Portra Pushing Problems

[Joseph Bell]

Hello fine people! Earlier this evening I hastily shot three rolls of Portra 400 with my Nikon F100. I shot 2 of the rolls at box speed and 1 roll at iso800 with the intention of pushing it 1 stop. I was happily photographing a red-tailed hawk eating a mallard in a tree, and in my excitement I got a little sloppy! I put all three of the rolls back in my camera bag and have no way of knowing which roll is the iso800 roll!! I can't decide if I should simply push all 3 rolls by 1 stop. Better to overexpose than underexpose? Or should I split the difference and push all 3 rolls by a half-stop? O how flummoxed I am! I feel that I got some good pictures tonight and I would like to keep the exposure as accurate as possible! Of course I will be truly grateful for your ideas and opinions! Thank you most sincerely!

 

[Sirius Glass]

Process normally, the exposure latitude will handle it. Pushing color film increases the contrast, the film speed is not changed with longer processing.

 

[MattKing]

Sirius has it right, unless the light was really flat, in which case the boost in contrast from a push might help all three rolls.

 

[Ste_S]

Another vote for process normally, the latitude on Portra 400.
I believe some people just shoot 400 one stop under and process normally rather than buying Portra 800

 

[Joseph Bell]

Thank you kindly! I will do as you say!

 

[Joseph Bell]

I processed the film normally and it turned out very well. If there is any underexposure, I certainly can't see it. Many thanks for your help!

 

[mtjade2007]

I have done C-41 push processing before a few times. It never added any density to the thin area of the film. It only caused color crossover error.