pulling film + filter

[jessica_shang]

So I've noticed a lot of people recommend pulling 400UC to 320 to increase

shadow detail and saturation. For landscape/nature photography, if there's

going to be a lot of sky, pulling would result in an increased need for a

polarizer, correct? Since the sky would wash out due to overexposure? Or would

pulling and a polarizer be overkill on 400UC since both accentuate color?

 

Oh, another thing about the polarizer: even if you dont' want the polarizing

effect can you just leave it on but unrotated?

 

Sorry for being a newbie! -- I usually have the benefits of digital+edit but I

thought it would be nice to revisit film this summer so I only brought a little

film SLR with me. TUrns out I don't know as much about film photography as I

thought I did, haha. I don't really have time to experiment much since my trip

to Yosemite is this weekend and hopefully my polarizer arrives in the mail by

tmw. Underprepared plans include handheld Minolta, spot-metering, slow 28-80,

no polarizing exp, ...it could be tragic, or not.

[r.t. dowling]

"Pulling" is not the correct term to use in this circumstance: when you "pull" a film, not only are you overexposing it, you are also underdeveloping it.

 

If you are overexposing a film but developing it normally, as is the recommendation with 400UC and almost all C41 films, you are not actually pulling it -- you're just giving it a bit more exposure than the ISO number on the box recommends.

 

Conversely, shooting an ISO 400 film at ISO 500 would not be "pushing" unless you ask the lab to overdevelop it.

[r.t. dowling]

Oh yeah, forgot to answer your first question. : ) You're only overexposing it by 1/3 of a stop, which isn't very much at all, so I don't think you need to worry about the sky being washed out. I've overexposed C41 films by a whole stop or two, and the sky was still blue.

[alan_olander1664878205]

You're really not "pulling" the film, since there will be no change in development, you are just rating it at 320 instead of 400. You're not overexposing the film that much, and with contrasty lighting the sky may wash out even if rated normally. The draw back to leaving the polarizer on is that at any position it has a filter factor forcing you to use slower shutterspeeds or larger f/stops than without it.

[elliot_n]

Handheld meter + polarizer. Make sure you compensate for the filter.

[dave_cheng1]

Kodak 400UC is very easy to use. You can set your camera to auto exposure and concentrate in composition. There are a lot of great scenes to capture in Yosemite. Unless you challenge extreme lighting situations you will be able to expose reasonably well with auto exposure and with the film speed set to 320. Better composition always helps me more than the effort in tweaking exposure in capturing nicer images when shooting negatives. Obviously shooting slides would be a different matter.

 

When you get your films developed try to order a high resolution scan. You will be able to edit the scanned images and bring the best of the images out to print on inkjet photo printers. Don't be surprised by the not so great looks of the prints back from the film lab. Most 4x6 prints from ordinary film labs are not optimized. In order to get the most saturation, color balance, density and contrast you really need to be able to edit the images yourself. Negative films have a lot of latitude and will allow you to make huge adjustment under an editor such as photoshop. You will be amazed how much nicer your final prints will be from an inkjet printer than your initial prints from the lab.