Overexposed or Overdeveloped Film

[aravind raman]

Hi all,

 

This is my first experience, where the lab person gave me the

negatives which were all over exposed by 1 or 2 stops. And as i was

telling him this, he told that i would have over-exposed the film

myself, before i gave it to them.

 

Is there any way, where we can find, whether it was over-exposed or

over-developed?

 

Why, cant film manufacturers provide some kind of film, where we can

find whether it was properly developed by the lab?

 

Aravind

[kbreak]

look at the factory writing on the edge of the film.

 

Is it very dark and also blooming a little?

 

compare it to the writing on rolls that you think are correctly processed.

 

 

there ya go.

[alan_gage]

What type of film? B&W, C-41, E-6?

 

Alan

[john_shriver]

The film you seek is a control strip. A control strip is a piece of film, of known characteristics, pre-exposed by the manufacturer to a calibrated degree in several colors and intensities.

 

A good lab will process at least one control strip a day, read the densities with a densitomer, and record the results in their control strip log. This is used to monitor the processing machine, to see if the process is "in control", and whether adjustments need to be made. (Lookup "statistical process control" on the web to learn more about the theory behind this. It's what W. Edwards Deming tought the Japanese, making them very efficient manufacturers of high quality products.)

 

Ask to see the latest control strip, the densitometer (does it work, is it clean), and the control strip log. A quality lab should be glad to do this. There should be random variations, but no deviations outside the control limit -- particularly on the day your film was processed.

[aravind raman]

Hi Alan,

 

I am using talking about color negative ( C41).

 

I will check the film strip and see, can i find something in it.

 

Aravind

[alan_gage]

"I am using talking about color negative ( C41)."

 

It's possible it was overdeveloped, but more likely that it was overexposed. Look at the shadows. Development time shouldn't have as large of an effect on the shadows as it does on the highlights. If it's just the highlights that are burned out and the shadows are as dark as they should be it's more likely it was overdevelopment.

 

If the negs have better shadow detail then usual then it was probably overdexposed.

 

What film and camera were you using? What were you shooting? How did you meter?

 

Alan

[imaginator]

Someone recently suggested that I should take a few frames in a controlled situation (stepchart with black, shades of gray, and white, taken with flash... or sunlight) to help judge the quality of processing. The idea is to do this exactly the same each time (same light, same chart) so variances in processing show up. Just shoot a few frames on each roll (bracket exposures, and use the same settings and bracketing sequence each time) This is a great idea, but not working so well for me because I'm using a really crappy flash and getting very uneven light (hot spots) so I'm going to try sunlight instead. I chose flash because it doesn't matter if it's sunny outside so I can do this on any day, but without even illumination from the flash it is rather useless. Anyway, it's worth "wasting" a couple frames to see how well the lab is processing my film (and prevent all the worrying/wondering if it was my fault) Too bad I haven't perfected this technique because I recently took a couple rolls of film (Kodak UC400), each to a different lab (one Kodak, one Fuji) and there seems to be a big difference in color casts. Now I'm left guessing. Anyway, you also need to learn to study the negatives to judge exposure (a light box helps, or at least use the same light each time) Don't rely on prints to judge exposure of the negative. By the way, the two rolls also scanned different... colors much different, and both were landscape shots taken in similar full sunlight. Many people claim that C-41 process is the same, regardless of lab, and assuming everything is done properly, but I've heard there is a difference depending on whether the lab does mostly Kodak or Fuji films (I'm not talking about prints and photo papers, just film processing) Oh, and don't get me started on other processing issues like crud on the film, specs, bubbles, ect. No wonder digital is becoming so popular.

[paul_moyer2]

You have received some good answers here. I would personally check the edges of the film myself, they should not be exposed at all and the writing on the edge should be crisp. If your film was exposed to heat it could have the same effects as overexposure although your prints will tend to look more red / magenta, with overexposure this is not as common. There are many problems that can occur on a c-41 film processor, The processing time could be off, but my guess would be temperture, chemical concentration and agitation. Any good lab should run several control strips daily depending on the amount of film they process, minimal three times daily. A lab that is only processing a few rolls of film per day will be dumping they're chemicals more often then a lab that runs 30 or more rolls daily. I would take my film to another lab for an opinion, see what kind of answers you get from them, ask them if they are overexposed or misprocessed.

 

Paul Moyer