HELP, I FUBARED! EMERGENCY!

[fotoflo]

ARG!!! Im a beginning pro photographer (this is about my 5th assignment) and I just got back (to my apartment in beijing) from a shoot at the forbidden city this morning, I have a story due for a mag tommarrow and I shot 2 rolls of what should be amazing pictures of the palace, complete with monks and personalities and that lovely early morning sunlight that you get on clear days - which come about once a month here.... only i forgot to turn on my light meter and the meter readings (which still were readable) were FOUR STOPS off (over exposed)!!!!!!

So my question is:
The film is fujicolor superia 200. is it recoverable? can i have the lab hand develop and pull this kind of film by a few stops? will that work? what should i expect?

also, one of the rolls (not the one with the monks) had 24 photos which were metered properly from the previous evening, and 12 metered improperly.

I can (and probably will) go reshoot tommarrow mornining and ill shoot tonight at sunset too, so my life is not over, but ill never get those monks standing in front of the palace in that light again.... do i have a chance?

 

[PlasticSpanner]

It's worth a try but I don't know how successful they'll be.

Colour film isn't really designed to be pushed/pulled as such but different film speeds can be developed the same as each other. You could possibly get away with 2 stops over but 4 may be beyond the limit.

The processing lab may be able to work some magic to get some reasonable prints too. Probably best to use a good or pro lab & tell them exactly what the problem is.

 

[markc]

You could have them do just the mixed roll first with no special processing, just trying to get good prints at the print stage. That will tell you if you need to do anything else with the other rolls. Or you could split the difference at two stops, but that won't tell you how the other rolls will react.

 

[boclcown]

Hm. Why don't you use digital?

 

[Iron Flatline]

Hm. Why don't you use digital?

Ya, that was helpful.

So, were they able to salvage any shots from your film, fotoflo?

 

[Rob]

I'd personally go with pulling two or three stops... actually, I'd take the lab's recommendation on that!

Let us know how it turns out - fingers crossed for you!

Rob

 

[fotoflo]

Followup - they just ran the rolls through regular (ive changed labs since them, theyre kinda lazy, and they always do a bad job) and scanned them and pulled out the detail with photoshop... it wasnt great but it wasnt bad...

some of the pictures came through ok. the assignment went fine though. published and paid http://www.alphagram.com/alex/Gugong/

oh, and i bought a nikon d80 2 months ago.

 

[Mike_E]

Good to hear!

Just a friendly bit of advice.. Make a pre-assignment checklist- everything from supplies to reseting your camera- and go over it before every shoot.

It'll save you a ton of grief. A Metric ton at that.

 

[S2K1]

Good to hear!

Just a friendly bit of advice.. Make a pre-assignment checklist- everything from supplies to reseting your camera- and go over it before every shoot.

It'll save you a ton of grief. A Metric ton at that.

I do this every time. I can't tell you how many times I've shot important pics at 1600 ISO when it was bright outside. Always check your camera before shooting. Glad to hear the pictures turned out fotoflo.

 

[ilockert]

I know nothing about film but couldnt you get it developed and then try to make the adjustment in photoshop?

 

[elsaspet]

The trouble is, you can go 4 stops under, and still bring it back, but you can't bring back "nothing" which is what over exposure is. There are no details to save.
I wish I could help, but this is one of those rare situations when there is really nothing that can help.

 

[Helen B]

Well fotoflo has already had the pictures developed, scanned and sold, so all this is fairly academic.

The trouble is, you can go 4 stops under, and still bring it back, but you can't bring back "nothing" which is what over exposure is. There are no details to save.

That may be the case with digital, but colour negative film is extremely tolerant of 'overexposure' - many of the current crop of colour neg films will record detail eight to ten stops over the metered midpoint (ie a total range of up to fourteen stops) - so if the subject brightness range goes four stops over the metered midpoint you will have at least four stops of overexposure latitude. The ISO speed ('box speed') of colour negative film is pegged to the lowest exposure that will give decent shadow detail, not to the greatest exposure that will give decent highlight detail (a highly simplified, and loose, rewrite of the ISO standard).

Later addition: Here is a quote from Alwin Küchler, the cinematographer of Sunshine. Though he is referring to Kodak Vision2 500T 5218 motion picture negative film it is not the MP film with the greatest dynamic range:

"The blessing and curse is that today`s stocks are really good; I could
overexpose a scene by 5 or 6 stops and easily bring it back to normal
in the digital grade. When we wanted the image to really burn out,
I had to overexpose by 8,9 even 10 stops to really burn the information
away to the point where we couldn`t get it back."

Best,
Helen

 

[patrickt]

If it were me, I'd ask the lab to do the best they can do, then scan the negatives/slides with the best quality scanner I can find, and use PS to see if they can be salvaged. Film does not actually equate to non-digital.

 

[elsaspet]

Hi Helen,
Thanks. I really don't know much about film, and had no idea you could save overexposure in film. Learn something new everyday! Thanks!

 

[fotoflo]

If it were me, I'd ask the lab to do the best they can do, then scan the negatives/slides with the best quality scanner I can find, and use PS to see if they can be salvaged. Film does not actually equate to non-digital.

Thats what I did.