Fujifilm 400H Pushed to ISO800

Hello all,

I recently shot some 400H and had it pushed to ISO800. I was in a very dark environment with only a f/4.5 lens to shoot with so it was either push to ISO800 or dont shoot.

To those who have experience with this film shot at ISO800, I'd like some comments on how you think my examples look. Please view and let me know your thoughts on this. I want to know if I could have done better in any way or do you find 400H an acceptable film at ISO800. There seems to be quite a lot of green dots over most of my images and I dont know what that means.

These shots were lab processed. Thank you!

Looks good to me.

thegman said:

Looks good to me.

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The green speckles dont bother you?

The green speckles looks like underexposed shadows (from shooting at 800) lifted in the scans
Guessing they're green because of the color shift?

Yes, the green speckles and bands are from the scanner. Since there is really not any detail in the shadows, you could post process and let them go black, eliminating the green. ---john.

jbrubaker said:

Yes, the green speckles and bands are from the scanner. Since there is really not any detail in the shadows, you could post process and let them go black, eliminating the green. ---john.

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Thank you for the suggestion! I will try to fix them based on your idea.

Hmmm....my shots look pretty under exposed. Should I shoot at ISO640 or so and process for ISO800? Would that be something that sounds reasonable? Or maybe shoot at ISO 800 and process at ISO1600?

TBH it looks pretty bad for only 1 stop of underexposure even without a push.

But I remember when I was shooting 400H, and it dropped too much shadow detail it shouldn't have at box speed anyway, was always disappointed with it.


If you want the speed, shoot Portra 400, it'll handle that fine.

If you want to stick to Pro 400H you can pre-flash the film and that will legitimately increase shadow detail by a fair margin.


Here is Superia XTRA 800 I put through C-41 at a developing time of 6 minutes, exposed at EI 12800 (4 stops, not 1)

Superia 800 @ 12800 no preflash by athiril, on Flickr

Here is the same roll, also at EI 12800, but with a pre-flash added before exposure of the main scene, everything improves, significantly.

Superia 800 @ 12800 Zone 3 preflash by athiril, on Flickr





The way I did my pre-flash was a double exposure. I determined the pre-flash amount, then held a tissue tight over the front of the lens and shot that for a uniform fogging/pre-flash, and the actual exposure on the double exposure.

There are other ways to go about the same thing, such as loading the camera, and drawing a square on the first frame through the lens mount with the shutter open, then pre-flashing the whole roll, rewinding and reloading and making sure that square lines up as the first frame etc.

You'll need to determine your pre-flash amount as well.


Here is the same scene again at EI 12800, with a preflash, but the preflash was 1 stop less than the one I used above with success

Superia 800 @ 12800 Zone 2 preflash by athiril, on Flickr


You'll need to 'waste' a roll to test it, rate the film at your desired speed (be it 800 or 1600 etc), and shoot the same scene at that speed but with bracketed pre-flashes added to it and see which pre-flash with the least exposure suddenly improves the image. The other way it's normally done is shooting only the pre-flash and push-processing to your desired developing time, and see which pre-flash exposure is just visible on the frame (the one before it should look like no exposure at all etc).

Wow...the pre flash really has an amazing impact. I dont think that works in my situations, where there are moving people and such.

Still, very impressive.

This wouldn't be a problem with moving people.

There's a description of pre-flashing in here:
http://strobist.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/how-we-got-here-analog-photoshop.html

Absolutely fascinating...but not something I'm ready or even able to do now.

Interesting. Would it be possible to get a speed boost by preflashing E-6 film? I realize there's no opportunity for color correction with E-6 projection, so I'm assuming the color temperature of light would need to be 5500K or so (electronic flash with an ND filter might work?).

ME Super said:

Interesting. Would it be possible to get a speed boost by preflashing E-6 film? I realize there's no opportunity for color correction with E-6 projection, so I'm assuming the color temperature of light would need to be 5500K or so (electronic flash with an ND filter might work?).

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I'm intending on trying it with Precisa CT.

I've cut a few strips without any exposure and processed as normal as well as pushed.

The pushed samples have reduced dMax as expected more with more pushing. So it'd still have to be process as normal, and pre-flash would reduce dMax I think.. it'd have to be done just right. I think it'd be useful for slightly reducing exposure to get more highlights in, or what you want in a more saturated part of the curve without gving up shadow detail.

But I think it can be done with a custom first developer with reduced solvent level and/or higher contrast developer. Although since I have access to a processor what I will try is a developer with no solvent before normal developing, that'd be easiest for me.

The stuff I've seen for black and white negative film is both a preflash and a push. Would this work for reversal film to get a speed boost or would highlights get blown too? Looking for a way to get shadow detail from a preflash and thus a speed boost without blowing the highlights. Also it takes me a while to get through a roll of film, how long does a preflash last between preflash and exposure? Weeks? Days? Hours? Tried doing a Google search but Google didn't have the answer.

Wow. That is so far above my skill level I don't even understand the directions but it looks cool

Chris Nielsen said:

Wow. That is so far above my skill level I don't even understand the directions but it looks cool

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I will have to make a video. Because it isn't hard at all. All I did for mine was double exposure, first pre-flash then scene exposure, all pre-flash used was through a lens using a tissue over the front of the lens held tight. Less convenient for shooting then pre-flashing entire roll before hand though etc.

ME Super said:

The stuff I've seen for black and white negative film is both a preflash and a push. Would this work for reversal film to get a speed boost or would highlights get blown too? Looking for a way to get shadow detail from a preflash and thus a speed boost without blowing the highlights. Also it takes me a while to get through a roll of film, how long does a preflash last between preflash and exposure? Weeks? Days? Hours? Tried doing a Google search but Google didn't have the answer.

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It wont blow highlights. Or rather, it shouldn't.

It could reduce dMax on slides a bit if its too high.

For example, if your pre-flash is 7 stops below highlights.. And if the highlights are say a value of 1, the preflash would have a value of 0.0078125, the highlight exposure would only become 1.0078125. To put that in other terms.. if the highlights were 1/1000th, it'd become 1/992th. Basically, about 1/100th of a stop in exposure difference to the highlights.

I suggest a new thread on this topic. It is very interesting and really ought to be discussed in a properly labeled thread so that more people can be attracted to it.

I would greatly love to see a video on this topic!

If you are going to underexpose use Portra 400 instead, maybe even Portra 800.
400H isn't great with underexposure, if anything it should be overexposed.

And in your photos let the blacks go black.