Shooting Color Neg Film

[rbconbautista]

Let's say you have a roll of Kodak Portra 400 and you shot it at ISO 320 (1/3 stop) or even a full stop at 200 to purposely overexpose it then develop it normally it at its box speed of 400.

Would that be a good idea since it's always better to overexpose color negative film when you're unsure of the proper exposure because it'll always be not more than a stop or two overexposed? Unless Kodak Portra 400 doesn't have a wide exposure latitude?

Should I be metering for the shadows or should I be metering for the highlights?

 

[Ysarex]

You should run careful tests of all your equipment and materials. Regularly repeat those tests. Evaluate the results and then meter and expose based on your testing results and evaluation.

Joe

 

[dxqcanada]

My general rule of thumbs ... don't over-expose slide film ... don't under-expose negative film.
... but like Joe said, you really need to run tests to know exactly.

 

[webestang64]

320 is just about right when shooting 400 color print film, I've been shooting Fuji 400 at 320 for decades and love the look also, mixing 200-400 on the same roll is fine as well. Just about any 400 can also be pushed to 1600 with great results. Back in the Kodachrome days I shot Kodachrome 64 at 80.

 

[Derrel]

I liked to meter my important shadows using VPS 160 ( predecessor to Portra) rated at EI 100 with my in-camera meter.

I think that consumer color negative film tends to have a narrower dynamic range by virtue of its higher contrast than Kodak Portra, which was designed for work where there is a wider-than-normal dynamic range.

I think that it is not the best idea to generalize. Working methods differ, camera light meters differ, and there is also the issue of machine prints as opposed to higher-end individually analyzed printing of each frame.

The last Portra I shot was in probably 1999, and I had the 120 negatives hand-printed at a very good Portland custom lab. That was Portra 400 NC For "natural contrast".

 

[earthmanbuck]

This guy did an exposure experiment with Portra 400, and his results suggest you can overexpose Portra by quite a bit, but can't really underexpose it so much.