Ramelton, County Donegal, On 35mm Film
Updated: Mar 15
This shot was captured by the Canon EOS 50 (below) on Fujifilm Reala film. I also used a flashgun tilted up slightly to bring out the colours in the overhanging autumn leaves. Reala was by far my favourite film. I usually shot it a stop over to maximise shadow detail. In some ways I miss shooting sharp, high quality colour negative film.
The highlight detail in colour negative film develops more than the detail in the shadows. This means negative film can easily withstand a stop or two of overexposure. Overexposed negative film will retain more highlight detail than slide film (and will compete very well with the best digital captures, too), and the detail in the shadows will also increase.
The layers and chemical structure in overexposed negative film will work together to reduce grain and enhance sharpness. But it’s important to remember that pushing the film too far will cause these gains to break down. So just a stop or two is ideal.
Colour casts are significantly reduced when negative film is overexposed. When exposed normally to daylight, each layer gets sufficient exposure, but if the prevailing light source is unbalanced, an unpleasant cast will result because one or more of the layers gets too little exposure.
Overexposure will boost the starved layer without harming the others. So the orange glow, so typical of indoor light, and the greenish cast from fluorescent light will be less noticeable. Again, too much exposure will undermine the benefits.
I used the Plustek OpticFilm 8100 scanner and SilverFast scanning software to get the most from the tonal range, then processed the 16-bit TIFF.
