially when you consider the high cost of getting it processed commercially), but if you're going to shoot a feature where you're gonna run a few hundred rolls of film that also requires work.

 

The other problem is that doing prints would mean doing two processing runs, one for the negative, another again for the print.

 

My ideal scenario would be to have a table top box that would process my film, use little water (relying on a viscious processing formula), and have processing chemistry that installs as easily as a printer cartridge. The film goes in one end and comes out the other perfectly dry. Then I take it and stick it into a tabletop telecine device and do my own dailies, digitize directly onto my hard drive. Then I go and get my negative matched, and take the cut negative to the lab where I can time the film remotely on a monitor in my house while it rolls on the lab's Hazeltine, make test "still frames" onto printstock of various timing lights. The test still frames come back to me as slides. I view them on my Kodak carousel slide projector, make the changes, upload them to the lab, and voila, my print comes back a week later!

 

- G.

Edited November 17, 2004 by GeorgeSelinsky

[Guest Sean McVeigh]

In case you're interested, http://www.geocities.com/gselinsky

 

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interesting study. I was doing the same thing a few months back, although I never bothered to track down the costs of the chemistry. Definitely worthwhile. For the record, I am planning on building a continuous processor at some point in the future (when I finally get around to working in batches of 30,000 feet or similar). If the machine cost $1000 to build, it would still be worthwhile, and think of the buisiness you could drum up if you don't happen to have a local lab. I'll have to let you know how that goes.

Also considering adapting a Nikon Coolscan 4000 or similar for neg scanning at 4K. Just need to fabricate an intermittent movement for it (and probably some sort of cleaning path on the way in). Wouldn't it be fun to compete with the labs by offering 4K scans at $1/foot or so! (of course, it would be blindingly slow.. what do those things run at? 40 seconds per frame or so? eek!) Again, probably $1000 investment to get that project going.

 

Sounds like we both are after the same set of machines :)

 

-Sean