tungsten slide problem

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Tina

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Hello,

i'm new to the forum, and a painter, not a photographer so I hope I'm posting in the right section! I'm hoping someone will be able to help me. I recently took some slides of my paintings, with Kodak tungsten ektachrome slide film. they have come out with a greenish cast. i had tungsten lights on, but it was taken in a large shared studio so there were some fluorescent lights on nearby so the light from them may have been leaked in.

But I do have some doubt that maybe it was film developers place's fault. the surround of each slide is green, rather than black. I don't understand how the surround has come out green unless it was developed incorrectly. the film developed insisted it had been developed correctly but that the film was at fault. I know it was in date though.

Any thoughts/ help would be appreciated. I have to reshoot the paintings within the next week and can't afford to get it wrong again.

I've got examples I could post up, but having difficulty working out how to do it at the moment:shake:
 
Who processed your film? It sounds a bit like they could be at fault, although a green cast is also typical of fluorescent light. You've done the right thing in getting tungsten film for exposing by tungsten light.

Is it possible you can take some test shots before your deadline with the fluorescent lights switched off to either confirm or eliminate those lights as the source of your problem?

You have some free space here in Gallery to upload your shots to if you'd like us to have a look at them. :)
 
If the unexposed parts of the film are green then it does sound like a problem either with the film or the processing - possibly a reversal bath or colour dev. problem if memory serves.

When you re-shoot shoot an extra roll and ask for a clip test on that roll - the lab will cut off the first few frames of the roll and just process them. If the clip test is the same ask the lab if they can explain the green cast. If you're not happy, take the rest of the roll to a different lab and try a clip there. E6 processing isn't that hard as long as you stay on top of everything it runs smoothly and fairly consistently - most problems are normally running too fast or slow. I can't remember the plot ever running green when I worked E6 :thinking:
 
I have to say too that some of the high street processors at the cheap end are awful, and chemical exhaustion and contamination aren't uncommon. Pay a bit more and go to a reputable lab.
 
Thanks for your replies. I just tried to upload the pics to the gallery but they're too big, and I don't have photoshop or anything to reduce them.

I used Snappy Snaps to develop them - they came out perfectly last time I used them so I thought I was safe to go back there. Perhaps it was the film though too - I bought it about six weeks ago and kept it in the fridge, maybe that didn't help.

I'll try and find a different room to take the next batch in where I can turn off all the fluorescent lights, try a different lab, and perhaps try 2 different brands of film, kodak and fuji - or 2 of the same and ask for the clip test. thanks again for your insights - the slides are for my MA application so I want them to be as perfect as possible.
 
Tina, I've PM'd you my e-mail address if you want send me an example I'll post it up for you It doesn't matter about the size - if you can send it I can receive it.
 
Tina said:
Thanks for your replies. I just tried to upload the pics to the gallery but they're too big, and I don't have photoshop or anything to reduce them.
Click to expand...

Everybody has Paint, dont they ?
open with paint
Image > stretch & skew > reduce horizontal and vertical by percentage.
 
thanks CT, joxby - I didn't know you could do that on Paint, that's very useful. I've uploaded them - they look even worse than I first though now I've looked at them more. as well as the green shine, they are a lot darker and duller than they are in reality, and the dark areas have a kind of reddish glow which shouldn't be there. on the bottom of 'barn' there's a green strip - that's the 'surround' (is it called a plot?) of the slide. snappy snaps scanned them for me unmounted. anyway, live and learn, I'll try again with new film etc

lake1.jpg


forest.jpg


barn.jpg
 
Tina, I edited your last post to show your pics.
 
From what I can see the paintings look good. Can't say the same about the photographs!

Where are you and what are the pictures for? Is there no one with a decent digital camera that could help you out? A picture of a reference grey card taken under the same lighting would make colour correction easy with digital.
 
It's kinda hard to tell from the shots but it does seem as though there's a green cast in the shadows/blacks. I don't think that's come from the strip lights. One the first image it looks worst in the bottom left corner which suggests fogging might be a possibility as well, it would be interesting to see that frame out of the slide mount as that might confirm what's going on there.
 
I'm in London, the pictures are to apply for an MA in Painting - they only accept slides, so I can't use a digital camera. None of the pictures are in slide mounts, they were scanned straight from the strip. The paintings were actually hung sideways to photograph them, and the greenish bits are worst on all of them on bottom part (ie the left hand side of the lake one as I've turned it round 90 degrees), so maybe the flourescent light bounced off the floor or something - i think our floor at college is a light shiny grey so it's a possibility.
 
Erm, I'm confused - the shots above don't show the full piece of film - ie the side with the holes/frame numbering/etc. If the green corner extends onto that piece and looks the same for each frame I would suspect the film was fogged at some point. It might have been in camera or after. If it was after you should see a pattern where the fogging reduces as the film gets to one end where it was wound up inisde the canister.
 
hi, no snappy snaps must have tried to scan just the image (without the holes etc). it's just on some of them, like the bottom one with the barn, that there is a bright green strip - this is the dividing bit of film between images that would extend up to the bit with the holes etc. i suppose they just weren't too accurate with the scanning. I don't think it was fogged, the whole thing is fairly consistent the whole way through. plus i used 2 films, and they have both come out the same - i bought them at the same time though and stored them in the same way so they may have both been defective. or snappy snaps screwed them both up. or i'm just a rubbish photographer. or quite possibly all 3.
 
by the way, the white bit round the paintings is the white wall that I took them against, it's not a mount
 
Ah, ok I don't think it's fogging then. The green strip at the bottom of the barn, are all the unexposed areas of the film like that?
 
yes all the unexposed parts of the film are the same green. showing up very bright green on the scan, and mid-green when I look at the developed slide strip in reality
 
It's very strange, the unexposed areas seem to be showing up brighter than some of the exposed areas. I'm not sure where the problem might be, film stock, processing error, or camera fault. I would try shooting another roll of different stock and get it processed before you need to shoot the pictures again to see if you get similar results.
 
I think its processing.
If you take the green cast out of the equation, they're still pretty poor.
Try some Fujichrome 64T to eliminate dodgy film, and get them developed somewhere else.
I'm guessing 8 comb-over baldy blokes smoking pipes in tweed elbow patched jackets, sit about examining your work slide projected lifesize on to a screen...
Dont worry about any scans, the important bit is the quality of the negs, get them on a light box and have a good look with a loupe, pick your best and get those mounted.
The scans aren't likely to be very good unless you pay for a pro job, snappyprints whoever they are probably cater for joe public, who's quality standard for scans isn't very high..
 
joxby said:
I'm guessing 8 comb-over baldy blokes smoking pipes in tweed elbow patched jackets, sit about examining your work slide projected lifesize on to a screen...
Click to expand...

:lol: Now now!
 
Weeelll
I know...but....shes having to hang her future MA success on comb-over technology, fact is quality E6 processing doesn't exist in the quantity it did 25-30 years ago.
You cant trust any of the big consumer processors to do the job right first time every time, they're just processing holiday snaps, I'd pick a lab that would do 120 E6 for my 35mm, because they'd probably do it by hand, thus they'd need to know a little about what they were doing and not just the whereabouts of the stop/start button.
 
joxby said:
I think its processing.
Click to expand...

I'd be tempted to say that as well but I can't see how the dark areas in frame have stayed fairly dark but the unexposed areas outside the frame are showing up such a bright green and not just on the scans.

But not being able to see the film itself, or even a shot of it on a lightbox makes it hard to guess what's going on.
 
:) i'm not sure about the baldy comb-over bit but you're right they do project the slides to look at them in most of the colleges, only one of them just uses a lightbox. I'll google a good processing lab and go to them next time. maybe i'll take some slides in natural light as well with daylight film just to hedge my bets.
 
Good luck Tina hope it works out for you. :)
 
Fyi keeping film in the fridge is the right thing to do, for long term storage put it in the freezer.
 
Steep said:
Fyi keeping film in the fridge is the right thing to do, for long term storage put it in the freezer.
Click to expand...

You know... this has just given me a feeling I might have an idea what the problem is. Ever since Tina posted I had the feeling I'd encountered this green cast thing before but couldn't remember what I'd attributed it to.

It's true you can keep the film in the fridge, even the freezer for long term storage, but it's best to leave the film out at room temperature for a while, (before loading) particularly if it's been in the freezer, when overnight or 24 hours wouldn't be overdoing it to let the temperature even out and condensation clear up. I'm pretty sure that was the cause of the problem when I experienced very similar issues.

Something to be aware of anyway.
 
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