Greetings, All:

This is not a Leica-specific question but given the interests of others using these cameras for available light there is likely great knowledge to help me with this.

I went with the M-system and a fast 35 lens to get back to available light photography with no fill flash -- I shoot mostly ASA400 color print film. This is proving highly rewarding except when shooting indoors with room light. Predictably, these photos have the orange cast that comes from using daylight film with incadescent bulbs.

Does one just endure, or is there (preferably a single) filter that Leica-philes use in these situations?

Thank you.

Matt

-- Matt Sachs (mattsachs@attbi.com), May 06, 2002

Answers

If you are shooting color neg, skip the filter and fix it in the printing, or photoshop, or leave it warm. Filter will only slow your speed down. If you were doing chromes you were sending out, though, you should filter (if you want neutral color, and not warm that is), as otherwise will look like you don't know what you are doing. More an issue with ugly florescent green than tungsten, though (look at Bill Allard's or DA Harvey's indoor stuff under tungsten--usually very warm and un"fixed.")

-- Charles (c.mason@uaf.edu), May 06, 2002.

Better yet, shoot real film--TRI-X, and forget all these darned color problems! ; )

-- Charles (c.mason@uaf.edu), May 06, 2002.

Do not expect Leica quality prints from (unfiltered) color negative film used indoors. This is because the blue portion of the light spectrum is deficient and will be underexposed on the film, ergo the orange cast you speak of. Efforts by the photo lab technician to rebalance the film for accurate color will only emphasize this underexposed blue portion of the negative, which is at best thin and grainy.

Using color negative film indoors can provide very good results, worthy of your M, given the proper filtration, the use of a high quality fast film and preferability a Summilux. My favorite film is Fuji Press/Superia 800 (or 1600 if needed). Depending on the interior lighting, the color temperature indoors will usually vary from 2700 to 3400 degrees Kelvin. I use B&W KB 6, 12, or 15 filters to rebalance the Fuji Daylight film for these blue deficient light environments. If you want to start with the purchase of just one filter I would recommend the KB 12 which will color balance daylight film down to 3300 degrees Kelvin. The price for the color accuracy provided by this filter will be 1 precious f stop please. ;-)

If you find that you want to go beyond the one filter, then to help select the proper filter(s) a color meter is very useful to get a measurement of the lighting color in degrees Kelvin. The best three color meters are made by Broncolor, Gossen and Minolta, see: http://www.photodo.com/nav/artindex.html and then look under techniques-filter. Unfortunately these meters all cost up near $1000. A much more affordable solution is to shop on ebay for either an old Gossen Sixticolor selenium meter for around $70 or an older model Minolta Color Meter II for around $300.

-- Doug from Tumwater (dbaker9128@aol.com), May 06, 2002.

I shoot Fuji NPH400 90% of the time. When inside, I use a standard 80A filter (also recommended for their film by Fuji) under tungsten light. Works like a charm. Don't get too involved with the issue; it's really quite simple. All of my work is digitized, then processed in PhotoShop. But the rules are simple: outside, shoot unfiltered; inside under tungsten, shoot w/ an 80A blue filter (mine is a B+W). There's a 1-stop loss; if that's critical, shoot P800.

-- Patrick (pg@patrickgarner.com), May 06, 2002.

Patrick, 80A needs 2 stop correction, not 1, otherwise agreed !

-- sait (akkirman@clear.net.nz), May 06, 2002.

I use Kodak's Portra 400NC indoors all the time and the results are supurb. The NC is a low contrast film which works very well in the typically high contrast lighting indoors. It also handles flouresent light.

-- John Collier (jbcollier@shaw.ca), May 06, 2002.

I used to use an 80A + colour negative (either Fuji P800 or if the client was paying then Fuji NPZ 800), but after a museum shoot last year I stopped using the 80A filter as I found you can easily correct the colour-cast in pshop. Just make sure you have a photo of a black + white + grey target to give you something to RGB sample when doing the colour balance (via the pshop curves tool).

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), May 06, 2002.