Exposed Portra 400 NC @ 80 - Help!!

[joseph_beauchot]

A buddy of mine...okay, okay it was me...made a real rookie mistake

while shooting a reception this past weekend...he left his ISO

setting to 80 when switching from outdoors to indoors and from Acros

100 film to Portra 400NC and 400VC. So I ended up shooting a roll

of Portra 400NC and 400VC at an ISO of 80. Is there any hope for

this film or will it be hopelessly overexposed? I know that there

is some latitude in color negative film but asking for over 2 stops

I understand is a bit ridiculous.

 

Any suggestions on next steps or a lab that would special

in "miracles"? I live near Seattle and Ivey (local pro loab) told

me that they can only pull 1 stop on color negative film.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated...thanks in advance!!

[peter_langfelder]

I have never shot the specific Kodaks, but I once did a test with something like Gold 100 where I bracketed one shot by +/- two stops - there was no difference in the final print between the normal exposure and +2 stops overexposure (the underexposed was muddy and dark), even without telling the lab anything. Given that Portra NC is supposed to be a low-contrast and saturation film, it should handle such overexposure without any trouble. There is another factor, namely how you metered the indoors light - if you metered from dark suits, you have probably overexposed even more, whereas if you metered from light/sparkling dresses or white faces, you should have used exposure compensation anyway and your actual overexposure would be only around 1 stop. If you want to be really sure, sacrifice a few shots from one roll and let the lab do a snip test, but I'm quite confident normal developing will give you good results.

[silent1]

Based on my recent experience with Portra 400NC in the 120 size, you'll probably be okay if you have Ivey pull the film the one stop they can do; Portra has considerable latitude, and you'll likely find you have dense, but printable negatives with the one stop pull -- they'll be overexposed about 1 1/3 stop from that processing level, but the resulting images will certainly be recognizable and can probably be corrected in printing, especially with the limited contrast range of indoor lighting; digital tricks like contrast stretching will improve things even more. Since Ivey does genuine contact prints, if you order a contact sheet with the processing you'll be able to see immediately where you stand.

[scott_eaton]

Total agreement with Donald on this one. Have the lab pull one stop and you should be just fine.

 

Yes, print films have generous over-exposure lattitude, but shooting these films at EI 80 will produce dense and very difficult negs to work with. Ever try to scan Portra NC that's been over-exposed two stops? Anybody want to argue about it?

 

Pulling them a stop will reduce contrast, but yield images much easier to work with. I'd also advise having the lab only do one roll first and double check the results before commiting to the entire botched set of film. Pushing C-41 is a piece of cake. Pulling is more theoretical.

[steve_levine]

Changing C41 film's dev times causes color & contrast to shift,and is best avoided.If you shot scenes with a low to average brightness range,film latitude is in your corner.If the scenes contain high brightness range,latitude will act against you and your highlights will lose detail.

[scott_eaton]

Every time Steve posts the same response about C-41 films not being able to be pushed/pulled I refer him to Kodak's website advocating the pushability of many of their films. I'm not going to waste my time in this thread because I'm beginning to conclude he's autistic on the issue, or a parrot.

 

I've pushed and pulled (personally) hundreds of rolls of VPS for past customers, which was far less flexible in this respect that Portra NC. While pulling C-41 films incurs a slight change in color balance and should only be done under extreme situations, so does over-exposing by two stops which forces severe print corrections on the other end. This qualifies as an extreme situation in my book.

 

If the film were one stop over, it would be no big deal. 1 1/2 stops over, still ne big deal. Over two stops and you need a reduction in developer time for professional films.

[steve_levine]

I expose 400NC for the shadows at wedding receptions.This assures the shadows have detail.It also over exposes the highlights several stops without any ill effects.Sometimes this pushes the "whites" high onto the film's shoulder and there is loss of detail.There is a direct relationship between brightness range and exposure latitude.The lower the brightness range,the higher the film's apparent exposure latitude(and vice versa).Kodak & Fuji both suggest that significant changes occur when changing time or temp with C41 films.With important people pictures,flesh tone would be my worry when monkeying around with processing times.I would process normal and let the lab print these as well as possible,just my opinion.I think you will be fine.

[joseph_beauchot]

Thanks to everyone that has responded so far...the information has been very helpful and reassuring. My expectations are still not high for these two rolls but if I can salvage any of the pictures that will be a positive thing.

 

I will be taking one of the rolls to Ivey this afternoon for processing. I will ask them about how they plan on developing and printing the roll and hopefully their answer will be in synch with your responses.

 

Thanks again for your help...I will post again once I get the pictures back.

[joseph_beauchot]

I got the pictures back from Ivey yesterday and with a pull of one stop and some printing attention they look great! My amateur eyes can tell little difference between these pictures and the ones I did shoot at 400!!

 

I can't believe that color negative film has that much exposure latitude but I am really grateful that it does. Saved my butt in this case!

 

Thanks again for everyone's advice and help. Photo.net rocks!!