Dynamic Range Info

Alexander McCarron · December 1, 2010

Hi,

I cannot for the life of me figure out where to get information about the dynamic range of different kinds of 16mm film.

Kodak's website is horrible and B&H just lists 7219's latitude as "wide".

Any clues? A chart with comparisons of dynamic range across different formats?

Thanks,

Alex

K Borowski · December 1, 2010

Figure maybe two stops under, and five over before you lose quality.

It's not an absolute. And, are you talking about dynamic range or latitude? There's a difference, no?

Some people talk about latitude meaning how far you go on film before you descend into base fog, or how high you go before you get into maximum black on the negative (blown highlights). Others are talking about mainly the linear portion of a film's characteristic curve, maybe a little bit into the heel and toe. There you are looking at an increase in grain, color shift, non-linear response compared to the straight portion of the curve.

There's still information there, but you are getting less density per camera stop of exposure increase/decrease. In the highlights you run into halation, maximum black, kind of like "recording in the red" on analog tape.

In the shadows you get ugly grain and start to see the base fog if you are trying to print underexposed areas up.

Hal Smith · December 1, 2010

Look at the Sensometric curves on page 4 of this pdf from Kodak's webpage to get a feel for 7219's exposure range.

5219/7219

Alexander McCarron · December 1, 2010

Thanks for the replies.

This sensometric curve seems to be saying it's 5 stops under before you hit black. I did shoot something though with one side of my face 2 stops under, the other side two stops over and the wall behind me 4 stops under and the darker side of my face looks fairly dark, like one more stop under would be just barely exposed.

I guess there is also a problem with digital transfer?