All Purpose Film?

I had a bit of a mind blowing experience yesterday evening at my brother-in-laws. He's moving into medium format with a very nice Bronica and Twin Lens Mamiya.

He'd bought a flood light kit with what appear to be 250 Watt white, frosted bulbs.

I mentioned that if he wanted to shoot colour, he'd need to get some blue 80A or 80B filters - which he promptly did (Cokin).

Then he shot test rolls on both 120 and 220 Kodak Professional (VR?) 400 ISO.

He shot a wooden owl carving against a pure white backdrop (bed sheet) with 80A, 80B, 81A and 81B filters and then several with no filter.

He used a Sekonic studio meter for all shots.

Other than a few stops either way making a difference in greyness of the backdrop and colour of the brown owl, there was no noticable difference between these shots.

I nearly fell over! I fully expected the non corrected shots to have an amber cast - especially the white sheet! Nothing!

OK, says I, maybe those white bulbs are somehow corrected. But then the 80A and 80B shots should have a blue tinge? Like using these filters outdors? Nothing.

Is it possible this film is some how multi-usage, and compensates for tungsten? The film's carton does not mention Indoor or Outdoor anywhere.

I feel like a complete dolt here, and have embarassed myself in front of
brother-in-law who is a huge Nikon fan when in 35mm format.

Halp! Pentax guy sinkin' fast.......

If it was print film then the printers would probably have compensated for colour balance when printing. If you scan the negs you will see the diference. (you might even be able to tell just by looking at them - though it is hard to tell given the orange cast of colour negative film)

Tony,

Thanks for your prompt reply

I asked evil brother-in-law (nice guy - just misguided by N***n salesmen) if he'd asked that his developer - a Montreal - based professional camera store (see last comment) not fool with the developing, and he sais "Yes", that he'd mentioned that these were test rolls.

We'll look at the negs to see if we can spot the difference but, as you said, trying to see an orange tint in colour negatives may be beyond us.

(probably just add to my headache )

Hi Mac,

Just a quick thought... the 80 series blue filters are the right ones for correcting tungsten lighting on daylight film. But the 81 series amber/orange are too weak to correct tungsten film for daylight bulbs, you'd need the stronger 85 series orange filters to see a major effect.

Will