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Substituting Negative for Reversal


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Hey all,

 

We're planning on shooting some pickups for a project we shot on 7266 TriX B&W Reversal. The issue that has arisen is that some of the wide exterior night shots, we found, dropped off incredibly on reversal, even when overexposed a little. We don't have the lights needed to light vast areas either unfortunately.

 

So, for our pickups, we're looking to substitute some of the exterior night establishing shots with some high ASA negative, and then desaturate and up the contrast (if needed) in post. Does anyone have any suggestions on filmstock to use?

 

Thanks all,

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Hey all,

 

We're planning on shooting some pickups for a project we shot on 7266 TriX B&W Reversal. The issue that has arisen is that some of the wide exterior night shots, we found, dropped off incredibly on reversal, even when overexposed a little. We don't have the lights needed to light vast areas either unfortunately.

 

So, for our pickups, we're looking to substitute some of the exterior night establishing shots with some high ASA negative, and then desaturate and up the contrast (if needed) in post. Does anyone have any suggestions on filmstock to use?

 

Thanks all,

 

You couldn't push the tri-x a stop?

 

or is your problem more to do with the latitude of reversal?

 

Plus-X neg pushed a stop might have worked.

I always find desaturated colour neg tends to look very different to b&w film but if you are not intercutting the two maybeit won't matter?

 

love

 

Freya

Edited by Freya Black
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You couldn't push the tri-x a stop?

 

or is your problem more to do with the latitude of reversal?

 

Plus-X neg pushed a stop might have worked.

I always find desaturated colour neg tends to look very different to b&w film but if you are not intercutting the two maybeit won't matter?

 

love

 

Freya

 

 

Thanks Freya. I actually think the lab did push a stop but the reversal just drops off to black so suddenly, and with our minimal light kit, its difficult. I do agree though about desaturating color to black and white. It doesn't always look the same, but since the scenes are all night shots, the contrast tends to be higher to begin with and, as you said, they aren't intercutting with anything. Hopefully it will work.

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Like Simon Wyss said, try getting some ORWO 74 B/W 400ASA pushed +1 stop(800ASA) or +2/3rds(to 640ASA).

You said wide exterior shots, with not much light.

So in combination with the ORWO film, perhaps run the camera at 8fps so that the shutter is opener longer, letting in more light and use a f1.4 lens apeture opening. I'm assuming the shots you need are of the location setting and wont contain people, in which case you could run the fps-rate even slower at 2-6 fps.

If people or cars are featured in the shots, then simply have them move/drive slower and shoot at 8fps.

Any thoughts on this approach?

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I don't think the problem is the exposure, it's the curve, the gamma. Reversal by nature is steeper and it's going to drop off.

 

Night shots are always tricky with reversal. Stick with the negative and a lab that knows how to do it-- since your only choice is Double-X now, realistically.

 

If you had lots of time and money you could do tests with the lab and try to place the exposure on the best part of the curve for the optimum results in that shooting situation with different development times and developers, but absent that, go negative.

 

That way you can overexpose it a little for a thinner negative and better transfer results. You'll get more detail. Reversal can't be played this way-- it doesn't work the same.

Edited by Jim Carlile
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