Ever since the days of the good ol' Vericolor, I've routinely overexposed by 1 stop (rating the 160 VPS and Portra at 80 - I haven't and don't use 400). Never had a bit of trouble.
What about metering technique? When you say 100 is good for Portra 160, are you spot-metering your mid-range brightness region, using an average reflected reading (say 30 degrees angle of view), incident metering, or ???
steve
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If you have the time for a detailed metering technique, then I would not rate it any slower than 1/3 stop below box speed for average or mixed shooting conditions; and only as an assumption that your density threshold will probably not exactly match the manufacturer's; NOT as a *blanket* exposure compensation.
There is no need. All it does is slightly lower the overall contrast of the film for the entire roll (which you just may want). You gain what I feel is an unnecessary and distracting amount of shadow detail and texture at the expense of saturation and punch, and can get unnatural tonalities and increased grain (though probably not much unless you go over more than a stop).
If you use an in-camera (reflected) averaging meter, or some derivation thereof, be it center weighted, matrix, etc., then the problems come in. Lack of time/lack of desire to make detailed meter readings or just plain poor metering practice (AKA not knowing what the heck a reflected meter really tells you) is why many people half rate their film to "cover" themselves in the shadows.
It's FAR from the worst practice in the world, and won't ruin anything. It's almost always better to be over than under on negs, but if you have the time, you might as well just take a few seconds longer with your meter and nail it without gimmicks.
The reason so many people's films look better when they downrate them is because they usually base their exposures off of an in-camera reflected reading, which more often than not in daylight will give a negative with less density than is ideal for the print desired (AKA "underexposed"). Similarly, people shooting in low light will often "overexpose". These people really should know that they should use *individual*, shot-by-shot EC. This means to open up from the meter reading in many circumstances, and close down in others, instead of simply resorting to a blanket exposure compensation by lying to their meter (or they should meter off a grey card or use an incident meter).
I don't know...do you want to play it safe so you can shoot more care freely and focus more on other things, or do you want to use your skill to simply nail it, which in turn makes your printing experience and results much more pleasant? Both work. By your choice of equipment, however, I can't imagine why you wouldn't just use a point and shoot if you prefer the former.
The final print is all that really matters to *anyone else* in the end, but your experience and thought pattern while shooting are also important, and should be fun and challenging for you. That's a large part of the draw of a manual camera these days in the midst of a flood of the best point and shoots the world has ever seen...isn't it?
Quite honestly, when using small format, I totally wing it with box rating and BDE as a guide, since winging it is what I think small format is all about anyhow.
One fools opinion...doesn't mean I'm right or wrong. Just another angle to consider. As I mentioned before, I think you will be fine following my advice, OR the advice of anyone else in this thread.
2F/2F, thanks for your detailed post. I will actually have a spotmeter with me on the trip - I tend to use that with the black and white stuff. Can I use a similar technique with metering colour as with B&W? (please excuse my ignorance, I've been ignoring anything to do with colour for years!)
If I meter the shadow and press the 'shadow' button to place it, will it be ok to rate at box speed? I can always set the on-camera meter differently to cover the quick shots where careful metering would be too tricky...
My experience has been that giving 1/3 to 2/3 extra exposure to current pro negative films does not decrease contrast or saturation. It increases apparent shadow contrast and overall saturation. Actually, most pros I know have been doing this for at least three decades because they prefer the results.
Proper metering is important, but I have had the same results with in camera spot, averaging, centerweighted, and matrix metering, and with handheld flash meters, spot meters, wide angle reflectance meters, Expo-discs, and incident meters across a number of brands of cameras and formats. I've used in-camera autoexposure about three times over the last 40 years. I suspect that others recommending a slight increase over box speed, including a designer of Kodak color emulsions, also have enough knowledge and experience to meter properly with whatever equipment they are using.
At this point the best advice is to "try it". You'd bracket and shoot either double or triple your normal number of frames for a roll or two and then settle on what works for you. That's relatively cheap, and the negatives and prints (your own or from a decent lab) will tell you everything you need to know for your own work in a way that internet differences of opinion and methodology never will.
I suspect that others recommending a slight increase over box speed, including a designer of Kodak color emulsions, also have enough knowledge and experience to meter properly ...
Good point, I hadn't considered that - would I therefore be better off combining a 1/3-2/3 stop additional exposure with metering and placement of shadow values?
I know that in the end I have to test this for myself, but I'm much better off if I know what changes I'm looking for. Also, I'd much rather not screw up any 'one-off' shots that can't be repeated (at least not screw them up too much!)
I rate them at 80 (for objects)-100 (people) and 200 (objects)- 250 (people) 160/400 respectively, but I haven't used the 400 much ever and I've only used the newer 160 on buildings in sheet form. A lot depends upon your metering style, consistency and the meter itself.
'Over sxposure' as I recommend reduces the appearence of grain, increases slightly saturation, makes a much easier negative to print, will compemensate for errors in metering and unforseen colour tempeture issues.
I60 nc is almost impossible to block up and has a very long tonal scale. Under the best of conditions (studio lighting) it still benefits at the ratings I listed. In low light/longish (15sec-1min) exposures I will rate it at 50 and bracket toward overexposure. I do this because generally low light is manmade light which benefits from more exposure as a denser neg is easier to colour correct and so that I can capture more information (low light often covers a realy wide range such as street light to empty shadow), not so much for reciprocity failure as the film has very little.
160nc is in my tiny mind the best colour neg film out there.
Linear Mode
