Re: Creative negative/positive sandwiching techniques

[Jaap Los <imagefotografie@xxxxxx>]

Rolland Rainbow Elliott wrote:
> 
> Hi Everyone!
> I recently spotted an old issue of "Popular Photography" in which beautiful
> soft focus pictures were taken with slide film.  Although this procedure
> could be applied to any kind of film I was wondering if anyone has used this
> approach when shooting Color IR film and what their impressions have been.
> 
> Briefly the technique is as follows:
> 1.  Use a tripod mounted camera and use slide film.
> 2.  Take a picture of your subject with the lens out of focus and with the
>     camera set to overexpose the slide film by one stop.
> 3.  Take an identical picture of your subject, but this time, make sure the
>     subject is in focus and that the camera is set to overexpose the slide film
>     by two stops.
> 4.  Get your film developed and when the slides come back sandwich the two
>     overexposed slides together to acheive a softfocus picture.
> 5.  The results shown in the article look really stunning.
> 
> This approach might also reduce the apparent contrast of color IR, by giving
> it a softer appearance.  However, it would probably require some
> experimentation, and this can be very expensive with the current prices of
> color IR film.
> 
> I was also wondering if anyone has ever sandwiched  B&W IR
> negatives with regular color negative film?  If so, how did you compensate
> for the exposure? I was thinking of trying the following technique:
> 1.  Use a tripod.  Have one camera loaded with B&W IR film and another camera
>     loaded with regular color negative film.
> 2.  Take a picture of your subject with the regular color negative film.
> 3.  Take the exact same picture of your subject with B&W IR film, but
>     This time underexpose the shot by one stop.
> 4.  Get the film developed and sandwich the matching B&W and Color negatives.
> 5.  Send them to a custom lab to print.
> 
> I've never seen this done, but I think the following will occur.
> Subjects that reflect little or no IR will show their normal color rendition,
> while subject that reflect a lot of IR light will have lighter colors, a
> grainier look, and might even appear to glow a little due to the
> anti-haliation layer effect.  Just a guess, but I think it would give a neat
> sudo-color IR print.  The only problem is that you need two cameras with
> identical lenses for this method to be practical.
> 
> The reason for underexposing the B&W IR film a stop, is to downplay the IR
> effect a little in the resulting sandwiched negative.  B&W IR negatives can
> be quite dense in the highlight areas and I'm guessing this might cause
> problems in the printing process.  Just a guess though, since I've only done
> color printing a few times.  Perhaps some other exposure method would work
> better.
> 
> Like I said I haven't tried either method, but would be very interested in
> learning what the results would be if anyone else has tried these methods.
> Happy shooting,
> Rolland Elliott
> 
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Are you sure, that the exposure for the second time with the subject in
focus is a two stop overexposure? Should it not be: two stops
underexposure?
- -- 
Sincere greetings
Jaap Los
The Netherlands

See also my Infrared Photography Homepage
at:   http://home.wxs.nl/~losjb/


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