Shot Portra 400 at 200 by mistake! Help!

10speeduk · Jun 1, 2013

Hi Guys,

I made the mistake of shooting 2 rolls of portra 400 at 200 ISO

Do I need to so anything to the dev time?

I will be self developing. Let me know. I hope I can save the shots as they looked good at the time!

Cheers

Paul

cjbecker · Jun 1, 2013

Run it normal. 200 is where I normally shot it.

10speeduk · Jun 1, 2013

cjbecker said:
Run it normal. 200 is where I normally shot it.

Cheers cjb!

railwayman3 · Jun 1, 2013

As cjbecker says. Color neg will stand quite a lot of overexposure, it's underexposure that degrades the colors and grain.
I have a Minox point-and-shoot which uses averaging metering with no simple way of over-riding, and I always set the camera at 200 ASA for 400ASA film.

Richard S. (rich815) · Jun 1, 2013

cjbecker said:
Run it normal. 200 is where I normally shot it.

+1. I shoot almost all my color neg at 1/2 to 1 full stop under box speed and develop normally.

damonff · Jun 1, 2013

I shoot Portra 400 at 160!

10speeduk · Jun 1, 2013

damonff said:
I shoot Portra 400 at 160!

cool just bleaching now!

Les Sarile · Jun 1, 2013

What the others have stated - Kodak Portra 400 has an extremely wide latitude particularly on the overexposure side. Below are the results of the testing I did and scanned without pre or post anything. Plenty of room for post work.

Link to larger version -> Kodak Portra 400 latitude

10speeduk · Jun 1, 2013

cool link! will post the finished articles later... thanks

Sirius Glass · Jun 1, 2013

Do not worry about it. Two stops is within the dynamic range of C-41 film. If it had been slide film, then you would have had to deal with it during development.

wildbill · Jun 1, 2013

Chan Tran · Jun 1, 2013

Normal development the result will likely be better than if you shot at 400.

Sirius Glass · Jun 1, 2013

Chan Tran said:
Normal development the result will likely be better than if you shot at 400.

i would not go that far. I have found that box speed give the best results because the exposure range is balanced around it. Most of the testing for the elusive EI is based on the result that the camera, lens, light meter or darkroom technique are not properly calibrated. Typically people shooting at half the box speed are merely compensating for aiming the light meter to include too much of the sky. It is much easier to blame problems on the film manufacturers than accept that they are systematically making the same mistake or that the camera and/or the light meter is not properly calibrated.

10speeduk · Jun 1, 2013

Natalia on Portra 400 by The Paul Reid, on Flickr

This is after editing. It came out fine. A bit highlight heavy for my tastes but managed to bring back some mid tones. Good to know I can save myself from stupidity sometimes

Thanks for the info guys!

Les Sarile · Jun 1, 2013

Of course overexposure can also come from scans. I know the minilab types typically do and depending on the operator, you may not have an option.

Lovely image! Great job!

Zygomorph · Jun 2, 2013

Joel Sternfeld always told our class to rate Portra at half the box speed, which meant in most cases running Portra 160NC at 80 and you'd BETTER use a tripod ("90% of the 'look' of art photography is the tripod.") His reasoning was that Kodak always over-rated their film, but this probably isn't really the case anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "look" of his work is due to consistently squashing the highlights in exposure.

I also recall overhearing a conversation where he was telling somebody that if they needed to do handheld available light, they should try using iso 800, shooting it 400, and pushing it two stops. Hahahaha.

Tom1956 · Jun 2, 2013

My advise to the OP would have been about the same as everybody elses'. Just develop normally and be glad the film tolerated it. I do not agree with "Joel Sternfield" or any other teacher/know-it-all personalities claiming that they know better than the scientists at the film company who work very diligently to R & D their product. I guess I'm too old to be fooled anymore by some "expert" that claims to know better than Kodak.

damonff · Jun 3, 2013

Looks great!

DREW WILEY · Jun 3, 2013

Joel Sternfeld was one of those 70's types who was revolting from the saturated look of color by abusing color neg film for abnormally muddy tones; he did this in an interesting manner. But the published box speed is indeed the correct location of first base relative to what the film
is engineered to do. How you bend the rules after that is up to you. Just remember that, in this respect, Portra is a lot more forgiving than Ektar will be.

Tom1956 · Jun 3, 2013

It wasn't my intent to diminish this Sternfield fellow's classes or students. Perhaps I have a sensitivity to teachers and professors who sop up a paycheck teaching gobbledegook. My brother-in-law is a retired professor who managed to make quite a nestegg for himself teaching absolute boloney that not a soul in this world needed to know. It taints my attitude towards some of these "scholars" who bloat college budgets and tuition costs with make-work absurdity.
And then I think of a guy like PE who dedicated his career as a scientist at the film company whose job it was to print a reliable box speed on the product, then hold quality-control to that standard. So, between the 2, I'd say Kodak is more reliable than some subjective relativist egghead like my brother-in-law.

DREW WILEY · Jun 3, 2013

I had a mixed experience in college. The humanities professors thrived on total BS. But I did a lot of independent study and research in sciences
under some of the best of the best. Any so-called art professor probably would have shot me after a few weeks. ... they were the most
stuck-in-a-rut types of all (the more avante garde they got, the more they all looked the same, painted the same, spoke the same, etc.).
Technique and craft can be taught; art requires some kind of native instinct, which would be vastly aided if the entire term for "art" was
erased from existence. Personally, I've found Kodak's graphs and tech data sheets on these color neg films to be spot on.

photopriscilla · Jun 3, 2013

I have made the same mistake in the past. Everything turned out fine. No worries.

Chan Tran · Jun 3, 2013

Sirius Glass said:
i would not go that far. I have found that box speed give the best results because the exposure range is balanced around it. Most of the testing for the elusive EI is based on the result that the camera, lens, light meter or darkroom technique are not properly calibrated. Typically people shooting at half the box speed are merely compensating for aiming the light meter to include too much of the sky. It is much easier to blame problems on the film manufacturers than accept that they are systematically making the same mistake or that the camera and/or the light meter is not properly calibrated.

Actually by studying the data sheet from Kodak http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/e4050/e4050.pdf referring to the section judging negative exposures for the gray card and the characteristic curves they would suggest setting the meter at ISO 200 would give you a closer result.

Shot Portra 400 at 200 by mistake! Help!

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