Fuji Neopan Acros 100 - Shot by mistake at 50 - What shall I do?

[bruto_saraccini]

<p>I shot by mistake an entire roll of Fuji Neopan Acros 100 at 50 ISO (I forgot to change the ISO settings on the camera).<br>

Shot at the seaside last week, half a roll of pictures on a cloudy overcast morning (no sun), the other half at the end of an afternoon (people portraits with sun).<br>

My question is what to ask to my lab:</p>

<ol>

<li>to develop it normally, hoping that the latitude of the film will be enough to compensate</li>

<li>to ask him to adjust, during the development process, in order to compensate for my initial mistake.</li>

</ol>

<p>The purpose of the first half or roll was that to convey the "moody" atmosphere of that particular morning, and the purpose of the second half was to plainly to shoot decently exposed portraits.<br>

What will you do? In general I prefer slightly more contrasty pictures, but first of all I would prefer to have a negative that is not so bad from the start</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>If I would develop myself, I'd adjust development time. If with a lab.... well, much depends on their services. Are you sure that if you request them to develop as ISO50, that they will do so? If yes, I'd do it - nothing to lose. <br />Worst case scenario they say yes and do no, and you probably still will end up with fairly decent negatives, as it's just 1 stop difference.</p>

[bruto_saraccini]

<p>Hi Wouter,<br>

the lab is excellent, the best in town and tested several times, I'm sure they can provide a tailored service. <br>

So you'd recommend an adjustment in development time, correct?</p>

[peterbcarter]

<p>Don't complicate life. Develop it normally as that stuff has tons of latitude.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p>I have no experience of Acros, but the pix taken in cloudy weather would be fine with normal processing, the people pictures in more contrasty lighting would probably be OK too. But .. if they're not, it's in the people' faces that you will see the grain. Have the lab adjust processing time if possible, if not you'll probably get away with one stop overexposure. Most b+w films respond well to being exposed as standard at half box speed with slightly reduced development.</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>Develop normally. One stop overexposure is well within the latitude of B&W negative. Lots of people routinely rate their negative film at a lower ISO to make sure they get enough shadow detail or to play with the contrast. A "gutsier" negative is easier to print than a thinner negative. On a film that slow, grain is not an issue, so don't worry about that. And any slight shift in contrast one way or the other is well within the range of what you can control in printing or scanning.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>I'd still recommend asking the lab to adjust development time. I see no arguments not to - yes, probably the film has latitude enough and yes, you'll get a bit more contrast and a denser negative. But why not try to get the negative as good as possible? Maybe it's me, but I do not see the advantages to not do that.</p>

[stephen t]

<p>Develop normally. All should be fine.</p>

[ellis_vener_photography]

Agree with Misters Carter and Thomason.

[Uhooru]

<p>A stop not that big of a deal for that, yes you can have the lab push it a half stop, but it really should be usable at normal development if the photos were exposed, and in fact it might make the afternoon bright sun photos better as it might pull the highlights down a bit. </p>

[jamie_robertson2]

<blockquote>

<p>push it a half stop</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>"pull" ;-)</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>Hmmmm, sure Jamie? If he shot ASA film 50 at 100, isn't a stop under exposed in normal development? ;>)</p>

 

[chris_waller]

<p>Cut the development time by one third - e.g. if the dev time at 100 ASA were, say, 9 minutes, then cut it to 6 minutes.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p>push? Pull</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>Cut the development time by one third</em><br>

At a rough guess , that would be a 3-stop pull. 10% would be a safer bet.</p>

[glen_h]

<p>When exposing negative film, I tend to round up on the exposure. It might be about half stop over, except when I am already at full aperture and a slow shutter speed.</p>

<p>If the OP did that, then a pull should be fine, but I might only do a half stop pull.</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>If 100 speed film is shot at 50, that's overexposed by one stop. And if the photographer knew that the exposure was aboslutely precisely metered for 50 -- use of gray card or incident meter, consideration of the subject matter, etc. -- then pulling might make sense if he really wanted to be precise.<br /><br />But the truth is that most people are not precise about their exposure. They shoot at whatever the camera's built-in meter tells them. They don't use a gray card or incident meter. They don't take into consideration the brightness or darkness of the subject matter. For many people, any given shot can easily be off by a full stop from "correct" exposure whether they intended it to be or not.<br /><br />So unless the original poster was very methodical in his exposure, that's why i say don't worry about it.</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>Oops..:) my bad, I thought he wrote he shot 50 speed at 100... never mind. Yes pull... And, Craig's probably right, about not worrying about it.</p>

[bruto_saraccini]

<p>Hi, and thank you all for the contributions. I discussed it with the lab on the phone, and I reported the different points highlighted here. They are supporting the idea of developing the roll as it is without any change in development times (against their own interest, because they could make a few extra bucks for the additional service). <br>

They believe that the film has enough latitude to compensate for the "wrong stop" of exposure. <br>

I will keep you posted when I have the negs to give you my impression.<br>

Thanks again.</p>

[User_502260]

<p>Many people find they can't quite get a speed of 100 from ACROS. Some of this has to do with the developer being used. Pulling or reducing developing time will only give you flat negatives which will be hard to print. I have used Fuji Microfine and had good luck shooting ACROS at 100 but I don't know where Microfine is sold outside of Japan. The japanexposures website might still sell it. </p>

[peterbcarter]

<p>Kind of dramatic for 1 stop.</p>

[James G. Dainis]

People used to take photos, and still do, and didn't worry about exposure. The old box Brownies and Instamatics didn't have any exposure settings just a fixed shutter speed and aperture. Disposable cardboard cameras are the same way. They got rather good pictures despite the cheap lenses. Ansel Adams would routinely overexpose film by setting 320 Tri-X at 160 ISO. It is not so much the film latitude as the printing latitude that creates good looking photos. Here is a simple experiment that I once carried out regarding exposure:

 

http://jdainis.com/film_expos.html

 

You can see how using any camera that has absolutely no way to control exposure can still give good results used in bright sunlight or in overcast or in shade.

[craig_shearman1]

<p>I agree with James and his experiment proves the point.<br /><br />One of my first photo jobs was as a darkroom technician at a very small afternoon newspaper where the reporters shot their own pictures. I would come in around midnight and develop and print film from night-time city council meetings, football games, fires, accidents, etc. Most of these reporters didn't know the first thing about cameras, and we were using completely manual Mamiya C220/330 TLRs with Honeywell Strobonars. Some of them I swear just picked up the camera and shot without changing a single setting. I was lucky if they knew enough to focus.<br /><br />Needless to say, exposures were all over the place. But I had to pull reproduction-quality prints from the worst of the negatives, and the editors didn't want to hear why not. Three stops under like in James' example? No problem. Five stops over? No problem.</p>

[r_david]

I have shot 400 film with my Holga - stuck at 1/100 shutter and f/8 or f/11 apeture - where my light meter says it should be 1/1000 at f/11.

 

I got printable negs. They were a pain to print, though.

 

But, if my whole roll was shot like that, I would have pulled it.

[Uhooru]

<p>R David, you case was over 3 stops compared to 1 stop and you could print. OP shouldn't have too much of an issue.</p>