The dreaded Provia blue cast problem?
So I'm a relative novice when it comes to shooting slide film, I haven't gotten into all the nuances of shooting with a particular film. I had heard about problems with a blue cast when shooting Fuji Provia 100F in the shade or in general when it is underexposed, but my first ten or so rolls I did not encounter this problem. I've been mostly shooting sunsets recently, so I'm mostly exposing for the sky, leaving the foreground completely underexposed. The sky is usually very orange during sunsets (as you can imagine), and that's what I had been getting in my shots.
Recently I shot a series of sunsets which all turned up a heavy blue cast in the sky instead of the familiar orange that I normally see in my shots. The blue was very very severe. I didn't change any of my shooting procedures though - I used center-weighted metering, pointed my camera completely into the sky, took a meter reading, then underexposed my final shot so that it matched that reading. I'm confused as to how this could have resulted in such a heavy blue cast when previously I had not had this problem.
Some other possible considerations:
- I did just buy a batch of 10 new rolls from B&H Photo. One of the rolls was from a Wolf Camera, but most of them were from B&H. I suppose I could have gotten a bad batch.
- I had all of the rolls processed by one particular lab. I had used them once before without any problems, but since all of these rolls were processed at the same time, maybe they messed up the development by using bad chemicals? When I asked the lab about the results, they indicated that the results I got were typical Provia and that there was nothing wrong with the processing.
- The rolls had been in the freezer until about seven hours before I shot them, and the ambient temperature was in the low 50's. I heard somewhere that Provia tends to have a blue cast when it is physically cold. Do I need to heat the film up to 70 degrees or so before I shoot?
- Maybe I've just been lucky with my shots so far, since everyone says that Provia reacts like this?
I guess it's time for me to buy an 81B filter to protect myself from these kinds of results in the future. I'll get shoot a few more rolls without the filter and develop them somewhere else just to verify that this is in fact a problem, then I suppose I'll just have to learn when I need to use the 81B and when I don't.
Recently I shot a series of sunsets which all turned up a heavy blue cast in the sky instead of the familiar orange that I normally see in my shots. The blue was very very severe. I didn't change any of my shooting procedures though - I used center-weighted metering, pointed my camera completely into the sky, took a meter reading, then underexposed my final shot so that it matched that reading. I'm confused as to how this could have resulted in such a heavy blue cast when previously I had not had this problem.
Some other possible considerations:
- I did just buy a batch of 10 new rolls from B&H Photo. One of the rolls was from a Wolf Camera, but most of them were from B&H. I suppose I could have gotten a bad batch.
- I had all of the rolls processed by one particular lab. I had used them once before without any problems, but since all of these rolls were processed at the same time, maybe they messed up the development by using bad chemicals? When I asked the lab about the results, they indicated that the results I got were typical Provia and that there was nothing wrong with the processing.
- The rolls had been in the freezer until about seven hours before I shot them, and the ambient temperature was in the low 50's. I heard somewhere that Provia tends to have a blue cast when it is physically cold. Do I need to heat the film up to 70 degrees or so before I shoot?
- Maybe I've just been lucky with my shots so far, since everyone says that Provia reacts like this?
I guess it's time for me to buy an 81B filter to protect myself from these kinds of results in the future. I'll get shoot a few more rolls without the filter and develop them somewhere else just to verify that this is in fact a problem, then I suppose I'll just have to learn when I need to use the 81B and when I don't.
posted by Chris at 11:45 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home