Overexposing by one stop is not normal. Shooting at box speed is normal. There are reasons why you might want to overexpose by one stop, but that would be an exception and not the rule.
as you go over more and more, there is a slight color cast and no added benefit
According to my test above, the brightest neutral patch in the ColorChecker (which is 2.2 stops brighter than the D4 middle grey patch) begins to lose contrast ever so slightly at +3. I would conclude that there are 5 "straight" (ie: still on the straight line portion of the curve) stops above middle grey for Portra 400 before we enter the shoulder (which can contain many more stops, but contrast is decreasing).
There is one stop between the middle grey patch and the next darkest, and as we decrease exposure we begin to lose contrast between these two after the -1 exposure, suggesting there are 2 straight stops below middle grey. Then we're quite rapidly into the toe where detail is quickly lost and there is a heavy colour cast.
So if the straight line portion of Portra's curve is from -2 to 5, and if the average scene luminance is just over 7 stops the advice to slightly overexpose negative film as a general approach makes sense. Put simply, there is very little room in the shadows but lots and lots of room in the highlights. Three or four straight stops above 18% grey for +2 or +1 overexposure respectively is plenty for the average scene. However,at normal exposure levels two straight stops below middle grey may not be enough, especially if there is a metering error.
All in all, I think it's good advice to overexpose C41 and I do it regularly if I want a clean image. There are times I want a murky image and then I underexpose by one or two.
The benefit is cleaner and more detailed shadows. Here, both shots of the greyscale portion of an IT8 chart have been density and colour corrected to give around 118 sRGB for the middle grey patch:
View attachment 237352
Yes there is a distinctive colour cast in the highlights at +2. There is also a colour cast at box speed (in the shadows) but it doesn't seem to be as noticeable here. The job of the printer or scan technician is then to judge how best to deal with that, whether to balance for highs, mids or shadows. The popular Jose Villa look in terms of pastel tones etc, is largely derived from riffing on the colour casts offered by overexposure, this example showing pink highlights for two stops over when colour balanced for middle grey. So for some, the colour casts of overexposure are actually a plus, as they can be quite flattering for skintones, in addition to the benefit of more shadow detail.
It should also be noted that the Jose Villa look is somewhat dependant on the scanner used. Fuji Frontier SP3000s in this case. The over exposed Fuji film just interacts with that scanner in a certain way to make beautiful images. Those negatives may not scan or print well using other systems. CCD line scanners for instance may have problems with banding, and unless you are using Fuji Image Intelligence the color won't be as nice.
When you have areas at -2, which is a pretty common situation, 1 stop overexposure is almost always benefical with porta and Fuji pro C-41. There are more times that +1 is benefical than the counter, if not needeing the speed, so overexposing +1 is not the rule but close.
Many Pro photographers that have been shooting C-41 says that.
I can recommend you this book, that concludes also the same:
View attachment 237336
I have shot professionally for 35 years, and 20 of those years were on film. When shooting C41, I shot mainly Fuji Reala, but also Fuji 160NPC, Fuji 400NPH, Fujicolor Press 800 & 1600. I processed and printed all my work on Fuji SFA printer and Fuji Frontiers myself.
I always shot at box speed, using the camera's built in light meter (Olympus OM4ti & Canon Eos 1) and I always got consistently excellent results (otherwise I wouldn't be in business).
I never had one client complain about the quality of my prints ( the brief on the otherhand, well you can't win them all, all the time)
Instead me I'm amateur only, I'm not able to tell you what you have to do, by far.
That being said, anyway let me point two things.
First in your location you have not much sun, your light is very different than in Mediterranean areas like where I'm, you usually should have a really, really flat illumination compared, at least most of the time.
Second many Pros use Matricial, which reads Latitude code from DX and takes smart decisions. With my F5 I don't need to worry, Nikon and and film manuffacturers teamed perfectly to ensure perfect shots with standard settings, it is when I shot manual at box speed when I had pitfalls, the Matricial 1005 RGB pixels meter of the F5 never failed a single shot, it knows when to overexpose better than me from its Neural Network.
Still, not knowing your metering way and style, and of course having nothing to teach you, sure you know that what's locally at -2 (see posts 40 and 41) is somewhat degradated, so probably you may have been avoiding that for important areas.
BTW this is the sky in Sligo:
View attachment 237403
0vercast half of the days, even when clear you have what in my location is dull illumination, you have a soft box in the sky !
Even digital may work nice there
Here if you leave the camera under sunlight later you cannot hold it because it burns your hands
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Just pointing that in exposure YMMV, one may rate C-41 at box speed, but matricial mode of the Nikon F5 has the Latitude code from DX and it may overexpose (compared to average or incident) without photographer is even aware.
Also ponderated modes does it, if subject has a backlight, as center has more weight it exposes for the shadows, also overexposing compared to average.
So it's totally sterile comparing EI rates without saying the metering way. What we now is that C-41 is damaged in spot metered areas at -2 or -3, but not at +3.
If speaking in spot metering terms it's clear what we say, with other metering ways YMMV.
I think you may be confusing illumination (brightness) with contrast (the difference between light & dark).
What I was saying is that an scene with a high SBR (Subject Brightness Range ) favors overexposing (say) Portra 160 for good results.
Let's think that we use the calculated 0+/- exposure, and in that situation we have shadows in the scene at -3 and also highlights at +3. Those areas at -3 will be damaged. A solution would be a general +1 overexposure, shadows will be better at -2, mids at +1 would be perfect and highlights at +4 would not be damaged, so if we improve shadows without damaging highlights then it's worth.
So a contrasty scene or constrasty illumination would favor overexposing, as we have more latitude in the highlights than in the shadows we'll get a better result.
I guess that in that case you would also do that... but in your location there is less a need because scenes are usually less contrasty.
From what we've seen in this thread the toe of Portra 400 is from -2 to - 3.3, after which effectively no information is recorded. However, the shoulder continues from after +5 for many more stops indefinitely, depending on your ability to recover the information. My Noritsu can recover information at 8 stops over. Yes the contrast is a little compressed, but it's very usable. And there is more information recorded beyond +8, but contrast is now decreasing quickly. So if there are 7 equally contrasty stops (straight line portion of the curve from -2 to +5) there are 11 or more usable stops (from -3.3 to +8 and beyond).
Exposing a high contrast scene at box speed (let's say 10 stops with 4 below and 6 over) gives a very different look to slightly overexposing it. They are different aesthetics. One has soft, muted shadows and the other has hard, contrasty shadows. Individual photographers may prefer one look over another for a given application. For example, for certain kinds of portraiture I like box speed or even -1. For landscape or architecture I might favour +2. By being aware of the film's behaviour, a shooter will know how and why to get the results they want.
often overexposing/W negative film by 2/3 stop leads to better shadow detail than exposing for box speed but, strictly speaking, that's not overexposure but accurate exposure, ignoring the often liberal film sensitivity rating of the film manufacturer.I have recently moved into shooting film, Currently shooting with Portra 400. Nikon f100
From what I’ve seen on YouTube it seems like overexposing 1, sometimes up to 2 stops is better for a more accurate exposure, than finding the balance (middle of meter), which often leads to under exposure.
Do you guys agree with this?
Thanks
I agree!often overexposing/W negative film by 2/3 stop leads to better shadow detail than exposing for box speed but, strictly speaking, that's not overexposure but accurate exposure, ignoring the often liberal film sensitivity rating of the film manufacturer.
... As David Vestal used to say, "make sure you give your film enough exposure and be careful not to overdevelop"
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