Shot at 200 developed at 400?

I am testing out some portra 400 film, and have seen various topics on shooting at 200 and then developing as a 400.

What does this actually mean and can this apply to 35 mm. I’m thinking it’s got something to do with pushing pulling?

Thanks

It simply means overexposing your film by one stop. It can easily handle one stop of overexposure, it can even look better. There is no need to alter development.

Anon Ymous said:

It simply means overexposing your film by one stop. It can easily handle one stop of overexposure, it can even look better. There is no need to alter development.

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If they are developing as a 400 though, does that mean they take the 200 into account still?

No, they don’t. You took it into account with your camera settings.YOU exposed your film one stop different from “normal”.

BrianShaw said:

No, they don’t. You took it into account with your camera settings.

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Thanks

Brandon88 said:

I am testing out some portra 400 film, and have seen various topics on shooting at 200 and then developing as a 400.

What does this actually mean and can this apply to 35 mm. I’m thinking it’s got something to do with pushing pulling?

Thanks

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It means the film is under exposed by one stop.

You are over exposing by a stop which merely reduces the range of latitude of light that the film can handle. When one does that they are gaining nothing with color negative film. With black & white film the can be some shadow depth gains but there are other losses. Save your time and money and shoot color film at box speed with the big plus we would not have to see many threads about "what went wrong with this photo?"

ic-racer said:

It means the film is under exposed by one stop.

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This is incorrect. Shooting 400 speed film at 200 means it’s over-exposed by one stop.

Sirius Glass said:

You are over exposing by a stop which merely reduces the range of latitude of light that the film can handle. When one does that they are gaining nothing with color negative film. With black & white film the can be some shadow depth gains but there are other losses. Save your time and money and shoot color film at box speed with the big plus we would not have to see many threads about "what went wrong with this photo?"

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This is also, subjectively, incorrect. It is thoroughly discussed and explored online the benefits of over-exposing color film.

In my experience, film tolerates over-exposure much more than under-exposure and most modern films actually perform better when over-exposed by at least a stop. The only real exception being slide films which require more accurate exposure as they lack the latitude of negative films (but make up for it in color reproduction).

Portra, especially the 800 ISO variant, handles overexposure beautifully and often results in more pastel colors (less warmth), softer shadows and smoother falloff from highlights to shadows.

I find that Portra 400 and 800 can be overly warm and saturated and shooting it a stop over-exposed (or more) softens it nicely.

One way to test would be to shoot a roll of 400 and bracket your exposures and see which you prefer. Do one at normal exposure and then one each at +1 and +2.

I accidentaly shot a roll of Portra 400 at ISO 100, it came perfect developed normally. I didn't see any substancial change in saturation but just some contrast compression (more shadow detail with almost no alteration of highlights density).

Brandon88 said:

[...]What does this actually mean and can this apply to 35 mm. I’m thinking it’s got something to do with pushing pulling?

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What it means is that you're over-exposing your film by however many stops (ISO 400 film at ISO 200 is one stop, ISO 100 is two stops, ISO 50 is three stops...) and yes, it applies to 35mm film. It applies to all film since all film has an ISO rating so shooting over- or under-exposed is possible on any film, although I find shooting under-exposed on any film to be more detrimental than shooting over-exposed.

Pushing and Pulling is different than over- and under-exposing. Sort of.

Say you head out to shoot for the day and you only have a single roll of Portra 800, but it's very bright outside. You could stop down and shoot a high shutter speed to compensate for the bright light or you could pull your film, which means you would rate it in the camera at, say, ISO 200 so that you could shoot lower shutter speeds or wider apertures and then you tell the lab that you pulled your film by two stops and they will adjust development time accordingly.

The adverse is also true for lower speed films. Say you go out and take a roll of ISO 400 film, but it's darker outside than you anticipated and you want to hand-hold your camera at a higher shutter speed. You would then push your film, which means you rate it at a higher ISO than it is on the box (say 3200 which is 3 stops under-exposed). You take it to the lab and tell them you pushed your film three stops and they develop accordingly.

There are pros and cons to pushing and pulling. More cons for pushing than their are for pulling.

Pushing is handy when you have slower film but need more light. The trade-off is that you typically end up with a much more contrasty image and grain is more pronounced. I wouldn't suggest pushing a film that already exhibits a lot of grain as it will just get worse. That being said, a grainy shot of something important is probably better than no shot at all. Pulling is handy when you want to shoot wide open in bright daylight or when your camera shutter is limited (i.e., an older camera that only goes up to 1/500 or something) but have a higher-speed film. The tradeoff here is that pulled film can sometimes lose contrast and get a little bit flat and muddy, probably from the shortened development time.

It's hard to plan for every lighting scenario and it sucks to get caught with a roll of film in your camera that's half-shot and the lighting changes. You can't push or pull part of a roll. If you tell the lab you pushed or pulled by x-stops, they're going to do the entire roll. Versus over- or under-exposing some frames intentionally and just letting the image happen the way it happens.

halfaman said:

I accidentaly shot a roll of Portra 400 at ISO 100, it came perfect developed normally. I didn't see any substancial change in saturation but just some contrast compression (more shadow detail with almost no alteration of highlights density).

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I saw some examples of the same scene shot at a big range of under and over exposures that I recall PE put up and I suspect from looking at those that most viewers might not detect over exposure until it was at least 2 stops over. The OP was one stop over only so I'd expect no difference or only a very marginal difference.

PE's pics seemed to demonstrate exactly what you have said above

pentaxuser

I have two questions regarding shooting 400 rated film as 200 ISO:

1. Do I meter as 400 or 200? I guess it's latter, but I'm double checking to be sure before I start experimenting.
2. Do I have to pull 1 stop in the development too or process it as normal 400 film?

hiroh said:

I have two questions regarding shooting 400 rated film as 200 ISO:

1. Do I meter as 400 or 200? I guess it's latter, but I'm double checking to be sure before I start experimenting.
2. Do I have to pull 1 stop in the development too or process it as normal 400 film?

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You pretend the film is iso200. So, you meter for 200, set the camera iso for 200, develop the film normally.

Don Heisz said:

You pretend the film is iso200. So, you meter for 200, set the camera iso for 200, develop the film normally.

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Thanks! I thought so, but it's worth asking before I spend time shooting the whole roll, developing and guessing if I was doing it right.

How does shooting 200 on Portra 400 affects reciprocity failure? If I'm shooting metering for 10s, I should be shooting 26s, but that applies to Portra 400 (I guess shooting at 400). How does it work when shooting on 200?

hiroh said:

How does shooting 200 on Portra 400 affects reciprocity failure? If I'm shooting metering for 10s, I should be shooting 26s, but that applies to Portra 400 (I guess shooting at 400). How does it work when shooting on 200?

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In that instance, you should consider the reciprocity for your exposure metered at iso400 but overexposed one stop.

Don Heisz said:

In that instance, you should consider the reciprocity for your exposure metered at iso400 but overexposed one stop.

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So I shoot Portra 400 with ISO 200 at night and my meter says 10s, but I'm shooting 26s (according to the Portra 400 reciprocity failure source). But before shooting 26s, I overexpose it by one stop with either shutter speed or aperture? Which will then add even more time to the original 26 seconds. Am I right?

Your 10 second exposure is based on the meter assuming the film is iso200. The film is iso400, though. So take a reading with the meter set at iso400. You final exposure will be the adjustment of that reading overexposed a stop (this is the same as setting the meter at iso200 and adjusting that. It's only how you should consider it. The reciprocity of the film doesn't change when you decide to rate the film differently.)

Don Heisz said:

Your 10 second exposure is based on the meter assuming the film is iso200. The film is iso400, though. So take a reading with the meter set at iso400. You final exposure will be the adjustment of that reading overexposed a stop (this is the same as setting the meter at iso200 and adjusting that. It's only how you should consider it. The reciprocity of the film doesn't change when you decide to rate the film differently.)

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Oh yeah, that makes sense. Except when my meter is my camera. in that case, I'll have to compensate that 200 ISO with something else I guess? Thanks!

Don Heisz said:

Your 10 second exposure is based on the meter assuming the film is iso200. The film is iso400, though. So take a reading with the meter set at iso400. You final exposure will be the adjustment of that reading overexposed a stop (this is the same as setting the meter at iso200 and adjusting that. It's only how you should consider it. The reciprocity of the film doesn't change when you decide to rate the film differently.)

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So basically, I'm just metering at the box speed , although I'm shooting at the lower ISO?

When you set the camera to iso200 with iso400 film loaded, that is the same as setting the camera at iso400 but overexposing one stop.

hiroh said:

How does shooting 200 on Portra 400 affects reciprocity failure? If I'm shooting metering for 10s, I should be shooting 26s, but that applies to Portra 400 (I guess shooting at 400). How does it work when shooting on 200?

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You aren't shooting at 200, you are metering at 200. While that sounds strange, it is one way of saying that your setting the meter at 200 doesn't really change the film, it changes how you are dealing with it.
The same applies to situations where the light levels are so low that you have to deal with reciprocity failure. If you intend to rely on pre-existing reciprocity failure tables that were calculated based on metering at an EI of 400, you best meter at 400 yourself.
A reciprocity failure table based on metering at 200 for the film would be different than the one for 400, and the difference wouldn't be strictly linear.
If you meter at 200, just convert the results to 400 by reducing the exposure by one stop, and then plugging the result into the table.
For really low light, make sure you are metering within the sensitivity range for the camera's meter.

matthewm said:

Portra, especially the 800 ISO variant, handles overexposure beautifully and often results in more pastel colors (less warmth), softer shadows and smoother falloff from highlights to shadows.

I find that Portra 400 and 800 can be overly warm and saturated and shooting it a stop over-exposed (or more) softens it nicely.

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Thanks for the observations regarding Portra 400 and 800. As a first time color film user, I would like less saturated and less warm results so will try Portra 400 rated at 200. What about Portra 160, are the same effects seen by rating it at ASA 80? Was out at the beach with film for the first time in 10+ years with fast lenses but could not open up more than f11 as I had 400 speed film, a maximum shutter speed of 1/1000 and no ND filter. I don't mind using slower speed films so as to be able to open up the lens for more depth of field control. Now waiting for some ND filters to arrive.

ymc226 said:

Thanks for the observations regarding Portra 400 and 800. As a first time color film user, I would like less saturated and less warm results so will try Portra 400 rated at 200. What about Portra 160, are the same effects seen by rating it at ASA 80? Was out at the beach with film for the first time in 10+ years with fast lenses but could not open up more than f11 as I had 400 speed film, a maximum shutter speed of 1/1000 and no ND filter. I don't mind using slower speed films so as to be able to open up the lens for more depth of field control. Now waiting for some ND filters to arrive.

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Sure! Glad to offer up some insight. I'm no pro, but I have had really great luck shooting color film at at least one stop overexposed with normal developing. A couple of years ago, I had shot some Ektar 100 at ISO 50 and when I loaded my camera at the beach the next afternoon with Portra 400, I forgot to change it to 200 on my camera and shot that roll at ISO 50. I developed it as-normal since I didn't want to risk pulling it and messing it up. It came out fine and that was 3 stops over-exposed.

Also... I'd argue that there's a bigger deal being made about reciprocity than is really necessary. I'm not saying it's not a thing. But at relatively short exposure times (like 10 seconds), I don't know that it's as much a concern as it would be at longer exposures (like 1-5 minutes). When I've shot at night with over-exposed film (I always shoot CineStill 800T at night rated at 400), I've never even compensated for reciprocity and my stuff turns out fine. For your night stuff, I'd shoot at one stop over-exposed (set your ISO in your camera or hand-held meter or phone meter or whatever to 200 if you're shooting Portra 400) and then shoot at whatever shutter speed it tells you. If it's more than like 30 seconds, maybe add a stop by opening up your aperture one click or throw in another 15 seconds or whatever, but since you're already over-exposing by a stop, you're kind of accounting for reciprocity in that adjusted exposure calculation.