Cinefilms are Daylight or Tungsten, what about still films?

[Andreas Wideroe]

Why is it that cine film is either Tungsten or Daylight balanced while still photo films are not (at least the package doesn't tell)?

Best regards,
Andreas

[MovieStuff]

Color negative still films are always daylight balanced to work with daylight or flash. The only exception to this is VPL, which was a tungsten balanced professional negative still film. Slide film is clearly marked as to color temp.

Roger

[onsuper8]

Because flash-guns are balanced daylight - frequencies?

"...the Speedlite 580EX improves on many specifications of its predecessor, and includes new features to improve digital EOS SLR flash results. These include transfer of colour temperature data to optimise the white balance compensation..."

I'm just guessing!

[super8man]

long ago, for normal photography, you had to decide on buying outdoor or indoor film. This was when a fast film was ASA25 or 50 at best. So, as things moved along, movie film required tungsten while most photography was outdoors so daylight balanced film won the day...its a longer story but that's about it. Modern flash was daylight balanced. Daylight balanced movie LAMPS that had to stay on for long periods of time were not. So you ended up with different lighting sources.

Tungsten is where its at if you ask me...I still recall using orange filters on my outdoor still photography on my Contaflex. Good times. None of this seeing what the picture will look like before you got it back - only TLRs gave you that experience...

[MovieStuff]

long ago, for normal photography, you had to decide on buying outdoor or indoor film.

Not for color negative still film, which I believe has always been daylight balanced. Slide film is a different story, with options for daylight or tungsten balance. 3400K was the "type A" because it came first but wasn't called "type A" for the same reason that the first world war wasn't called WWI until after we had a second world war. When the industry found that bulbs lasted much longer by lowering the color temp 200 degrees to 3200K, then that was called Type B film and 3400K film was then called Type A, since it came first. But I do believe that negative film was always daylight balanced.

Roger

[super8man]

I boxed up my Minicam Photography magazines...will have to check another time if there is reference to a indoor/outdoor negative film. Funny - Minicam refers to the big depate back then about how downhill photogaphy had gone with the introduction of 35mm "miniature" cameras (you know, like the Nikon F, etc). Go figure. 120 was the smallest film size for the pros back in the day...makes me sad I sold all my clear flashbulbs (P5) to the movie studio supply houses a while back...

[MovieStuff]

I boxed up my Minicam Photography magazines...will have to check another time if there is reference to a indoor/outdoor negative film.

I remember the indoor/outdoor film but I believe it was referring to ASA. The outdoor was a slower film. I don't recall the indoor negative being tungsten but I would not be surprised if I am wrong.

....makes me sad I sold all my clear flashbulbs (P5) to the movie studio supply houses a while back...

A funny but true story on my part. I used to work for Skylark camera when I was right out of high school. One of my first duties was to move stock around on the shelves, specifically the flashbulbs and photo flood bulbs. We had the basic type A and type B tunsten bulbs as well as the blue "daylight" bulbs (which were really only 4800 degrees K). We also had some of the blue magnesium bulbs that were used by photographers that employed view cameras to shoot interiors for architectural mags and the such. The photographer would turn off the lights in the room and replace all the screw in bulbs with the magnesium bulbs. He would then open the shutter on the camera and turn on the room lights. The magnesium bulbs would go off like gigantic flash bulbs. Pretty cool. Anyway, one day a customer came in with some bandaged fingers and wanted to talk to my manager. Apparently I had sold the guy some magnesium bulbs, thinking they were the blue daylight bulbs. He went to screw one into a live socket and it went off in his hand, burning his fingers slightly. Oops. :oops:

Roger

[super8man]

I had a couple of those normal lightbulb size flashbulbs..popular for train photography too since the size of the train is so huge for depth of field purposes...neatest bulbs you ever saw...like a chrome spiderweb inside the thing...

[Jim Carlile]

I boxed up my Minicam Photography magazines...will have to check another time if there is reference to a indoor/outdoor negative film. Funny - Minicam refers to the big depate back then about how downhill photogaphy had gone with the introduction of 35mm "miniature" cameras (you know, like the Nikon F, etc). Go figure.

I think the reason for the lack of concern in negative film was that they figured any serious color correction could be remedied by the filter pack. So nobody really worried about the color temperature. Back in those days they were just happy to get an exposure reading.

I love the debates in Minicam. If you go farther back, the big issue was 'pictorialist' versus "purist." Those were fighting words back then.

What's funny is to see all the old cine issues come up again... and again... and again.

[Jim Carlile]

Update:

An old copy of Modern Photography from the early 50's notes in their data chart that Kodacolor came in both outdoors and Type A. Ektacolor came in Type B. Outdoor Kodacolor could be used indoors with "blue" flashbulbs.

I remember Kodacolor in daylight rolls, but rarely saw indoor film, at least out here. I remember lots of blue flashbulbs, though, which obviously took care of the color problem. Apparently that's how it was used...

[MovieStuff]

Update:

An old copy of Modern Photography from the early 50's notes in their data chart that Kodacolor came in both outdoors and Type A. Ektacolor came in Type B. Outdoor Kodacolor could be used indoors with "blue" flashbulbs.

Ah, yes. Now I remember Ektacolor. It was the predecessor to Vericolor or VPS professional film. Kodacolor was the consumer counterpart. If I remember correctly, both Ektacolor and Kodacolor from that era could be developed at about room temp but the bleach was realllly nasty (ferricyanide, I think?). Can't remember the developer but I do remember being bummed out that when they dropped Ektacolor and replaced it with VPS they also replaced the original Kodacolor with Kodacolor II, both of which now had to be processed at about 100 degrees, which made casual darkroom work kind of a drag. While I remember VPS being daylight and VPL being tungsten, I still don't recall ever seeing Ektacolor or Kodacolor in tungsten but I guess they did. Like Jim says, I remember lots of blue flash bulbs......

Roger

[Angus]

I remember blue flash bulbs! I was very young of course, but the explanation I was given was that there was another type of flash bulb but it made the pictures come out red...my five year old logic asked "why do they make them then?" and I do not know the answer!

I strongly suspect my dad still has some blue flash bulbs somewhere for his home-made flash gun...which fits either to his home-made plate camera or his Zeiss-Ikon folding 120.

[audadvnc]

I was just down at the local photo arts center; somebody must have just cleaned out grandpa's darkroom and brought in about a dozen GE #22 flashbulbs. They are lightbulb size, and fit into standard Edison screw-in sockets - you can but you shouldn't fire 'em off with 120VAC. I grabbed 3 and took 'em home.

http://graflex.org/flash/technical.html

[wado1942]

Which brings up the next question, has anybody tried using motion picture film in a still camera? I usually take pictures indoors and I don't like using a flash because the exposure of the foreground and background get out of proportion. So I wind up using black & white film or using a filter that reduce the already-insufficient light another stop. So why not use Vision2 500 or something in your still camera? You'd have to buy a short end or something, cut it and load it into the can yourself but still....

[jpolzfuss]

Hi,

Tungsten balanced films for still photography:
Fuji 64 T Type II Professional (RTP II) (still available)
Kodak Professional Porta 100T (discontinued in 2006)
...

Jörg