advanced

Film Stock For Food Shots

I am getting ready to test some film stocks for some table top food shots I am going to do.

They will be telecined on a Spirit to DigiBeta.

I am planning to test 7285 (Ektachrome 100D) and 7212 (Vision2 100T)

I want to end up with sharp vibrant pictures with as little grain as possible.

Can anyone suggest any others stocks I should consider.

Thanks for any information.

John Mastrogiacomo
Spectra Video

John Mastragiacomo wrote :

>I am planning to test 7285 (Ektachrome 100D) and 7212 (Vision2 100T)

>I want to end up with sharp vibrant pictures with as little grain as >possible.

Hi,

You might be better shooting 5212, S35 if you want "as little grain as possible"

Stephen Williams DP
Zurich
www.stephenw.com

> I am getting ready to test some film stocks for some table top food >shots I am going to do.

What kind of food ? I think I'd be scared to shoot hamburgers on 7285
Tomatoes OTOH......

Sam Wells
film/nj/usa

Hey Sam,

I just finished shooting a spot as well as the stills for a cookbook (lots of food- in all kinds of weather) I was very happy with Fuji stocks, primarily F-64D and F-125T.

You can go to :
http://www.richgretz.com/photography/food/food.html to check out the stills... Shot on Fiji chroma stocks - Velvia 50 and 64T type II. Contact me off list if you would like a hand... I'd really like to help!

Richard W. Gretzinger
Director of Photography
www.richgretz.com

Thanks for the offer Rich ! -- but I was responding to someone else's inquiry - my tabletop days are long ago. You probably know this stuff better than I do. I think I was having food shoot flashbacks, weird colours and smells, you wake up in a sweat

Seems to me I'd shoot the hamburger and the bun on 7212, the lettuce on 7285 and the tomatoâ€™s on Kodachrome; composite 'em in post: THAT should give 7299 and it's 240 LUT's a run for it's money forgive me......

Sam "getting hungry" Wells
film/etc/nj

> John Mastragiacomo wrote :

> I am planning to test 7285 (Ektachrome 100D) and 7212 (Vision2 >100T)

Hi John,

Please do let us know the results of your testing.

I have been shooting a lot of table-top/food commercials recently on S16 and have been using on 7212 exclusively. I find that it gives me a lot of latitude in telecine.

For me, I really like using tungsten lights in these situations. I just don't think that daylight fixtures have the same controllability, flexibility, or Â³finesse-abilityÂ² of tungsten heads- especially when it comes to the little highlights and splashes (I love my 150w DedoÂ¹s).

When working in a studio environment, HMIÂ¹s take so much more work to control in my opinion. For example, on my last shoot I had to use a 6K (corrected to tungsten) for the key light instead of the usual 10K. Well, I got the exposure I needed but the spill in the small studio meant a lot of extra flagging (lots of extra c-stands). It also added to a sense of unease... IÂ¹m always overcranking a bit when shooting food - and even with flicker-free mode and safe camera speeds, I still had the sense that something could go wrong. (But it turned out fine).

Maybe itÂ¹s just me, but I feel like there is something that feels different about a 10K going through a butterfly skinned with grid-cloth as opposed to a 6K (or 4K) HMI. Something about the texture, or something about the quality that I canÂ¹t define... maybe itÂ¹s my own prejudice, maybe itÂ¹s something intangible that I just canÂ¹t explain, maybe itÂ¹s the larger lens of the 10K, or maybe itÂ¹s just my education coming up through the ranks as a gaffer, or in the end it could be that nasty humming sound that the HMIÂ¹s give off. I donÂ¹t know...

I have never shot colour reversal- but IÂ¹m eagerly awaiting for the opportunity to do it. I would really like to see the results you achieve with food. Never thought of using it for this type of situation.

Toby Birney
DP

Food photography :

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newsletters/inCamera/oct2000/

dinner.shtml

My choice today would be Kodak VISION2 100T Colour Negative Film 7212 for its sharpness, fine grain, linear tone scale, natural colour and latitude.

John Pytlak
Eastman Kodak Company