I know it's too late now, but I've honestly liked the color cast of underexposed 160VC, although more like 2/3 stop than 1 full stop. I guess I would've tried developing this roll normally.
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I know it's too late now, but I've honestly liked the color cast of underexposed 160VC, although more like 2/3 stop than 1 full stop. I guess I would've tried developing this roll normally.
I wouldn't be too hard on the film.Quote:
Originally Posted by mtjade2007
Development (mostly) controls where the highlights fall, and it does affect midtones a midlin' amount, but the black point doesn't change much. No amount of push can get back "lost" shadow details.
Exposure almost exclusively controls the black point's placement on the film's curve. There's probably no shadow detail simply because the shutter closed too soon.
It's a good lesson learned for me. I now don't believe print films can be pushed. Thanks for confirming it. Fortaunately I realized that I underexposed it at the end of the roll. So I loaded another roll, a 400VC, and re-shot whatever was still possible. I will develop that roll next weekend and see what I will get out of it.
mtjade2007,
I learned the under-exposure lesson the hard way too. (Same for B&W BTW.)
As to the the color shifting, that is to be expected with underexposure.
With color film you are actually dealing with 3 separate exposures; red, green, and blue. Shadows are typically bluish. Even if you, your meter, gets the reds and greens right, if the blues end up way down on the toe of the curve you have a problem with color balance. The raw, uncorrected scans may even show this in a histogram; blues left, reds right.
Much of this is correctable in the enlarger or elsewhere but, just like any other deviation we make in photography, it does require work and adjustments.
Ansel used "Expansion and Contraction", which are the same chemical processes as "push and pull" but his aim was different, he wanted to improve a negative's contrast to make printing easier, he was not trying to push the film so that he could underexpose, i.e. use a faster shutter speed.
The trick to using a push or pull is knowing what is going to happen before hand, an option you did not have with this roll.
Push processing is not the culprit to blocked shadows. You would have even more blocked shadows if you didn't push process.
Some people like blocked shadows (heck, that's the standard way with di**tal!), some people don't. Color neg films are designed to give average, usually enough detail in shadows at box speeds. Some people who want more shadow detail, will overexpose. Some people, who don't need shadow detail but want higher midtones (like the sky) to "pop", will underexpose the films.
That's indeed what I see in the histogram in my images. The shadow is way too dark (and bluish). Photoshop shows a lot more blue than R and G there. When I used Photoshop level tool to reduce the blue in the shadow and also increase the blue in the highlight the images looked much more balanced. The images are too contrasty still though.Quote:
Originally Posted by markbarendt
Yes, I now realize that push processing is not going to save the shadows. I actually think it only increases contrast as a result. It will also make scanning much more challenging. I don't know why some people want the shadows blocked when shooting Portra films. They could easily achieve that by shooting d***tal indeed.
This will fall into a more innovative or creative photography category to explore. I see what you mean by that. I think I have much to play with my entire roll and see what I can get out of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by naugastyle
I'm sure it doesn't ALWAYS work but here are a few I liked underexposed:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3382/...ec1da9d10c.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3312/...bedbcb4691.jpg
But sometimes I think my eye is backwards to other people's because I also tend NOT to agree that overexposure increases saturation, as is conventional wisdom. To me underexposure usually looks nice.
Oh, unless it's Superia 1600, don't ever underexpose that. Godawful.
I agree with you. Conventional wisdom? I've heard that misconception only twice. Maybe I've been lucky.Quote:
Originally Posted by naugastyle
Overexposure makes contrast and saturation softer as the image is nearer to the shoulder area, or in the shoulder. It's lower in contrast. Of course, if this is compensated by using higher-contrast paper or adjusting levels in digital post-process, then the shadows, being in the higher-contrast mid-tones, can become much harder in contrast. So, in some cases, some areas of image may actually get higher in contrast, but in general, overexposing is the contrast and saturation reduction knob in C-41.
That is exactly the result of pushing.Quote:
Originally Posted by mtjade2007