Under-exposed film - options for recovery?

[ross_otoole]

<p>Hello all,<br /> I'll keep this short. Basically pretty new to film and MF in particular. I used a roll of Fuji 400 PRO the other day with my Mamiya 645. I'm pretty sure I forgot to change the shutter setting so all my pictures would have been exposed using the default mechanical shutter speed of 1/60th seconds. It was a really sunny day and I remember mainly shooting at shutter speeds of 1000th and 500th. I don't know much about film but would I be correct in thinking that I would have therefore underexposed the entire film? How many 'stops' have I underexposed by? Is the film just destined for the garbage can or might it be saved through push/pull developing?</p>

<p>Many thanks!</p>

[Lou_Meluso]

<blockquote>

<p>all my pictures would have been exposed using the default mechanical shutter speed of 1/60th seconds. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>At what f-stop? If I don't know the f-stop, I don't know the exposure.</p>

<p>If you kept the aperture constant and your meter read 1/500 shutter speed, you <strong>over exposed</strong> your film some three stops. IF that is the case, you may still get usable (not great) images with normal development. Overexposure is tolerated better than underexposure but three stops over is a fair amount. A pro lab may be able to pull the processing somewhat (no more than a stop!) which may help to some extent. </p>

[russ_britt3]

<p>The images may be fine, but will take a lot longer to print. <br />Don Blair (deceased) now was one the best photographers I have ever seen, always set his exposure about three stops over what everyone else said was correct. He would argue that his exposure was correct, he did that to fight color shift with the pro films of that time. But he said his lab fussed as it took soooooo long to print his negatives.<br /><br />Who know the images may be lost, or may be the best ever?<br />Learn and see how you want your prints to look, and go from there.</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>Develop the film normally. Push processing will increase contrast and colour saturation and block up the highlights, while pull processing will reduce contrast and give unsaturated "flat" negatives. All that pushing and pulling does is affect the contrast of the film, and not its speed.</p>

<p>Colour negative film has a wide latitude anyway. So if the exposure was incorrect, and you don't know in which direction or by how much; then you'll have a better chance of a printable result by giving the film a normal development. Having said that, most amateur C41 processing houses tend to overdevelop by default IME.</p>

[ross_otoole]

<p>Hi,<br>

Ah yes overexposed indeed. Aperture was f8. <br>

Many thanks for the info :) I'll phone the lab tomorrow and explain the situation. <br>

<br />Ross</p>

[michael_barnes5]

<p>Overexposure is not the end of the world. I oftentimes overexpose C41 deliberately.<br /><br />Portra 160: 4-5 stops overexposed<br /><a href=" /><br />Ektar 100: 4-5 stops overexposed<br /><a href="

[lubos_soltes]

<p>3 stops overexposure will have no ill-effects. you gain less grain from it (as mych as grain manifests on dye based films). anyway with proper scanning the results should be just fine.</p>