Advice On Over Exposed Portra 400NC

[lawrenceimpey]

This morning I cleverly over exposed a roll of Portra 400NC by two stops. Should I ask the lab to pull the processing somehow? Normally I shoot b&w which I develop myself but I'm not familiar with what should be done with incorrectly exposed colour film. Any advice -- other than not to do it again -- would be welcome.

[markbarendt]

Just put it in the hopper with the rest IMO.

[thegman]

I've gotten away with pulling 1 stop on slide film no problem. Might be worth pulling it by one stop, then you've got only 1 stop over, which will maybe look fine, depending on subject.

[Photo Engineer]

I have shot Portra 400 at 100 and gotten quite good results with no change in process. Of course, the negatives were quite dense but still, usable.

PE

[lawrenceimpey]

Thanks for the replies, which are quite encouraging. Unless the lab has a better suggestion I'll just assume that I should get reasonable results with the standard processing.

[hrst]

For color neg, overexposing 4 to 5 stops starts to be of a compromised quality, still usable for many purposes. Two stop overexposure can even be used on purpose for a certain effect. You'll see, it will look a bit different but good.

[wiltw]

Color neg is fairly toleratnt of exposure errors... -2EV to +3EV has long been considered to be the range whick it can withstand.

[hrst]

But, the traditional "-2 to +3" is not very good way to express this, as -2 usually results in dark, muddy images when some of the important parts of picture fall on the toe, whereas +3 can be quite good because of the long linear curve.

Of course, a good system to rate the EI of film is such that it takes all of the film's speed into use, as it is usually more practical to shoot with as fast film as possible. So, marketing a film which could be shot at 1600 as a "400 film" wouldn't be wise for anyone, not the manufacturer nor the buyer. This is why there is not so much "hidden" range in the lower part of the curve --- exposure is measured by the ISO standard and by most film users as low as possible to still get good results; thus, underexposure starts eating away the image quality quite quickly, bit by bit. Overexposure is different, though! This is why single-use cameras usually use 800 speed film.

Accidental two-stop underexposures can usually be used, but they can be disappointments. OTOH, accidental two-stop overexposures seldom are disappointments, unless there is some scanning issue involved.

[frotog]

Portra 400nc responds very well to overexposure. You should have no problems. No need for minus development.

[makanakijones]

If your film is going to the enlarger it could matter, if it is going to the scanner you have done the right thing.