Starve a transparency, feed a negative

mark · Jan 16, 2019

I have not shot color film in about 10 years. If the opportunity arises this weekend I will be. Am I remembering this general rule of thumb correctly

Under expose transparencies by a tad and over expose color negs?

I will be shooting portra 160 mostly because I want to, but if the mood hits I have some provia 100.

keenmaster486 · Jan 16, 2019

You can do that, but take great care when trying for anything but spot-on exposure with slide film. Its latitude is not very wide.

With color neg, it’s all preference because the latitude is so wide, you could over or under expose it by 3 or 4 stops and still have a usable negative.

koraks · Jan 16, 2019

keenmaster486 said:
With color neg, it’s all preference because the latitude is so wide, you could over or under expose it by 3 or 4 stops and still have a usable negative.

Underexposing color neg by 3-4 stops and still getting good results? Gee, I wish I knew how to trick my film into doing that. Somehow, I don't get away with anything except maybe -1/3 or 1/2 a stop - if I'm lucky.

Slide film: tends to look yuck with blown out highlights IMO. I generally spot meter important highlights (discounting specular ones) and place them at no more than +2-1/3.
Color negative film: looks best in my book if exposed at box speed to +1 stop above box speed. Underexposure comes at the cost of the shadows, with color balance going off first and then any detail disappearing if you really misbehave. Overexposure leads to excessive halation, granularity and loss of detail as a result in particular if it's 3 stops or more.
Just in my experience, that is. YMMV.

WilmarcoImaging · Jan 16, 2019

I normally expose color film at box speed, metered with a spot meter. I meter highlights, then shadows, then make an aesthetic choice on where to place exposure.

When I want flexibility with 135 format, I push Portra 400 by exposing at EI800 and developing for 3'45''.

halfaman · Jan 17, 2019

I would recomend bracketing with transparencies. Three shots: meter exposure, +1 stop, -0.5 stop.

Color negative film have a hughe tolerance to overexposure, they accommodate +2 stops without any effort.

DREW WILEY · Jan 17, 2019

Kodak's current box speed rating with their color neg films is spot on. If you do err, it's still best to do so a tad on the overexposure side. And what that tad amounts to depends on the specific film. Higher-contast Ektar is fairly unforgiving. Porta 100 is considerably more forgiving, but not like an old amateur color neg film like Kodacolor Gold. There is always a tradeoff for overdoing it. Even half a stop off seems nuts to me.

BrianShaw · Jan 17, 2019

DREW WILEY said:
Kodak's current box speed rating with their color neg films is spot on. If you do err, it's still best to do so a tad on the overexposure side. And what that tad amounts to depends on the specific film. Higher-contast Ektar is fairly unforgiving. Porta 100 is considerably more forgiving, but not like an old amateur color neg film like Kodacolor Gold. There is always a tradeoff for overdoing it. Even half a stop off seems nuts to me.

Yup.

DREW WILEY · Jan 17, 2019

Incidentally, I NEVER bracket (unless it's just for sake of testing an unfamiliar new film). Light meters were invented for a reason.

Pioneer · Jan 18, 2019

On the underexposure side I push Portra 800 up to EI3200 when I need it which is frequently when photographing night time or indoor high school sports, but the shadows will suffer somewhat. Kodak says as much in their datasheet and gives very useful push developing times for Portra 800. In my experience though Portra 800 does not handle overexposure as well as the other two Portra films do. At least I have not been as happy with the results when I overexpose.

Portra 400 or 160 I shoot pretty much at box speed though I have found that either of them will handle about a one stop underexposure without bothering to push in development. Overexposure is fine with either of these two films and can actually look pretty good when you have good lighting.

As others have noted, Ektar 100 seems to prefer being shot at box speed but it is so magnificent at box speed that I am perfectly happy doing that.

I am not as familiar with Fuji color films though the 160 or 400 films seem to work great at box speed. Have never really tried over or underexposing it.

I shoot quite a bit of Provia 100 transparency film in 120 rolls and I meter the highlights pretty carefully and base my exposures on those results.

Since it has gone away it doesn't matter much anymore but Provia 400X handled underexposure very well. But, like I said, Fuji didn't like producing it nearly as much as I liked shooting it so it has gone away in the same way that most Fuji films seem to go away.

halfaman · Jan 18, 2019

DREW WILEY said:
Incidentally, I NEVER bracket (unless it's just for sake of testing an unfamiliar new film). Light meters were invented for a reason.

It is not about light metering itself but the tight latitude of the slide film on high lights and shadows. Could be a little tricky sometimes to anticipate which the best exposure is for the contrast of a scene and film in use. If there are doubts the best thing to do with transparencies is bracketing, it was even a automatic feature of many modern 35 mm SLR cameras.

With color negative film there is no need due to the large room for overexposing.

Rick A · Jan 18, 2019

Back in the olden days we used to under expose Kodachrome by 1/3-1/2 stop to give it a slightly more saturated look, but in all honesty it's better to meter transparency films for highlights. I would still give negative film a tad more exposure, or meter for shadows just like B&W film, but no more than 1/3-1/2 stop.

warden · Jan 18, 2019

mark said:
I have not shot color film in about 10 years. If the opportunity arises this weekend I will be. Am I remembering this general rule of thumb correctly

Under expose transparencies by a tad and over expose color negs?

I will be shooting portra 160 mostly because I want to, but if the mood hits I have some provia 100.

It depends on the film and lighting conditions of course, but if I were shooting those two emulsions I would expose both of them at ISO 100 in normal light.

DREW WILEY · Jan 18, 2019

Well, I shot a lot of Kodachrome 25 when I was a kid; and once I learned how to use the meter, a rather primitive one, I never bracketed, and almost never goofed an exposure. In adult life, I've shot a lot of color sheet film, including a lot of 8X10. Try bracketing that and you need to be rich, own an elephant to help you carry all the surplus film holders, and assume that the light won't change in the meantime - which it will. I got rid of a Nikon FM3a because it had too many bells and whistles for me; why on earth would I want something automated? I want to determine the exposure, not have a machine do it. I even have one of those cute ole Weston incident meters in a drawer somewhere, leather case n all. It still works. You point it thisaway and thataway, observe the flight pattern of bats, then pull the cover off and use the metal edge to disembowel an owl and examine the entrails. Eventually you might get good enough to figure out a correct exposure. Or do what I did, standardize on Pentax Spot meters and be done with it. No need to guess, or gamble on latitude.

Sirius Glass · Jan 19, 2019

Slide film must be exposed spot on.
Negative film has so much latitude that it can be exposed and developed a number of ways. Black & white much more so than color negative film.

ic-racer · Jan 19, 2019

If you are printing transparency I found one can slightly under-expose and it still prints well on Cibachrome, but it will be dark during projection. As mentioned above, exposure must be spot on for good projection.

Starve a transparency, feed a negative

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