Lomography Redscale XR at Night – How to create a gloomy cinematic look

While Berlin in summer is undeniably one of the most exciting European cities for photography, winter offers a stark contrast and poses significant challenges for many local (street) photographers I know. Due to the city’s northern location, the days are short, cold, and often feel particularly harsh because of frequent winds and rain. Overcast skies, persistent drizzle, and limited daylight make it especially difficult for those juggling a regular 9-to-5 job to find time for shooting. As a result, many photographers like me turn their focus to low-light or night projects, which can be particularly challenging when working with film.

Searching for a way to get myself out shooting regularly, I decided to search for a color film stock that could capture the city’s oppressive mood during winter. I thought that color might catch the mood a bit better, so I began researching how different films perform in low-light conditions. One initial standout candidate for me was Harman Phoenix 200, due to its moody red rendition of artificial light. However, I’m not a big fan of its halation effect, which gave me some pause. Still, I couldn’t shake my fascination with the red tones and how they could be used to convey a feeling of discomfort. The logic consequence was looking closer at Lomography Redscale XR – a film that essentially tints everything in striking shades of red.

Lomography Redscale XR during night time

According to Lomography’s website, Redscale is a unique type of photographic film that produces images with a distinctive warm, reddish-orange tint. This striking effect is achieved by loading and shooting the film in reverse – exposing the light-sensitive emulsion through the base of the film rather than the emulsion side. This unconventional technique alters how light interacts with the film, dramatically shifting the color palette to emphasize rich reds, oranges, and yellows, while muting cooler tones like blues and greens. While this bold effect can be polarizing (and admittedly not to everyone’s taste, myself included), there’s good news: shooting Redscale film in low-light conditions can temper the intense red saturation. This approach transforms the “red overload” into atmospheric, artistic photographs, with subtle reddish highlights that lend a moody and controlled aesthetic to the scenes.

Here is a guideline based on my experience and some research done online:

• Rate the Film at ISO 160: Meter for the average exposure of the scene. When in doubt, it’s always better to overexpose by giving the film an extra stop of light.
• Account for Long Exposures: For exposures longer than 1 second, use a reciprocity correction factor of 1.33 to compensate for the Schwarzschild effect. This adjustment worked reliably for me.
• Leverage Bright Light Sources: Seek out scenes with strong light sources that fill only part of the frame. To enhance the atmospheric quality, consider using Pro Mist filters. These help create a bloom effect around light sources and add a touch of red spill to the scene and creates a cinematic vibe.
• Experiment and Enjoy: The key to mastering Redscale film is to go out, experiment, and most importantly, have fun!

On the results:

Overall, Lomography Redscale XR at night conveys an atmospheric, contemplative feel with moody and cinematic aesthetic. I enjoy the strong contrast between light and shadow. The warm glow from fluorescent lights create a striking contrast against the darker surroundings, especially with shadows tending to fall off quickly into a deep black. This gives every well-composed photograph a touch of surrealism and end-time atmosphere. My main focus has been on city landscapes and architecture, but I guess it would work for other types of photography as well.

However, tailoring the look to your aesthetics is not so straightforward as it seems. It will definitely take some time until you figure out which scenes might work and which ones do not. And even then, it is not always easy to predict how the scene will look like as a scan/print. Especially in 35mm format, it is hard to tame the ever-present grain and muddy-looking shadows. While using medium format film with its enlarged negative size helps, it is still hard to find the sweet spot in terms of lighting. Having too much light in your frame will result in a rather chaotic interplay of various red-to-yellow tones, which is not really pleasing to look at. On the other side, minimalistic compositions quickly tend to be on the boring side. However, if you strike the right balance between the elements mentioned, this film may deliver stunning, atmospheric masterpieces (when in the hands of a more-talented photographer).

My conclusion:

To me, this film perfectly embodies what Lomography’s message is about: the celebration of analog photography as a creative and playful art form. While I never fully embraced the lomographic movement’s philosophy before, exploring the unique characteristics and quirks of this film stock changed my perspective somehow. Delving into its unpredictable nature turned out to be a lot of fun. Not only did I end up enjoying some of the photographs I captured, but it also took me back out on Berlin’s streets to shoot again. And who knows? There might just be a creative film stock out there waiting to surprise you too.

All of my films were developed and scanned by the excellent SafeLight Lab in Berlin:
https://safelightberlin.com/

If you want to see more of my work, you can have a look on my Flickr page:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194315227@N02/

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