Morguefile : Classroom : lesson 4

Lesson Four: ISO, Grain, Transparency vs. Negative, Specialty Films

In today’s world of digital cameras, a lot of you are probably looking at this lesson and wondering
exactly what the point is. I constantly argue with my husband (who is NOT a photographer) about
the future of film. He says it is going the way of vinyl records, but I insist that film will always be
there for us, even though I shoot almost exclusively digital today. Regardless of which of us is right,
to ignore the history of film and an understanding of how it works together with light would be a
mistake. So we’ll go into a little lesson on the history of photography and film in this lesson and
then talk a bit about how this affects us in a digital world. One thing to note is that while many
professional printing houses have moved to accept digital files, transparencies are still widely
accepted and preferred by a wide range of professional photographers and printers, not to mention
the folks who shoot black and white and enjoy that time in the darkroom developing their own
shots. There’s nothing quite like it, and I think that will be here to stay forever.

Film - A History Of Its Beginnings

It's difficult to imagine a world without photography. Photographs changed the world in ways that we
can barely imagine. We can now literally see things that happen all the way across the world without
ever leaving our home. We can communicate visually with people who don't even speak our
language. That world without photography existed just 165 years ago. Before that, people relied on
paintings and verbal descriptions, which were entirely dependent on conscious or subconscious
alterations interjected by the people that used these methods to communicate.

Prior to the creation of a successful photographic process, man was fascinated with the idea of
creating a photograph. Leonardo DaVinci made drawings of plans for a basic camera as far back as
1519, but there was no way to actually capture images that would last permanently using this tool.
Over the next several hundred years, many scientists noticed that forms of silver, when exposed to
light, would darken. That basic camera, called a Camera Obscura, could be used to actually create
images using this silver solution, but there was no way to make the image permanent.

In 1827, a man by the name of Niépce (pronounced Nee-ps) found a way to make a light-sensitive
silver solution harden. It required an exposure time of eight hours or more, but this was actually the
very first successful photograph. Niépce called these Heliographs. He then went into a partnership
with a man name Daguerre. Niépce died shortly thereafter, but Daguerre kept working on the
photographic process and found a way to decrease exposure time to less than a half hour, and also a
way to use salt to make the images permanent. These images formed positive "prints" on metal plates.
Daguerre called his images Daguerreotypes and is largely credited today with discovering
photography.

This entire process caused QUITE a stir. (Daguerre's wife was about the only person who was happy
with his results, because she'd spent the last several years thinking her husband was losing his mind
working night and day on this project.) People had never seen such images before with such detail
and found it kind of disturbing. Many called daguerreotypes blasphemy and the work of the devil.
Then there were the painters and artists who were terrified that photography would overtake what
they did for a living and feared that they would have to find new professions. I find that last note of
particular interest because today I hear the same sort of thing from others in my profession who have
spent the last thirty or forty years shooting film and are now daunted by digital photography and it's
ease of use contributing to the number of photographers growing by leaps and bounds.

I have seen daguerreotypes and they are truly beautiful and amazing, though aside from the end
process of capturing an image made of light and making it permanent, the process is very different
from any current photographic technique used today. Further advancements that got us to the point
where we are today were: the ability to transfer these permanent images to paper rather than metal
plates; the ability to copy these images without having to re-take the picture; the invention of
celluloid film - then the invention of COLOR celluloid film; motion picture photography and…
digital photography - the latest step in the journey of advancements.

Okay, But How Does Film Work?

So now we sort of have a history of where photography came from, but how does film actually work?
Let's talk about light for a minute.

There's something called the electromagnetic spectrum. It's composed of everything from microwaves
to radio waves and ultraviolet waves to infrared waves. Somewhere in the middle of all of that is a
tiny little section of light waves that the human eye can see and interpret into different colors from red
to yellow to blue.

Light is really weird stuff. According to the physics books it's not REALLY a wave but it's not
REALLY a particle, either. It's made up of photons. People who understand physics might be able to
grasp the whole thing, but I'm going to assume that since I don't understand exactly what photons are,
you can understand the basics of film without really knowing what they are, too. So we're going to
just go by faith that it's these photons that cause the sensitive stuff on the film to make the picture you
wind up with.

This "sensitive stuff" is made up of gelatin and something called silver-halide crystals. It's referred to
as the "emulsion" of the film. These silver-halide crystals are what detect the photons that are hitting
the film and the gelatin holds it all together. When light hits them, these little crystals cluster together
into bunches, depending upon how much light is hitting them, and when enough of them cluster
together, you get a dark spot on your film in the shape of whatever is in your image. In color images,
there are separate layers for red, green and blue that all have little crystals working together to create
a final product.

ISO and Exposure

Now, in lesson two we talked about aperture and shutter speed and how they affect exposure. Since
you have that down, I'll introduce a third element that we can throw in to further complicate the whole
business. Your camera's film has something called a "speed", too. It's usually referred to in units of
ISO (which stands for the International Standards Organization) and typically comes in the following
speeds:

ISO 25 - Slowest Film

ISO 50
ISO 100
ISO 200
ISO 400
ISO 800, 1000 and 1600 - Fastest Films

The "faster" the film is, the more quickly it will respond to the light that hits it. Remember when we
talked about Niépce needing an eight-hour exposure for his photograph to "set" and Daguerre
shortened that to a half hour? That would sort of be like Niépce using ISO 25 film and Daguerre using
ISO 400 film. Of course, celluloid film is much more sensitive than that so you don't need
ridiculously long exposures, but that should give you an idea of the difference in films. If you double
the film speed (in ISO units), you can decrease the aperture size by one f-stop or shutter speed by one
click and get an equivalent exposure.

So… You would want to buy the fastest film you can get your hands on, right? Unfortunately, no.
The slowest films are made up of much, much smaller silver-halide crystals. It takes those itty-bitty
crystals quite a while longer to move across the film surface and cluster up where the light is directing
it than faster film, which is made up of larger silver-halide crystals. The different sized crystals cause
something called "grain". As a general rule, the faster the film, the larger the film grain. So the
professionals tend to use the slowest films that they can. Grain tends to get in the way of an image
and cause less "perceived" sharpness. Grain will be especially apparent on enlargements of
photographs and give the print the appearance of having freckles. Of course, grain can also be used
for effect. High-contrast, black and white images can be made even more dramatic with a heavy
grain, as can gritty subject matter.
 This is an image where I used grain to add to the
photo, artistically:

This shot was intentionally made as a very bright (referred to as "high-key"), high-contrast image to
showcase the flaming red hair and tattoo. Below is a close up viewed at 100% magnification showing
the grain in the image. Without the grain, the vast white areas would just seem overexposed when
viewed as a print, but the grain adds a textural feel to the image that holds it all together.
Grain is most often used creatively in black and white photography, because there are many films that
lend themselves nicely to beautiful, fine grain patterns. It's best to go with a film that will eliminate
any grain unless you have a reason for wanting it there.
Here's a chart of sorts to give you an idea of which films work best for what lighting conditions:
Film
Characteristics Advantages Disadvantages
Speed
Beautiful, crystal clear prints
As close to flawless as
with highly saturated colors - Difficult to use with moving
possible, almost
ISO 25 excellent for use in landscape subjects unless you have bright
impossible to see grain,
- 50 photographs and studio work light, tripod definitely needed for
even in large
with controlled lighting. Pros any low light situations
enlargements.
will recommend nothing else.
Still normally need a tripod unless
ISO Still a fairly low grain - Good for portraiture under
light is very bright - very few
100 - useful on sunny days or controlled lighting conditions
advantages over higher quality
200 with flash. and outdoor photography.
ISO 25 or 50.
Best suited for situations
Most print film
when you don’t have any
manufacturers market Quality due to grain becomes a bit
idea what lighting conditions
ISO this as a versatile, all- of an issue at this point if you plan
will be or will be moving
400 around film to be used on making any enlargements, but
from indoors to outdoors and
under various lighting still acceptable for snapshots.
not have the ability to change
conditions.
film.
Quite grainy, good for
ISO low light situations Very similar to 1000 & 1600 Grain visible even in standard
800 when flash is not below. sized prints.
possible.
VERY high grain in shots - this is
Used a lot for situations like
the reason you see grain in a lot of
Highly grainy, good for basketball games or stage
ISO indoor sports photography. It’s
action shots in low light performances. Can still use
1000 - come to be acceptable, even
situations when flash is reasonable shutter speeds to
1600 expected, in those circumstances
not possible. capture action under very low
because it’s the only film that will
light conditions.
capture such situations.

Taking Care Of Film

Film is very delicate and also very easily damaged. Film is sensitive to all kinds of things, including
X- rays (watch those airports!), chemicals (including salt if you're in an ocean environment), heat
(don't leave your loaded camera in a car on a hot day), abrasion from rough handling and of course,
light. Film is also susceptible to fungus if kept in high humidity, which will cause blotches, so be
careful of that, too. Film that has gotten old or been exposed to high temperatures may have an ugly
greenish tint or a mottled appearance. X-rays will cause unsightly lines and impressions in your
developed film. And rough handling will be apparent in spots that show up looking like cracks, flecks
or the actual appearance of the film looking torn or broken. If you buy film and are going to use it
within a couple of weeks, you can keep it at room temperature. If you stock up and plan on keeping
your film around for a while, however, you should store it in your refrigerator. Be good to your film
and it will be good to you!
Types Of Film

Now that you have a general idea of how film works, we can talk about all of the different types of
film.

Negative Film - Also Called Print Film

If you are looking to wind up with a nice set of prints, this is mostly the type of film you will use. The
film box will usually say something like "film for color prints". You take your roll of photographs,
then your exposed film will have to be processed by a lab to create a "negative". You've all seen these
- the colors are reversed. The negative is then used to produce a print using the "positive" colors. A
piece of equipment called an enlarger is used to project the negative image onto light sensitive
printing paper. Then in the last step, that paper itself is processed to give you your print.

One good thing about negative film is that even if you expose it incorrectly, there is still usually
enough detail in the negative that a print can be made to look just fine. In fact, the machines that
printers use today are "smart" enough that they know if you've exposed your print wrong and will
automatically print it to the exposure it thinks is correct. A handy thing for that picture of grandma
blowing out her birthday candles when the flash didn't go off, but not at all good for learning
photography. You might think you're exposing your photographs correctly, but the "smart" printing
machine is actually fixing any mistakes you might be making. You can be off by two or three f-stops
and never even know when you look at your final prints.

Positive Film - Also Called Slide or Transparency

Film
Positive film, as you might expect, is the opposite of negative film. After processing the film you will
have a set of positive images - also called slides or transparencies. If you want to make a living with
photography, slide film is the only way to go - agencies, editors and print houses will only accept a
print if it is phenomenal and they have no other choice. Normally they will only take slides (though
more and more they are moving into the world of digital, too - but I'm sticking to just discussing film
for the moment).

We talked about negatives above and how you can vary your exposure and still get a good print. Slide
film is not forgiving in that manner at all - slight over- or underexposure is nowhere near as tolerable
as color negative film. There are a couple of bonuses to that. Number one: You will definitely learn
how to expose your film properly using slide film, and working the manual controls on your camera
will become so second-nature you won't even have to think about it. Number two: Color slide film
reproduces faithfully and immediately exactly what you've seen though your viewfinder. There's only
one step - to develop the film. No running through an enlarger onto light-sensitive paper and then
having to develop that paper - no machines trying to interpret what you might have wanted that image
to look like, so there are way fewer steps in which to screw up your artistic vision.

The other great thing about transparency film is the amazing color saturation you can get. No print
film in the world can match the beautiful colors you can capture on transparency film specially
formulated for landscapes. They also make special transparency film for portraits and other uses.
There are too many different films for me to discuss specifics here, but a trip to your camera store to
discuss the various professional transparency films that they stock can be a real eye-opener. I highly
recommend test-driving some of these films - once you've got proper exposure mastered, you'll be
amazed at your results.
 Black And White Film
Color negative and transparency film are the two most common types of film, but one of the most fun
films is black and white film. Whereas color film requires a considerable expense in the materials
needed to develop and print your own images, black and white does not, meaning it gives you the
freedom to do so relatively inexpensively. Without actually having a hands-on class, I won't go into
the details of processing black and white film, but if you ever get the chance, you should give it a try.
Working in a darkroom is great fun and when you're finished and have that final print in your hands
that you created yourself, it's a very rewarding experience.
Infrared Film

I'll touch on a couple more unusual types of film while we're discussing different kinds. Infrared film
has some really unusual characteristics that can make beautiful effects. While our eyes can't see the
infrared portion of the spectrum, this film can. Human skin and foliage both tend to reflect a LOT of
infrared light, so if you use black and white infrared film to take pictures of either people or
landscapes with a lot of green leaves or grass, you'll get beautiful creamy white tones that almost
seem to have a ghostly glow to them. Skies will turn an inky black while puffy clouds will stand out
brightly. I've seen wedding photographs shot with infrared film that turned out to be masterpieces,
and if you use infrared film for portraits on someone who happens to have an abundance of blemishes
on their face, you'll get back images where the subject has beautiful, glowing skin - because the
blemishes don't reflect infrared light any differently than the person's unblemished skin.
 A word of warning, however - shooting infrared is
very different than shooting regular film. Just like our eyes can't see infrared, a camera's light meter
can't see it either, so figuring out the proper exposure can be tricky. Many photographers use a system
of setting the camera's aperture the way they want it and then using varying shutter speeds, making
notes as they go. Then when you develop your film, you can see which shutter speed worked best and
use that as a rule of thumb. This process is called "bracketing" your exposures, and can be handy in
any tricky light situation, not just when using infrared film.

You'll also need a filter for your camera that will filter out all but the infrared light - there are several
to choose from, and I'd suggest a trip to your local camera shop to discuss the pros and cons of what
they might have available. Another important thing to note is that infrared film must be both loaded
into your camera and removed in absolute darkness or you can ruin your images.

Infrared has lots of goofy little quirks like that, but having your first successful prints done with
infrared is an exciting and rewarding experience. It's like seeing a world that you normally wouldn't
know existed. Most of the time the film manufacturer includes specific directions on important facts
you need to know when handling the film, so pay attention to those and you should be fine.
Tungsten-Balanced Film

When we walk outdoors after being inside with artificial light, our eyes don't perceive much of a
difference in the colors of things around us. Film, however, doesn't have the latitude that our eyes do
and it will give your images very unusual color casts if your lighting is not exactly the specific
"temperature" that the film was created for. Most films are balanced for natural lighting - daylight.

The Kelvin scale is what is used to measure the temperature of different types of light. The "warm",
vanilla-colored light that you see at sunrise, sunset, and in indoors measures between 2000K and
3000K. The "cool", bluish tinted lighting you see outdoors when it's overcast measures around
7500K. During the day when the light is bright, it's considered "white" and its temperature is about
5000K.

So that means that if you use film balanced for daylight when you're indoors under tungsten light the
color will be incorrectly balanced and the image will have a yellow or orange color cast. They make
tungsten-balanced film to correct this problem. Likewise, if you then take your tungsten-balanced
film outdoors and try and shoot a landscape, you'll find the opposite, a bluish color cast.

One of the best uses of tungsten balanced light that I've found is for photographing Christmas lights
during the winter. If you use regular film for this, a lot of times your photos will come back and those
spectacular colors of the Christmas lights will all come back looking white or yellow. With tungsten-
balanced film, all those marvelous colors will show up as big as life and you'll get exceptional
photographs.

If you're shooting indoors under artificial light, you may want to give tungsten-balanced color film a
try. Negative film is normally daylight-balanced, but because the printing process automatically
adjusts for color temperature differences, you generally won't notice any odd color cast when you get
your prints back from the lab if you took your pictures indoors.
What About Digital Cameras?

Since I know this is an online class and that means many of you are probably doing work digitally,
how does any of this apply to you? If your digital camera has manual settings, what do those ISO
markings mean? You're not using film - what's the point of having them on a digital camera?

You're right, digital cameras don't use film. They have image sensors that work in place of film. That
ISO marking means that the camera will set it's little computer to work as if it had that type of film in
it, making that number it's ISO equivalent. Just like film having larger grain with the faster ISOs,
using a faster ISO in your digital camera will give you a "noisier" image. Noise is sort of the digital
equivalent of grain. Just like film, you'll get the best image quality when you use your lowest ISO
settings available. This will require longer exposures, so a tripod might be necessary.

Photo taken at ISO 400 on my digital

Same photo taken at ISO 50 on my
camera, viewed at 100%
digital camera, viewed at 100%
magnification. Notice the severe noise
magnification. Big difference!
in the dark corner of the image.
Okay, so what about all that light and color temperature stuff?

If you have a DSLR camera or other professional camera that has the capability of taking photographs
in RAW format, you can always go in and change the white balance or exposure after you've taken
your photographs. When you take a photograph in RAW format, your image sensor records it just like
it sees it and doesn't add ANY sort of white balance to the shot and when you upload it to your
computer, you can then go in and make all sort of incremental adjustments until the shot is just right. I
shoot almost exclusively in RAW format with my digital camera.

If you don't have a camera that will let you take photos in RAW format, your camera probably comes
with settings you can use for daylight, cloudy, incandescent, fluorescent and other types of lighting,
depending on the camera. You can also use your camera's auto white balance, but beware - if the
camera guesses wrong and you need to go in and make changes using photo-editing software, image
quality degrades as you make changes to your picture. It's best to always set your white balance
manually if you can.

Onward to our assignments:

Assignment 1: Assignment 1: Using a film camera, take both a roll of slide film and a roll of
negative film. Use the bracketing system to take a couple of sets of shots that are:

2 stops underexposed
1 stop underexposed
Normal exposure
1 stop overexposed
2 stops overexposed

Assignment 2: Take notes on what your aperture, shutter speed and film speeds are set to on
your camera so that you can compare when you get your developed film back. When you do get
them, you'll be amazed. Most likely you won't be able to tell much difference in the negative
film that has been printed, but the slides will show a dramatic difference. Even if you don't shoot
much film, this is an excellent exercise in helping you understand exposure more in depth than
you do already. Compare the difference in color between the correctly exposed slides and prints.
Since these are not digital, unless you have access to a scanner, you won't be able to post your
results, but please post any relevant comments you might have.

Assignment 3: Take a white subject and photograph it both inside and outside, in both bright
light and dim light, using your camera's auto white balance. This is a good way to see how
accurate your camera's white balance actually is - are the whites really white? If so, great! Next,
if you have preset white balances on your camera, set the same white object up on a white or
black background and take pictures of it using each setting - sunny, cloudy, incandescent,
fluorescent. This will give you some idea of the differences in color temperature your camera
sees that your eye might not naturally notice.