Film color casts

Many of the reviews of the several available films make reference to "color cast" of the film. Ektar, for instance, is said to emphasize warm colors more than Velvia. This has always been true of films, and back in the days when we had to have them printed by professionals it mattered more than it does now. We were pretty much stuck with how the print came out, although when I printed my own color prints I was accustomed to changing the filtration to adjust color. Of course that is time consuming in the extreme; you can't know how a change in filtration has affected a print until after it was developed.

With computers we can see on the screen how the picture will look when printed, and we can instantly make changes to suit our own tastes. So it no longer matters what colors are "favored" by a particular film. I have Photoshop. I can adjust it any way I like. What matters most now are the sharpness of the film and its range of shading (or shadow/bright detail). I don't care how contrasty or not the film is, if the detail is present I can adjust the contrast just as I can the color. But I can't easily fix poor detail, especially in the shadows.

When I finish running my tests I will probably post results and samples of enlarged detail to this blog. Gotta say, though, dragging three heavy cameras (or 2 heavy and one light), the tripod, a spot-meter and minor odds and ends is kinda heavy going. So far I've really enjoyed returning to film shooting. I'd forgotten the pleasures of taking pictures thoughtfully and carefully, rather than just shooting a bunch and throwing away the obvious losers. It's a little harder to grab a shot with my Rollei, because I have to use the spotmeter to calculate the f/stops and shutter speed separately, then dial them in. However, different cameras for different uses; I wouldn't use the Rollei for action photos anyway. The Pentax 645 is plenty quick and fairly simple to operate (compared to the Canon 5D). I'd use the Canon for people shooting, lower natural light, indoor work, and save the Rollei for landscapes and other scenics.

Anybody else out there testing this idea out?