Colour Neg DR

[KevinA]

I am just curious if the DR of films has been measured and posted anywhere. I have been shooting with Portra 160nc and i am somewhat blown away with the amount of dark and highlight detail that gets recorded.
Anyone else noticed it. I scan 48bit dng on a Coolscan 8000, the negs I am shooting are with a Rolleiflex T.

Kevin.

www.treewithoutabird.com

[Wseaton]

I can tell you from prior commercial scanning and printing experience that professional portrait films like NC, or even the prior VPS could record up to 15 stops. The problem though is that this density information is packed into a tighter integral and gets tougher to extract via scanning or optical printing. It's also not linear beyond 10 stops and crossover starts to occur.

Fuji print films might actually have a bit more shoulder range than Kodak's, but don't have the shadow detail.

Obviously professional print films can have their massive d-range exploited in terms of silky smooth portraiture and the dreaded wedding dress at high noon being 'no problem'. However, I'll still take slide for landscape work because the color compression that occurs with professional print films is insane.

[KevinA]

I can tell you from prior commercial scanning and printing experience that professional portrait films like NC, or even the prior VPS could record up to 15 stops. The problem though is that this density information is packed into a tighter integral and gets tougher to extract via scanning or optical printing. It's also not linear beyond 10 stops and crossover starts to occur.

Fuji print films might actually have a bit more shoulder range than Kodak's, but don't have the shadow detail.

Obviously professional print films can have their massive d-range exploited in terms of silky smooth portraiture and the dreaded wedding dress at high noon being 'no problem'. However, I'll still take slide for landscape work because the color compression that occurs with professional print films is insane.

I am finding portra lovely for landscape. I scan 48bit on a Coolscan, save as a dng. When I come to open it in Photoshop I can go anywhere I want to with it, i can put a sharp toe and shoulder on, increase sat and vib, slide the exposure from light to dark. Insane is correct so much more control than any digital I have used.

Kevin.

www.treewithoutabird.com

[KevinA]

Although not a DR test as such, I shot some film against my Canon to test under and over exposer capabilities, one thing it did tell me is how tight you have to be with digital exposure to get what you need in an image, when digital gives up it gives up completely and it's a fine line between being bang on and not good and total disaster, i now wonder how I get 15000 shots a year on digital :-) .  http://www.treewithoutabird.com/untitled-2.html
1/2 or 1 stop wrong and it will limit what you get in your shadows or highlights a lot. Highlights especially.


Kevin.

[timparkin]

Here's a rough test I did - I reckon 16-19 stops .. probably a good 10 of which are usable (i.e. not shoulder)

http://www.landscapegb.com/2011/05/kodaks-new-portra-400-film/

Tim

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I have some work in progress here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/59-sony-alpha-900-vs-67-analogue-round-2?start=1

It's about Ektar vs digital. My first measurement on Ektar 100 gave around 12 stops, but I have just reshot the Stouffer wedge I use. It's very close to my Sony Alpha 900 DSLR shot under identical conditions but I may need look more into scanning. In 2-3 weeks I will probably have drum scans also. This kind of testing takes a lot of time, turnaround time for film development here is about a week. So I first expose, wait a week for development, do my own scanning and send some samples to Berlin, German, for drum scans.

It seems that most authors find better DR values than what I have measured. So I refine my measurements.

Dominique Ventzke has been very forthcoming on helping with drum scans and good comments. He has a scanning service at: http://www.high-end-scans.de/


Best regards
Erik

I am just curious if the DR of films has been measured and posted anywhere. I have been shooting with Portra 160nc and i am somewhat blown away with the amount of dark and highlight detail that gets recorded.
Anyone else noticed it. I scan 48bit dng on a Coolscan 8000, the negs I am shooting are with a Rolleiflex T.

Kevin.

www.treewithoutabird.com

[marcmccalmont]

My personal favorite was Fuji Pro 160c this is from the provia 100f spec sheet
about 14-15 stops
Marc

[BartvanderWolf]

My personal favorite was Fuji Pro 160c this is from the provia 100f spec sheet
about 14-15 stops

Hi Marc,

The spec-sheet shown (Provia? slide film) suggests a more modest DR, something close to 2.5 Log E, or 8.3 stops. Color negative film can indeed record a much larger DR.

Cheers,
Bart