Which Slide Film for Red Tones

[clarence]

Hello. My flatmate has just suddenly requested my help in taking some pictures of her painting. The problem is that she requires slides, and the painting is almost entirely in monochromatic shades of red.

I almost never use slide film, and I need to photograph her piece tomorrow. Does anyone know which slide films would be good for distinguishing the red tones?

I will probably be lighting the piece with diffuse flash light, and shooting with the J-9 or J-3 on my Bessa R, depending on how much distance I can work with.

Thank you very much.

Clarence

[clarence]

According to this website, Kodak Elite Chrome 200 has the highest red sensitivity.

http://www.robertreeves.com/colslide.htm

Does that mean that Elite Chrome 200 might be best suited to my purposes?

Clarence

[Kin Lau]

Go for a neutral E6 film. High red sensitivity is great for astrophotography, but you don't want the reds to start blocking up.

A lower contrast film would be good too.

[dmr]

The one I might suggest for reds and other warm tones is ... ...

{drum roll} ... Kodachrome! {cymbal crash!}

[Bryce]

Not a very thoroughly formed opinion, but an experience.
My mother got an award for an all red flower she grew at the county fair. Naturally she wanted a photo...
My younger brother and I tried using: Canon 10D, Sony 707, Fujicolor 200, and Astia. The reason the initial digital images were thrown out was that the vivid reds in the flower's petals seemed to "clip", leaving no detail on the petals.
The Astia handled the job beautifully, clearly showing veins in the petals and such, the print film not so well.

[kaiyen]

As others have mentioned, you'll want a more neutral, less saturated film. The more saturated it is, the more it'll block up. Velvia, for instance, will add so much red to the image that you won't have any detail. Astia would be my recommendation.

allan

[stephen_lumsden]

Hi

I was looking at the B+W website a while ago and they sell a redhancer filter which may be interesting.

rgds

Stephen

[Pherdinand]

it also depends a lot on the lights you will use. Diffuse flash light might not be what most people use here.
Certainly something with lower saturation is needed.

I wonder about why you would use a rf for this. Framing is not that easy as wit a good slr on a tripod, i think.

[Pherdinand]

I see you have a mamiya 6 kit "for sale". How about using THAT and 6x6 slides before selling it?
You know... what's better than a 35mm slide?

[clarence]

Thank you for the comments, everyone. Unfortunately, I was not able to access rff in time to look at the responses. I ended up buying a roll of Sensia at the shop near school.

I was rather disappointed because it was very much a rushed job with limited resources and with little time for preparation. I even had to push the Sensia a little because the room and the painting were so large. Why didn't I use an SLR? I don't own one.

The Mamiya 6 would have made nice slides, but I'm not doing this for myself. I've even made 6x9 slides in the past. 35mm slides are cheaper and easier to process, mount and project, however. For my own purposes, I hardly shoot slide film (or colour film for that matter) anymore.

I am interested in the lessons to be learnt, though. From your responses, it seems that red sensitive film will saturate the reds more, which might result in blocking.

Clarence

[varjag]

Well there are several issues. Some folks say that Kodak chromes have red-yellow bias as opposed to Fuji's green. Not sure if the difference is substantial but could be worth comparing.

Whether details get blocked or not is not a function of color sensitivity, but mostly of film's contrast. By the way things work, saturated films inevitably have higher contrast which limits their tonal scale. It should still be possible for a film with noticable red bias but not oversaturated to render fine shades of red. Which however rules out all sorts of Velvia and Kodak E100VS.

I liked the reds (and other colors too) I was getting with Astia, a nice, gentle slide film, so I can second the recommendation.

[Bryce]

For whatever it is worth, you chose a good film for the job; Sensia 100 is the very same emulsion as pre "F" Astia.