Rating C41 film faster and develop normally?

I understand it is best to expose at box speed and I have heard those who rate their film faster than box speed is ISO 1600 with Fuji Pro H 400 and then ask the lab to develop as normal.

How do you guys rate your films and develop them? Normally a slide and b/w user but this new way can be fun and embrace the less color accurateness. Interested in your views.


Cheers.

I use box speed for slides, color negative and black & white negative film. The color and black & white negative film have a wide latitude so some people vary from the box speed and get decent results with normal development. Slides must be exposed to a narrow exposure range.

It depends on contrast of your scene and which areas you point your meter at. From the point you measure you have about four stops downward for proper shadow detail. If your whole scene doesn't have darker areas than two or three stops below, then you can safely rate your film higher than box speed, same thing if you want your darker regions to render as deep blacks. If you point your meter at high brightness areas of your scene and still want proper shadow detail in your prints/slides, you will have to downrate your film.

All these statements "I rate x film at EI25/160/1600/3218" are completely meaningless without proper context.

Slide film as accurately as possible, processed normally.

Neg film at least box speed, but will happily give it a few stops extra. Process normal.

There are plenty of excellent references online illustrating how neg film responds to over/underexposure. It’s usually fine underexposing 1-2 stops, and overexposing 3-4 stops. My first camera was a single speed 35mm camera with two aperture settings marked “ISO 100” (small aperture) and “ISO 400” (medium aperture). Most photos came out fine.

It wasn’t until years later I realised the exposures were all over the place and the lab was correcting during printing.

Box speed and normal development for client work and most of my own work.

One stop faster EI with one stop push in processing for some of my own work. I like this combination quite a bit with Portra 400. It needs higher contrast lighting to be effective. I used Portra 400 with bright sunlight, night/street and flat overcast conditions all on the same roll, with a one stop processing push. The bright sun and night results were great imo. The flat overcast images left me, well, flat.

I have not used a faster EI with normal processing. Try it with high contrast lighting. With normal or flat lighting my guess is it would be muddy and flat. If that is what you are looking for then it might be right for you.

For slides I use box speed. For b/w and me and I heard others rate Iford HP5 at 1600 and do a push. My question with C41. Some people prefer that less contrasting look right ... how they rate Fuji Pro H 400 or Portra 400 2 stops faster and develop normally?