Weird yellow color on photos

[HeiSar]

Hi,

Just started shooting film after many years with digital camera and I still have much to (re)learn Last roll was shot with CineStill 800 Tungsten. Which is a film for tungsten lighting. So should be good choice shooting indoors, right? And outdoors in daylight it should produce a blueish tint to photos. Am I right so far? So, when I got my negatives back from the lab and scanned them they are all yellow (indoor and outdoor shots). When I open them in editing program I can see that there is almost no blue channel present or it is severely underexposed. Have I just completely misunderstood something?

 

[limr]

What camera?

It reminds me of the time I shot a roll of color with a yellow filter on the lens. It was a rangefinder so I never noticed until I was almost done with the roll.

It also looks a bit like redscale film - an effect that can also be achieved by loading the film reversed, emulsion side out.

I don't know enough about the Cinestill films or their effects to even offer a guess.

 

[480sparky]

How do the negatives themselves look? Maybe it's the scanning process introducing a color imbalance.

 

[HeiSar]

Camera used was Mamiya RB67. I thought about yellow filter also but I shot the roll with two different lenses and every frame has this same yellow colour.

Negatives have blue/purple color on them. Picture below (right). Left is my "normal" negative for comparison. With scanner I can't get any blue out of those. There just isn't any information on that channel. I also scanned an unprocessed RAW file but could get the colours right with that either. Juat trying to figure out what went wrong so I can avoid that in future.

 

[480sparky]

Maybe the film processor was getting stingy and re-used the developer on your roll.

 

[HeiSar]

I did contact the processor and asked them for an opinion. So far all I got was - "Everything looks normal and you should use 85B filter when shooting outdoors". But using that filter would make my photos even more orange/yellow...? My quess is that they didn't read my email properly. I have sent them a new one and hoping for an answer next week. I'm trying to figure out what the problem is: shooting, developing or scanning/processing.

 

[compur]

The Cinestill neg appears to have no yellow layer. The yellow layer is what gives you the blue in the positive.

 

[vintagesnaps]

I have some Cinestill in the fridge that I have yet to use... but I didn't think it was meant for bright sunny conditions. I think it's to get a more cinematic look to photos,but maybe better in lower light.

My experience with tungsten was using Panalure paper to do sun AKA 'lumen' prints. I got it in with a bunch of expired photo paper at at a camera swap where they threw it in with what else I bought, took it to my car... (no, they didn't want to get rid of it! lol). I hadn't bothered to look up what the paper was and in sunlight it got really funky and not in a good way. So I found out it was meant for tungsten or fluorescent light. So I can get nice lumen prints with it under the fluorescent light over the kitchen sink.

It seems vaguely familiar that those old Kodak 'series' filters included one meant for tungsten light for use with standard daylight based film. So the camera store may be right that you need a filter to use the cinestill outdoors.

I actually think that first one is really cool, I like it.

 

[HeiSar]

Thank you all for input. I understand that this is not the best film for outdoors and I should use a filter to get more accurate colours. But shouldn't the photos outdoors appear more blue instead of yellow and photos taken indoors should be more or less neutral colour? That is what is confusing me.

Maybe I just edit the photos to have Post-apocalyptic look and be happy with them

 

[limr]

Thank you all for input. I understand that this is not the best film for outdoors and I should use a filter to get more accurate colours. But shouldn't the photos outdoors appear more blue instead of yellow and photos taken indoors should be more or less neutral colour? That is what is confusing me.

Maybe I just edit the photos to have Post-apocalyptic look and be happy with them

Or convert to black and white.

 

[Pixeldawg1]

The film on the right has significant yellow in the image. The purple is yellow in a positive print (purple and yellow are opposite colors and so will show that way in the negative and positive images- purple on film equates to yellow on print). Looks like daylight in those images as well, so I would suspect that the film is unfit for daylight purposes. If the processing looked good, which it does and there is enough density in the exposure (which there is), then it has to be a color shift in the film. This can happen when there are extreme temperatures (mostly hot) or is specifically color balanced for things other than daylight. This particular film is also meant for Cinematography, which has some very different requirements in comparison to still images. It is NOT meant to be a "daylight film", but rather shot at night with Tungsten balanced lighting (3200k vs 5400k for daylight). The answer to your problem is don't use this film for outdoor, daylight images. It won't work and you WILL get these color shifts. Use a film (Kodak, Ilford or others... pick one) that is daylight balanced, which again is 5400 Kelvin degrees. Hope this helps and better luck on your next shoot. The RB is a lovely camera and you have to love the Kaaaaaaa-THUNKKKKKK.

 

[Pixeldawg1]

Thank you all for input. I understand that this is not the best film for outdoors and I should use a filter to get more accurate colours. But shouldn't the photos outdoors appear more blue instead of yellow and photos taken indoors should be more or less neutral colour? That is what is confusing me.

Maybe I just edit the photos to have Post-apocalyptic look and be happy with them

Or convert to black and white.

Nope... they will be yellow. And yes, indoor will be more balanced IF you have tungsten lights. Other indoor lights do not have the same Kelvin degrees, and so will also have a color shift. You are thinking of Ektachrome for the blue shift, which is a reversal film- makes slides. Kodak balanced it to be a "colder" film and made it blue bias, which often times made for unnatural blue skies or blue within the image (thus the "UV" filter was born, cutting down on the amount of blue in the image...). The thing you need to understand is the Kelvin degrees for different films. Daylight is 5400, and outdoors, is what you should be using. Any more questions about this, please ask. In the old days, when we shot in Fluorescent light, it would give a green cast, so we put a 10cc green filter onto a flash, then a 20cc magenta filter over the lens and it balanced everything to daylight. I have documentation that I give to my photo students and will be happy to e-mail it to anyone who wants it. Long and boring, but great information. Be well, one and all.

Cordially,

Mark

 

[webestang64]

Here at the lab I work at we get all sorts of colors shifts from these oddball Cinestill films and yet our C-41 process is near flawless. I wonder what the results would be if processed in the films correct ECN-2 process.

 

[HeiSar]

Thank you all for input. I understand that this is not the best film for outdoors and I should use a filter to get more accurate colours. But shouldn't the photos outdoors appear more blue instead of yellow and photos taken indoors should be more or less neutral colour? That is what is confusing me.

Maybe I just edit the photos to have Post-apocalyptic look and be happy with them

Or convert to black and white.

Nope... they will be yellow. And yes, indoor will be more balanced IF you have tungsten lights. Other indoor lights do not have the same Kelvin degrees, and so will also have a color shift. You are thinking of Ektachrome for the blue shift, which is a reversal film- makes slides. Kodak balanced it to be a "colder" film and made it blue bias, which often times made for unnatural blue skies or blue within the image (thus the "UV" filter was born, cutting down on the amount of blue in the image...). The thing you need to understand is the Kelvin degrees for different films. Daylight is 5400, and outdoors, is what you should be using. Any more questions about this, please ask. In the old days, when we shot in Fluorescent light, it would give a green cast, so we put a 10cc green filter onto a flash, then a 20cc magenta filter over the lens and it balanced everything to daylight. I have documentation that I give to my photo students and will be happy to e-mail it to anyone who wants it. Long and boring, but great information. Be well, one and all.

Cordially,

Mark

Thank you for all the information.

As an engineer I'm used to long and boring information Being an engineer is also why I want to know what went wrong. (I'll send you my Email on PM for that documentation). So far I have used more conventional films both B&W and colour and had no problems. This time wanted to try something different.

 

[earthmanbuck]

I saw something on Reddit not too long ago about a batch of Cinestill 800T in 120 format being recalled. It appears they rolled the film backwards, redscaling it. Maybe your roll was one of these unfortunate ones?

I've never shot 800T, although I do have 3 or 4 rolls in the fridge. I'm hoping your experience is an unusual one...redscale is fun, but not when you're not planning for it.