Film for black skin

benjiboy · May 27, 2010

chriscrawfordphoto said:
I know you're trying to look liberal and enlightened, but by ignoring the observable reality that people from different parts of the world do indeed look different from each other (while looking similar to others from their part of the world) you just end up looking foolish. You're confusing race and species. We are not all the same race, but we are the same species no matter what our race.

Race is more than skin color anyway, it encompasses a number of aspects of physical appearance, like hair color, hair texture, shape of eyes and other facial features. There are medically important biological differences between races too. Some inherited medical conditions only affect people of certain racial groups. Sickle Cell Anemia, for example, is never found among Europeans or Asians. It is a genetic trait found only among Africans from south of the Sahara (blacks).

Instead of trying to lie and claim that races do not exist, you would be better off promoting understanding and tolerance of cultural differences and different appearances. Despite the very real physical differences between different races of mankind, we are all still brothers and sisters.

Anyway, as others have pointed out, this is a technical discussion of how to ensure good rendering of dark skin,which is a real issue. I've seen way too many photos of African American friends whose faces are so dark in the photo that all you see are eyes and teeth, and there's no excuse for such a stupid technical blunder when one can, through correct exposure, ensure that dark skin is rendered beautifully and with full detail.

What a good post Chris, I personally when photographing dark skinned people use a method of assessing the exposure compensation for the skin tone, I take a close up reading of the face and check it against a reading of a Kodak 18% Grey Card in the same position, the difference gives me the amount to compensate for in the exposure.

Poisson Du Jour · May 27, 2010

Use any film, but if metering direct from face, add in 1 to 1.5 stop.
Remember the old bogey? Your in-camera meter might just think it is another colour to be rendered as Zone V. The deeper the black, the more striking the effect.

Other than that, Fuji's Velvia 100F or Provia (rated at EI80) would give quite pleasing blacks and whites without making it too extreme like Velvia 50 (or its ghastly 100 stablemate). Astia too, is worth a try.

clayne · May 27, 2010

If you have the light and film speed, always go with over-exposure. It's a heck of a lot easier to work with beneficial shoulder compression than it is trying to extract nothingness out of underexposed negs.

pgomena · May 27, 2010

A few observations from this discussion:

1. Lighting, exposure and process control are paramount: Robert Mapplethorpe managed to photograph white and black people in the same frame. Both subjects had luminous skin tones.

2. I remember reading something about photographing people of African ancestry once that emphasized the importance of rendering facial highlights properly to help give shape and luminosity to facial features. Again, lighting, exposure, process control.

3. Benjiboy's comments above about using the gray card really is a good, quick, simple method of getting the exposure right. Average caucasian skin tones will read about 1 stop higher than the card, average dark skin tones will read somewhere within a stop below the gray card. Most films will record both skin tones with plenty of detail. Lighting and process control.

4. A friend of mine has traveled and photographed in Africa for many years. His favorite camera is a Fuji rangefinder with a little pop-up flash that gives just enough fill to emphasize African facial features in average-to-contasty light. Lighting and process control.

Peter Gomena

benjiboy · May 27, 2010

pgomena said:
A few observations from this discussion:

1. Lighting, exposure and process control are paramount: Robert Mapplethorpe managed to photograph white and black people in the same frame. Both subjects had luminous skin tones.

2. I remember reading something about photographing people of African ancestry once that emphasized the importance of rendering facial highlights properly to help give shape and luminosity to facial features. Again, lighting, exposure, process control.

3. Benjiboy's comments above about using the gray card really is a good, quick, simple method of getting the exposure right. Average caucasian skin tones will read about 1 stop higher than the card, average dark skin tones will read somewhere within a stop below the gray card. Most films will record both skin tones with plenty of detail. Lighting and process control.

4. A friend of mine has traveled and photographed in Africa for many years. His favorite camera is a Fuji rangefinder with a little pop-up flash that gives just enough fill to emphasize African facial features in average-to-contasty light. Lighting and process control.

Peter Gomena

That's right Peter by seeing how much the reading of the skin differs from the Grey card I know how much to compensate, and also find with Afro - Caribbean skin tones its also is a quick simple fix with negative film to take an incidental reading and increase the exposure a half or a full stop depending on how dark the skin is, and with reversal films reduce the exposure by a third to two thirds of a stop and with Caucasian skin just use the meter reading unless it's a pales skinned blond in a white dress against a light background then increase the incidental exposure by half a stop, but I haven't had too many of those to shoot lately, damn it.

lilmsmaggie · May 27, 2010

chriscrawfordphoto said:
Instead of trying to lie and claim that races do not exist, you would be better off promoting understanding and tolerance of cultural differences and different appearances. Despite the very real physical differences between different races of mankind, we are all still brothers and sisters.

Lying? - Who's lying? We're one race - The human race! What part of human race don't you understand?

If the OP had used dark skin, or dark complexion, it would have been more acceptable. Instead, the words: "black skin" were used. Personally, I did not take offense. However, I felt the words chosen by the OP were unsophisticated, clumsy and awkward.

Prove to me, or anyone for that matter with 100% accuracy, that there are people anywhere with "black," "white," or "yellow" skin.

Have you ever compared a sheet of white or black paper to your own skin?

Are you REALLY WHITE, or BLACK in comparison? --I don't think so.

chriscrawfordphoto said:
Anyway, as others have pointed out, this is a technical discussion of how to ensure good rendering of dark skin,which is a real issue. I've seen way too many photos of African American friends whose faces are so dark in the photo that all you see are eyes and teeth, and there's no excuse for such a stupid technical blunder when one can, through correct exposure, ensure that dark skin is rendered beautifully and with full detail.

I'm an African-American, with African, native-american and Irish ancestry.
My family members complexions range from very light to very dark. I grew up with friends from the Phillipines, India, Mexico, Cuba, Japan and the West Indies. Not one of us, considers ourselves to be black, or yellow, or what ever color "you" choose to denote skin. Black, Yellow, etc. those terms describe a color. I have friends from West Africa. I have never heard a single one of them asked to be called "Black!"

I don't consider myself "black." I'm not a "Black man."

I'm of African-American ancestry. Period.

My comments didn't start out to be disrespectful or abusive, but some of you are obviously less sophisticated and intelligent than I give you created for.

As for how you fell about these and my previous comments, that's YOUR problem, not mine. I have nothing further to say on the matter or skin, or proper exposure.

Enjoy yourselves.

Thomas Bertilsson · May 27, 2010

I think a lot of us tried to point out that this wasn't about race or anything of that kind; it's a thread about how to properly expose film to get good skin tones in pictures of people with dark complexion.
You brought out the discussion, so perhaps it's a good idea to consider the reason you got the responses you did before you get defensive. You invited the discussion about how people were 'classified' in this thread. The discussion you got is not unreasonable, as are none of the replies, and they certainly didn't seem to have any malicious intent.

We're all just people here, helping each other get good pictures.

JBrunner · May 27, 2010

Let's get back to the discussion at hand, intead of a bunch of I'm more pc than you posturing. Further conflict on this tangetal subject will be clubbed like a baby seal.

berlog · May 29, 2010

I've not waited such discussion. We don't have any problems with human race in my country. I'm sorry if my definition wasn't right.

2F/2F · May 29, 2010

It would not be any different than what you would use for "people with white skin," "people with red skin," or people with "yellow skin." It is all skin. It will just be darker than some (and lighter than some as well). What it comes down to is knowing how to print and expose the film you are using to make things of certain brightnesses and textures look how you want them to look.

My favorites in the color negative area are:

Kodak Portra 100T
Kodak Portra 160 NC and VC
Fuji Reala
Fuji Pro 160 S and C
Kodak Portra 400 NC and VC

...and all the others are not bad if you understand their characteristics and apply them to get what you want.

I hope you realize by now - and perhaps it is simply a language barrier issue, if English is not your first language - that "people with black skin" is perhaps not the best way to state it; most of all because it is highly physically descriptive yet highly physically inaccurate. In other words, if you are going to go to the trouble to be highly physically descriptive to say what you mean, as opposed to using shorthand terminology, you should be accurate as well (for instance, "people with darker-than-average skin"). Nobody's actual skin is black, yellow, red, or white, but actual skin color is what you used to describe what you meant, so it seemed "awkward" at best.

The terms "black people" and "white people" are generally inoffensive to everyone but the most militant here in the U.S., on an informal level. It is taken as simple shorthand of "Sub-Saharan-African-descended" and "Northern-European-descended" people, and the terms are used, not in a derogatory manner, by people of all ancestries simply to get meaning across in a practical manner in day-to-day conversation.

The understanding and acceptance of the ideas in the preceding two paragraphs would likely have prevented the thread from going off on PC tangents.

df cardwell · May 29, 2010

Portra. It is a time proven film, designed for shooting faces of all complexions.

It is balanced to record people with red or yellow or blue undertones,
which (in my experience) is more a factor than simple darkness or lightness.

Two tricky steps.

1. Do a test before you do the real shoot. Photography is not theoretical, it is practical. Shooting one roll (at different exposures) and having it processed, will not make you an expert but you'll have the problem and the answer in YOUR hands. Pay attention to the setting of the picture. If you are shooting in a grassy field, for instance, the shadows are likely to run green without a little fill flash. Keep a keen eye peeled for other color casts.

2. Include a gray card in one of the test frames.

If you use Portra, and are reasonably careful with lighting and exposure, you can shoot any two people on this earth side-side-side
and have excellent results. I usually use an incident reading, and if a face is very dark, add one or two stops. If I'm shooting a very dark face next to a very, very light face, I use soft lighting and am careful about the overall contrast of the scene. Once you try it, you'll see, though, that it isn't that hard a problem.

jkowal · Jun 15, 2010

1. Get handheld meter or gray card (using camera spot meter)
2. Collect a meter reading from the subject's skin tone
3. Add 0.5-1 extra stop

http://www.ehow.com/how_5098734_photograph-dark-skin.html

John Koehrer · Jun 15, 2010

jkowal said:
1. Get handheld meter or gray card (using camera spot meter)
2. Collect a meter reading from the subject's skin tone
3. Add 0.5-1 extra stop

http://www.ehow.com/how_5098734_photograph-dark-skin.html

How to say this & be PC?

That works fine for Caucasians not so much for darker complexions. In the last paragraph he suggests using an unmodified INCIDENT reading.

For reflected I'd go under by that .5-1stop depending how light you would like the subject to be. Back in the 40's-50's it wasn't uncommon to print the (darker) subjects very light.

Photo Engineer · Jun 15, 2010

Example test of skin tones - a look at the design of the film

Ideally, all skin tones should reproduce with the correct EI for that film. This is done by adjusting the spectral sensitivities and the dye hues that are formed to give a good rendition from highlights to shadows.

Here is an E6 Ektachrome test I had shot, part of a test using E6 films and C41 films along with Kodachrome. These tests also included Fuji films and Agfa films.

The "E" over the resolution chart and color checker denotes Ektachrome Normal. E+ or E- would be used for over and under and "K" would be Kodachrome. My request form would have had the codes and other details of the test including lighting. All film would have been returned with manufacturers codes. The checker and resolution chart are there to give an indication whether the film attained a true neutral and whether the image was in proper focus with good depth of field.

So, this is how it is done in the design world.

The faces are blanked as I do not have a release form for the models. I have met all 3 of them and was able to compare skin tones with the slides and the prints at the time this work was done.

Enjoy

PE

tkamiya · Jun 15, 2010

That's something I've been wanting to do.... Have several people I know with distinctive skin tones all in one scene.... Ron, how did you decide on the correct exposure? A gray card?

Photo Engineer · Jun 15, 2010

Well, you can see that the light is rather uniform. The exposure was made to center the color checker neutral such that dmin and dmax were clearly evident. This turned out to give the best results at the rated ISO speed. The scene was metered for the ISO and exposed and labeled E (or N). And, it turned out to be right in this case.

The studio work was done by two professional photographers who did all of this type of work at KRL so I can't give you more details than the above. What I wrote in the above paragraph was pretty much what I asked of them and stated approximately as follows: Expose at rated speed and -1/2, -1 and -2 as well as +1/2, +1 and +2 and lets see what happens. Use good, balanced studio lighting. I leave it to your judgment as the experts. They picked the models and dressed the set with things that we had selected as being "tough" objects and people.

Additional data on this included sensitometry and plotting the checker scale against the sensitometry so that we had quantitative data as well. There were literally hundreds of shots on dozens of rolls and many sheets of film, as this was done on both 35mm and 4x5 films to check micro and macro detail.

It was rather comprehensive and partially the result of one of my technicians (an African American) who brought to my attention the fact that his families skin tones displayed a purple cast in some pictures, and the flesh lacked detail. We geared up for making this sort of test a standard for checking out potential problems.

With a bad film, standard metering would not have worked.

PE

df cardwell · Jun 15, 2010

It's nice, Ron, but the models are, in terms of reflectivity, pretty fair.

The color rendition is wonderful, but I think the sample avoids the common tonal range
we face when we make pictures of our friends. The KRL models share a common reflectivity.

A family portrait I made over the weekend in my studio,
evenly lit like your your example,
except the tonal range of the highlights we'd normally place at Zone 7 exceeded 4 stops.

I commonly see available-light N-1 situations, and often run to N-2. They are a snap for B&W,
but exceed the range of E-6 and Digital.

Portra, however, makes it possible. Thanks for that !

d

Photo Engineer · Jun 15, 2010

I have met them DF. I assure you that they do not share a common reflectivity. The redhead on the left had skin that was almost white and the young lady on the right was very dark. OTOH, they were happy with the results, as were we. And, I assure you, this was only one example, one that I had left here in a few slides and negatives out of boxes full that I rescued from a garbage can in my DR/Lab at EK. Many competitor products did not fare as well.

PE

Ray Rogers · Jun 15, 2010

Photo Engineer said:
I have met them DF. I assure you that they do not share a common reflectivity. The redhead on the left had skin that was almost white and the young lady on the right was very dark. OTOH, they were happy with the results, as were we. PE

Well the image sure makes it look like they are almost the same!
They are way too close to represent the extreams of what can actually be encountered. I find that real models provides a much wider range than what is depicted in the test image.

Or, is it just on my computer screen that they look so similar?

Photo Engineer · Jun 16, 2010

Ray;

It may be the screen or the scan. The image itself shows what I describe much more clearly.

PE

BrianShaw · Jun 16, 2010

tkamiya said:
That's something I've been wanting to do.... Have several people I know with distinctive skin tones all in one scene....

You're always welcome to come to LA and photograph my family. We have all skin tones from "pink" to "skillet" (if I may use that term), and all hair colors from blonde to purple.

tkamiya · Jun 16, 2010

BrianShaw said:
You're always welcome to come to LA and photograph my family. We have all skin tones from "pink" to "skillet" (if I may use that term), and all hair colors from blonde to purple.

Skillet??? Never heard of that one but very visual!

df cardwell · Jun 16, 2010

Photo Engineer said:
I have met them DF. I assure you that they do not share a common reflectivity. T......

PE

I'm only going by the picture, and very nice it is, too.

AgentX · Jun 20, 2010

lilmsmaggie said:
Prove to me, or anyone for that matter with 100% accuracy, that there are people anywhere with "black," "white," or "yellow" skin.

Have you ever compared a sheet of white or black paper to your own skin?

Are you REALLY WHITE, or BLACK in comparison? --I don't think so.

You know, this "black and white" photo of mine here looks pretty gray...

Film for black skin

benjiboy

Poisson Du Jour

clayne

pgomena

benjiboy

lilmsmaggie

Thomas Bertilsson

JBrunner

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2F/2F

df cardwell

jkowal

John Koehrer

Photo Engineer

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tkamiya

Photo Engineer

df cardwell

Photo Engineer

Ray Rogers

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BrianShaw

tkamiya

df cardwell

AgentX

Film for black skin

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