Not just muted – Vision3 250D colors

My interest in Vision3 films was initially sparked a few years ago because of the muted color palette it would give. So my exploration at that time focused on portraiture and other subject matter that I considered this film a good match for. But this is not to say that these films are necessarily limited to just muted, desaturated images with low contrast. Here’s an example.

Important to note is that I shoot color film mostly with the intent to print optically onto RA4 paper. Since the color rendition is more or less ‘baked into’ the film and the paper, for me, it matters a lot how these materials reproduce color. If you scan negatives and then digitally post process (and perhaps output), it’s easy to shift the color balance around, raise or reduce saturation, etc. So in a hybrid workflow, I wouldn’t worry about the color question too much; there’s sufficient flexibility in the digital domain to make Vision3 250D look like Ektar 100 and vice versa. Optical printing, however, is a different matter.

True to its reputation, Vision3 250D (and its Vision3 siblings) can render quite muted colors and give a desaturated, almost washed-out look. There are two main ways to achieve this, with an optical printing workflow in mind:

• ‘Pull’ the film by overexposing it and developing it normally in ECN2 developer. I’d suggest rating it at ISO 100 and developing for the default 3m00s at 41C in ECN2. The overexposure is necessary to bring the tonal scale of the negative in line with the requirements of RA4 paper.
• Print onto the most muted/desaturated paper you can get your hands on. In practice, this means entry-level, low-cost FUJIFILM Crystal Archive paper. While the color balance of all FUJIFILM papers is pretty much the same, contrast and saturation do vary due to differences in layer thickness of the paper. The low-end current production Crystal Archive (without suffix, or with “-II” suffix; it’s the same stuff) has the thinnest layers, which results in somewhat lower contrast and especially lower saturation than the higher-end papers.

Especially if you combine both factors, really muted and subtle print styles are possible. However, I admit that I normally compensate for the inherent mismatch between ECN2 film and RA4 paper by overdeveloping the film. This boosts the contrast and saturation of the negatives, and it results in a tonal scale of the negative that matches the contrast of the RA4 paper. My normal development time for Vision3 films is 3m45s to 4m00s at 41C in ECN2 developer.

Also, while Crystal Archive is a nice paper, its higher-end alternatives do have some advantages. Papers like DPII give significantly deeper and more even blacks, the paper base is sturdier and it boosts higher saturation as well. Maxima is a similar paper to DPII, but offers even better archival stability due to a thicker protective set of overcoats. Unfortunately, Maxima only comes in rolls starting at 16″ / 40.6cm width, which makes it a bit unwieldy to handle in the darkroom and my current paper cutting setup will handle rolls up to 12″/ 30.5cm only.

Anyway, if you process the film for a bit more punch, use a punchier paper to print on, and also select subject matter that is nice and colorful, the combination yields results that people may not easily associated with the supposedly muted nature of Vision3 films. Here’s a few examples to illustrate the point, all shot on Vision3 250D, developed for 3m45s and 4m00s (two different rolls) at 41C and printed optically onto FUJIFILM DPII paper using a newly made DIY RGB LED exposure unit (yes, I messed with electronics again – more to follow in a later blog, but no very fundamental changes compared to the previous version).

They’re all just unpretentious snapshots – the fast food equivalent of photography!

This one was mostly about the super-saturated bougainvillea. Eva was complaining that on her digital, the vivid magenta color somehow would never render nicely. I couldn’t help but snapping a shot to see how it would come out on the film I brought to Sicily back in May this year. No, it’s not the kind of oozy, splashy vividness you get from Velvia or Ektar printed onto Endura. But I wouldn’t call it desaturated or washed out either!

Looking out over the Isola Bella from up the hill in Taormina. The natural look of this film shows mostly in how the rock and foliage render, although the high noon sunlight also helps to keep saturation low in that part of the scene. On the other hand, the sea renders in convincing blues and cyans. Again, not over-the-top saturated, but more of a realistically full-bodied palette.

Lush greens, shot in the muted light of our living room. They render rich and true to life.

Another almost monochromatic scene – a tabby cat sleeping on a rust-brown couch against some pillows in the same corner of the color wheel. The late afternoon autumn sunlight filtering through the window emphasizes the richness of the colors.

The four prints were made from two different rolls of film but with the same color filtration and exposure settings, so the differences in color are really due to subject matter and lighting conditions. The filtration I determined at the start of the session by printing a scene dominated by grey concrete shot on an overcast day to get a neutral color balance. The prints were scanned on an old Epson 4990 and color corrected by applying an ICC profile I made using a Wolf Faust IT8 target. No additional color balancing was done in digital post processing. A mild contrast adjustment was performed to bring the digital files in congruence with the appearance of the physical prints, accounting for the inherent difference between a reflective printed medium and a monitor screen.