Overexposed Kodak Portra 800

[nicowestlicht]

Hi everybody,

Today I was shooting snowy landscapes and at some point I switched from a 100 ISO film to a Kodak Portra 800 film.
The problem is that I did not set the external light meter to ISO 800, so I kept on metering with 3 f-stops too much. Normally I wouldn't bother too much because it is color negative, but I guess the overexposed snow will just result in a plain white block missing any texture.
Do you have any advice for the film development? Has any of you already pictures of pulled Kodak Portra 800 film at least 2 f-stops?
Thank you in advance for your advices.

Regards,
Nico

 

[ME Super]

Portra 800, being a color negative film rather than a color positive/reversal/slide film, has lower contrast than color positive/reversal/slide film. Since the contrast is lower, it has a wider exposure latitude. Les Sarlie has reported that Kodak's Portra series of films can handle 3 stops over to two stops under with normal processing. Will it look as good as shot at box speed or only 1 stop over? Probably not, but you'll get something usable out of it. (there was a url link here which no longer exists) shows some Kodak Ultramax 400 underexposed and pushed 2 stops (shot under tungsten rather than daylight so the color balance is not the greatest), and a couple frames of Portra 400 shot at 3200 and pushed 3 stops. Outside of the range of 3 over or 2 under, I personally would recommend a pull or push, but then I usually shoot slide film, which has much less latitude than a color print film.

 

[nicowestlicht]

Thanks for reassuring me, I know color negatives have a wider exposure latitude, I'm just worried because of the presence of snow which can result in highlights all over the picture. I have tried googling "Kodak Portra 800 pull" to get an idea of what to expect, but I did not get any significant result.

 

[markbarendt]

You'll probably be fine

When you are adjusting for printing, start with the snow.

 

[Colin DeWolfe]

If there is a lot of snow in the scene and you had it on automatic, chances are the camera would have underexposed anyways (trying to make it gray). You'll probably be fine.

 

[David Lyga]

If you metered on the snow, your meter will probably be not far off from correct exposure. After all, your meter 'thought' that your camera was pointed to a medium grey object, but in fact, it was an object that was almost pure white. Thus, your meter will 'underexpose' and, since your film selection was 'overexposed' you just might net out to perfection. - David Lyga

 

[Sirius Glass]

You are within the latitude of Portra 800, so your photographs should be alright.

 

[rwreich]

Hi everybody,

Today I was shooting snowy landscapes and at some point I switched from a 100 ISO film to a Kodak Portra 800 film.
The problem is that I did not set the external light meter to ISO 800, so I kept on metering with 3 f-stops too much. Normally I wouldn't bother too much because it is color negative, but I guess the overexposed snow will just result in a plain white block missing any texture.
Do you have any advice for the film development? Has any of you already pictures of pulled Kodak Portra 800 film at least 2 f-stops?
Thank you in advance for your advices.

Regards,
Nico

How did your results turn out? Were you able to recover any usable images?

 

[multivoiced]

For best results, articles on the web recommend metering at 200 when using Portra 800. Is this advice likely to be exaggerated?

While this thread is old, the questions are as relevant today as ever.

 

[Steven Lee]

To take a step further, IMO even saying "metering at 200" makes zero sense, unless you're shooting a grey card. Meters and desired outcomes differ wildly. Even if we try to standardize on ambient metering, WHERE you place the meter changes everything. Your exposure "metered at 200" could be equal to my exposure "metered at 800".

But from a practical perspective, AFAIK all Kodak C41 films adhere to the ISO standard so there's no need to set your meter to anything other than the box speed. What comes after is subjective personal metering preferences and hard to compare or offer advice for.

 

[koraks]

Is this advice likely to be exaggerated?

Yes. It'll do OK at 200, but there's little point in overexposing it that much. It does fine at 800 as well.

 

[Les Sarile]

Hi everybody,

Today I was shooting snowy landscapes and at some point I switched from a 100 ISO film to a Kodak Portra 800 film.
The problem is that I did not set the external light meter to ISO 800, so I kept on metering with 3 f-stops too much. Normally I wouldn't bother too much because it is color negative, but I guess the overexposed snow will just result in a plain white block missing any texture.
Do you have any advice for the film development? Has any of you already pictures of pulled Kodak Portra 800 film at least 2 f-stops?
Thank you in advance for your advices.

Regards,
Nico

I don't know how similar the overexposure characteristics of Kodak Portra 400 and 800 but it seems all color negatives I've tested to date can easily absorb >+3 overexposure with normal processing and require little to no post work. Below, I overexpose Portra 400 +10. I then took that +10 and applied white balance & levels and you can see what I could recover.

Kodak Portra 400 overexposure by Les DMess, on Flickr

My post is late and others have already pointed this out . . . However, in your situation, it may even be better depending on how you metered. Since you say there was a lot of snow - a brighter then normal scene, generally an unsophisticated averaging meter will look at a bright scene and underexpose it by up to 2 stops. So unless you compensated for this then you would have only overexposed by 1 stop.