density

Lazlo

New member
I'm going to be shooting a short 16mm film soon, and the one look I want to avoid that seems to be really prevelant in amateur 16mm is a general washed out low contrast negative. Is this a transfer issue? exposure issue? equipment? I'm thinking more along the lines of "in cold blood". Just as a general guideline. We'll be shooting on an arriflex BL, and predominantly on kodak 7222 since the film is mostly at night.
 
It's a mix of problems -- misexposure, low-contrast zoom lenses, overcast weather or flat lighting, etc. but mostly it's a matter of how it's transferred. Colorists will generally default to transferring all the info on the neg to tape even if it makes the transfer look low-con, so you'll want to be there for the transfer if you want to make it snappier-looking.

Lighting also plays a big part. In b&w, it's hard to add enough contrast in the transfer if you shoot on an overcast day with no black reference in the shot -- good tonal range in the frame is more important in b&w than in color since a b&w image is entirely made up of tones and textures.

So make your photography as rich as possible, contrast-wise, and then make sure you are there when it gets transferred to maintain that look.
 

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