Should you overexpose your film photos?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- The first 1000 people to click the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/kylemcdougall11201
After many questions from people, and also some confusion surrounding the topic of overexposure with film photography, I wanted to make this video to talk about both the benefits and drawbacks.
►*DISCLAIMER*
Some of the links below are affiliate links, where I earn a small commission if you click on the link and purchase an item. The money I earn helps me make this type of content consistently.
My '35mm Film Photography Course' on Skillshare (FREE with this link): skl.sh/2JrGhFs
Videos on this channel are filmed using the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K: bhpho.to/2SWPBqO
And the Fuji X-T4: bhpho.to/3n91yYk
My go-to for music (FREE Trial with this link): bit.ly/35aQELa
►GEAR(*these are affiliate links):
My go-to medium format camera: ebay.us/GaK9Kp
My FAVOURITE medium format lens: ebay.us/m5PTvK
My favourite 35mm film camera: ebay.us/82WyVI
My favourite 35mm film lens: ebay.us/u0V817
The BEST medium format travel camera: ebay.us/FVcfWk
The film scanner that I use for my work: ebay.us/RwKM4c
Best entry-level film scanner: ebay.us/Qp3ZEz
The film camera that started it all for me: ebay.us/qewXkD
My go-to light meter: ebay.us/QIFXF0
My favourite film stock: ebay.us/orbudp
My favourite 645 medium format film camera: ebay.us/ydY4HK
Awesome strap for large cameras: ebay.us/pY8mV2
Rope style strap for smaller cameras (cheap but great!): amzn.to/33hrRDO
Camera I use to film my videos: bhpho.to/3gY9yak
Camera that I use for vlogging: bhpho.to/3n91yYk
The gear I use for UA-cam: bit.ly/3j5vd1L
My favourite film cameras: bit.ly/3hm6MN6
Essential film photography accessories: bit.ly/34o3Uvt
→Instagram: bit.ly/2GuYV21
→Website: kmcdougall.com
→Podcast:
..................................
DISCLAIMER
Some of the links above are affiliate links, where I earn a small commission if you click on the link and purchase an item. The money I earn helps me make this type of content consistently.
my goodness. finally someone that knows what they are talking about. in the wedding industry, they talk about film as if it's a one stop shop and completely ignore the fact that the lab tech made the photos look the way it does.
I'd like to see an editing tutorial about that 'light & airy" look you were talking about near the end.
Definitely. I think most portra shooters are aiming for that ‘creamy & flat’ look but I personally have not been able to achieve this look consistently by sending and developing my negs from my local printer
Agree. Look forward to see tutorial
I overexposed my portra by 1 stop and got the look. The lab scans were pretty flat and desaturated but i bumped up the shadows and exposure a little big and added quite a lit of saturation + lifted up the mids in the tone curve and thats how i achieved it. If you want check out my last few photos on my ig: tomas_hudak2
Yep, overexpose my portra all the time but just get clipped, contrasty images.
the light needs to be correct as well for that look, the film alone won't do it
I just started out with film photography and I didn't realize quite how much I have to change the way I think about taking pictures. Taking pictures on a digital camera I would always rather underexpose than overexpose, because if I blow out the image that's it -- the data is lost. Underexposed digital pictures will be grainy but the data is still mostly there, and with modern denoising algorithms you can recover a lot. With film it's the exact reverse!
Exposing on film is different as well. Like exposing the shadows to the grey line in exposure so or make it underexposed to not over expose the whites. Just a lot more to think about.
oh, you have to be a little careful here. The recommendations here apply only to negative film.
Also, it’s really not overexposure per say. It’s moe about fitting the scene dynamic range onto what’s recordable on the negative film medium. While intentionally “overexposing” may well record deep shadow details, know also tonal separation (think of it as tonal resolution) is lost in the highlights. This means that in the highlights a large difference in scene brightness only means slight negative density increase recorded.
So the the bottom line is that it’s better to expose correctly. A blanket practice to set Portra 400 to 100 ISO is not the best idea.
This was SO helpful. I shot digital for YEARS and my style has always been underexposed. That’s just how I liked to shoot before I brought it over to editing. Imagine my horror in shooting film the same way I did with my DSLR and everything being a hot muddy and grainy mess :’) thank you for explaining it so well! My beginner self appreciates it
I'd like to see a video tutorial on shooting and editing film for night photography. When it comes to night film photography or blue hour photography, nailing the exposure becomes much more complicated. The simple rule of overexposure or reciprocity failure compensation, don't always yield the best results. If you overexpose a photo taken at twilight for example, even by one stop, you might easily end up with a washed out sky, unnaturally bright that it's very difficult to recover in scanning or editing. I would very much like to know how do you meter for your night pictures, if you do night photography at all. Thanks!
You don't need to follow a rule or set of rules on how to expose your photos in a particular set of conditions. There is no way that any such system would encompass every possible lighting situation you may need to capture. Instead learn how to use the zone system. It allows you to decide where you want to place the luminace values that you meter in your scene at the exact density that you choose on your film and therefore decide in advance of picking up the camera what you want them to look like in the final image.
I just got my Fujica st705 yesterday :D, i've been out of photography for a few years now (dslr) using film camera makes me excited about photography again as this is a new world for me
I think an important thing to remember with this is that it is heavily dependent on the film stock. A lot of people, especially newer film photographers will be shooting consumer stocks which are not as good at handling that overexposure. As much as it is better to err on the side of over than under. The best results will almost always come from a spot on exposure.
Yes, definitely dependant on the film stock, as mentioned in the video. The interesting thing for me, is the stock that I showed in the video (lomo 400), would be considered a consumer stock, and it seems to be one of the most flexible that I’ve tested.
@@KyleMcDougall given that Lomo 400 is Ultramax which is one of the most common consumer films, people seem to misjudge how flexible consumer stocks can be.
In reality it is the exact opposite. Consumer film has much more exposure latitude. It is or at least was targeted at users with simpler cameras where the chance to get the exposure wrong was much bigger. Some manufacturers claimed that their color negative film has about 7 stops of latitude -2 to +5 EV
Agree my tests show me this. Best color separation, rendering is at box. This idea you need to overexpose color neg is bad advice. You get color castes which are awful even at +1. I’m more interested in exposing for the darkroom not scanning
@@nnnbbb2148it’s an interesting point. I’ve gotten poor results with gold but good results with color plus. Portra is best at box too much of a color shift at +1 or 2
11:31 wow I'm still very impressed how the Ektar held up with +5 exposure!
Hey Kyle! Just wanted to shoot a note that I love your content. Keep it up. Truly inspiring. I am rarely inspired and always weary of trying to follow in the footsteps of UA-cam experts. However, your work and your approach to sharing knowledge is amazing.
Thanks for the presentation and info! :)
Keep up the good work!
Wow - you answered all of my questions in regards to this topic. Thank you for making this! So helpful and beautifully done. 10/10
Thanks Bree. Glad you found this helpful.
I always overexpose my shots. One at the metered settings then I just open up the aperture or lower the shutter speed for the second one.
Love your videos man, super informative and helpful!
This will be what I send folks who ask me these questions now, best explanation on youtube!
thank you man you just answered the 3 main questions I've been asking over and over
I make it real simple for myself, set Portra 400 at 200 then still expose for the shadows in both high and low contrast situations. Have never had an issue with an over exposed negative
I think this gonna work with Portra 400 but I had problems doing this with Portra 160. Seems like it's just not having that dynamic range.
@@rapasco8184 Porta 160 can actually handle more over exposure than p400
@@user-ti9zc1xv2b Hm can't agree on my own experiences.
@@rapasco8184 Strange indeed, maybe i should do a lil test.
Great video, Kyle. Like the way that this draws together the film stock tests from before. I found that those increased my confidence in choosing exposure, particularly when the scene is high contrast.
Nick, great video! I've always thought of it this way: a denser negative has more "information" on it from the chemical reaction, so you can pull detail out of the negative through the printing process. I like your explanation that its difficult to dial down the enlarger light than dial it up with a longer exposure.
this has been the most useful way i’ve seen people explain this, so simple yet all the info you need. I’m subscribing now
Glad you found it helpful.
The way you explain all this content is making me feel like I'm in front of the teacher I never had! Thanks for sharing all this knowledge and experience. It's always good to revisit the basic fundaments of photography. Keep it up!
You're very welcome!
Great video -- great work -- thanks for taking the time and discussing this. I'm interested to hear your workflow with Slide.
Really enjoyed this one Kyle and well explained as always!
Thanks, Joel!
I am so glad this video was in my recommended. I didn't even expect so many questions I had to be answered in 1 video haha. Very well explained and in detail, thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
This is such a good video for so many reasons. Your explanation of film ISO is the best and most helpful I've heard. I really love all your videos, you do such an amazing job balancing information with engaging content. Thank you!
You're welcome, Alex. Glad it helped.
Super well thought out, educational video man. So true about the ‘bright and airy’ pastel look too. Had to figure that out the hard way.
Thanks, Tom.
How did you figure it out? In the video he talks about the scanning process being the main factor but doesn't tell us how to scan differently. Can you explain your setup for this look?
Cracking video. Learnt more about film in this video, than I have in many years! Cheers!
Just what I was looking for. Thank you very much Kyle!
Great video, thanks! I found overexposure for my b+w negatives beneficial for camera scanning, as the digital capture is very good in darker areas of the image (highlights of the negative) and I can get very good tones from that.
Never overexpose slide film, btw!
Lots of great information here. Thanks for sharing this. I'm fairly new to film photography. I recently shot some Kodak Gold 200 at one stop over and really didn't like it. I saw color shifts that weren't pleasing to my eye. So for me, I think I'll just shoot at correct exposure next time with that film stock, but I love the idea of getting a little more detail out of my shadows. So I'll continue experimenting with other film stocks.
This video is so helpful. Thank you!! Would also love to see some examples of how overexposure looks on some other commonly used film stocks
I have a number of film tests on my channel with different stocks. If you’ve seen those, I’m definitely always open to suggestions for other ones.
FINALLY the answer I was looking for! Thank you Kyle!!
You’re welcome, Austin.
Thanks! This is informative!
thank god for the only video with accurate information on youtube about film exposure
Very informative!!! Thank you very much for making sense of this!
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks Kyle! This episode was very helpful.
Cheers, Joe.
Thanks for the video. I think It's super useful for people like me, who is starting in film photography.
Very practical video, you gonna use the knowledge soon!
Super informative thank you
When you combine a color negative film and a particular color developing process version, you get a range of "stops" from the darkest tone which will hold shadow detail to the lightest tone which will hold highlight detail. When you expose at the rated film speed, and take your exposure reading from a part of the subject approximating an 18% grey tone, you are right in the sweet spot to get the maximum dynamic tonal range form your film. (All meters are arbitrarily adjusted to read 18% grey equivalents.) If you do nothing more than take the same scene, metering in the same manner, but over expose one stop, or set the meter for half "box speed", all you are doing to throwing away one stop of that dynamic range. If you think doing this makes your images look better, you're just not using your meter correctly, which is a regular problem for many of the YT photo tutorial guys. A lot of people live by over-exposing their shots because they regularly use their meters in a way which gives them a reading which leads to under exposure. They treat the intentional over exposure as a device to marginally insure against poor metering practices.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Nicely done!
Great stuff... I'm still waiting for that "future Coolscan 9000 Film Scanner video" you said you're gonna do!
Thank you!
I've just started film photography and this video was really helpful. Thanks alot 🔥🔥
No problem!
Very helpful tips to beginners with digital photography background as I am. I appreciate you uploading such valuable videos like this!
Very nice thank you.
Excellent presentation of an often confusing subject... Coming from the digital space, it's a mortal sin to over or under expose unless you're doing bracketed HDR shots. Thanks!
Being newer (3 months) to film photography - and photography in general (other than simply taking digital photos on 'auto'), I really appreciate actually showing the finished product and the effects of making the exposure/ISO/film speed adjustment vs. just talking about what happens.
Glad you found this helpful. Thanks for watching!
Super useful and informative video, thanks a bunch!!!
Thanks for that dude!
vvv helpful, thank you!
You're welcome!
Finally I understood..... Thank you sir!!!
Slight correction: ISO in digital photography, is signal-gain applied on the already acquired “light data” by the sensor sensor. Its sensitivity remains the same no matter the ISO. In digital, the lowest ISO allows to obtain the highest dynamic range. Over exposing in post is usually more than acceptable for the “shadows” and “highlights” areas.
Edit: one has to keep it mind that scanned film is not film. It has been digitally processed by the scanner and digital encoding process. This is often as this stage that digital flaw get introduced.
I think the internet needed this one!
Great video. Super clear and concise. Only thing that I would have liked to hear more about in your metering and exposure section is what you should meter for? shadows or highlights?
Thanks. All depends which type of meter you’re using (incident vs. spot). Glad you found this helpful.
Dangggg this was so so helpful
appreciate this, Kyle. Starting to think shooting/scanning a test roll of particular film stocks in "general" lighting and contrast might be a smart way to go before starting a project.
Cheers.
Glad you found it helpful!
Kyle and Joe upload at the same time, what a day.
Who TF is Joe?
@@jeremiahwilderness Joe Greer
The light and airy section is more of a factor when you’re getting lab scans that have been color corrected. The raw scans you get when doing it yourself, they are usually very flat (especially when over exposed) and you’ll need to add back the shadow and contrast to look like a lab scan.
And especially the lens too. For me it would be one of biggest impact, some lenses will make those airy and dreamy images
@@Pentax67 Can you give an example? Im guessing longer lenses are better for airy photos?
Kodak would always rate their film at the threshold of exposure, in other words, what's the absolute minimum exposure this film can receive and still produce a "printable" image. There are many (me included) that disagreed with this type of ASA (now ISO) rating. If a film suffers from being one stop under exposed, but can be three stops over exposed, then the ISO rating is incorrect. Example: a film rated at 200 would suffer being rated at 400, but would still produce a very printable image if shot at ISO 50. It could be said the proper ISO is 100, not 200. It's simply moving the mid-tone exposure to the middle of the heel/toe curve.
When I was a full time working professional, I normally rated Kodak's Vericolor III at ASA 80 instead of it's "official" rating of 160. Highlights were never blocked and shadows held great detail.
All this applies to negative film only, and of course, YMMV.
Kodak used to rate the film on 'how much exp' to create 'how much density' - in a lab, not a camera. Ilford used to -and still claims to- base it's ISO rating on in-camera based results.
One of the things I struggle with in this conversation is how to rate/expose my film for good results at night. For the most part, I try to meter for the subject and kick it up +1 from there. But the problem comes in how the film renders the information in the shadows/blacks. Sometimes what I want to be dark/black just falls out into noise/grain in the scan. I often find that the blacks in my night images do better when I have more information off the exposure (overexpose) and then crush them back down in post. It's kinda counterintuitive that more exposure gives me better blacks and I wonder if it's more of a consequence of software's decisions.
Are you compensating for reciprocity failure when shooting at night?
@@AnchorTH I'm rarely exposing at times long enough to account for reciprocity failure. 5 seconds would likely be the longest exposure I take. Also, I'm generally metering for things that are lit within the frame by pretty strong point sources that will blow out if I were to expose for +5 sec.
@@JordanmKenna ive found that i benefit from reciprocity whilst shooting p160 at around a second long exposure or more, would do some testing with that if you are able to depending on your stock
try making a c-print and scanning the print. The C print will allow the the thin parts of the neg to go black without digital noise and grain
For anyone reading this now, an easy way to get shadows to be black is to clip the shadows. The conversion software you use will affect how the shadows are converted and usually, it will err on the side of pulling out too much information that did not exist which results in grain. Clipping shadows can also be done in Photoshop with the Levels adjustment tool.
The old b&w adage is expose for shadows, develop for highlights. Box speed is usually too high and under exposes leaving no detail in shadows. If you drop iso to get detail in the shadows, you are over exposing highlights as all exposure moves to the right. When developing, pull the film 15-30 % early since shadows are nearly completely developed half way through the developing time but it takes longer for highlight, ie, on the negative denser areas to develop so pulling the film early pulls back highlights with minimal if any effect on shadows. . So the amount of "over exposure" from dropping iso is dependent on what your developer, temperature and timing produce for that particular film stock with respect to getting detail in zone III shadows.
I have been using B&W film for couple of years. In my aspect, though may me different story in color negative, the exposure varies beyond different films. What I do is to make a exposure test and try different develop time for a new film, this way you could have a idea of how to meter when using the film. Try to print(via scanning or enlargement) the image, the differences would be more apparent than viewing on the screen.
Nice review and test. I would like to try color negative someday, the result looks nice.
Very informative video. Do you have a similar video for black and white film?
Here a year later listening to some incredible info! Great stuff man.
Thanks, John. 🙏
Excellent tutorial.
Thank you.
I always goose the exposure by a stop with negative film and underexposed 1/3 stop for slide film. I like saturated bold color.
Yeah. Haven’t shot much slide film but from the few tests I’ve done, slightly underexposed seems to bring nice results.
I think my light meter in my 1970 Miranda Sensomat RE is off by a stop and a half leading to underexposure. I am in the process of shooting a test roll by shooting a stop under box speed. I am just trying to be able to center the needle and get an even exposure.
YOU ARE THE MAN !
If you are shooting in open shade opening up a half a stop will give you shadow detail if you do decide to over expose your film, you do have to adjust your processing time or temperature of the chemicals to get a decent image, nice video thanks a lot!
That only applies to B&W, not so much to colour neg. Any alterations of development will alter results in colour. Better to standardise, learn exposure, and be able to repeat and produce images that are consistent.
I’m overexposing every time by at least a stop. If I really have time to meter then I’ll meter for the shadows and shoot at box speed tho
I think this kind of advise makes sense if you are using an incident light meter but if you spot meter using the zone system, then you have way more control over where all your tones will sit in the final image.
In my opinion, a correct exposure is one that gives you the result you are after. Artistically that could mean metering your foreground to be a black sillouette against a rich sunset sky, if that's the look you are going for.
Yep, I’d agree with you on all of that. This video is to help people understand what’s happening when exposing, and how density will affect their scans. I still think people should do their own tests, with the film they like shooting, with their own workflow, and then come to a conclusion of what fits them best.
Don’t remember who said this but there’s a saying that there is “no correct exposure” - I think photographers should have the basics down but at the end of the day not get too hung up on the technicalities and focus more of their time exploring and developing a style and look they enjoy. I think even Kyle said this in his recent video (on the English cliffs) - who are you shooting for? Yourself or your audience and almost always that answer has to be first and foremost YOU.
This is so interesting to see how much you can still do with Lomo CN 400. I used it and over exp by around 1 stop and the high lights were completely gone - really small dynamic range. Wonder if it’s just my batch or the scanner (V600)
Hmm, strange. Yeah I had really good results with Pro 400.
Same problem with kodak gold 200 shots at 100 and 50. Just scanned with plustek 8200i
@Kyle, any views or recommendations on processing labs now you're in the UK? 😎
The master mind of this generation imo 👏🏼
I definitely wouldn't go that far, but thank you. I still have a lot to learn, but just trying to share what I can.
Thank you very much for explaining this. I'm working on shooting my first ever roll of film, I'm 11 images in. lol
Assuming you have already tested the film in your camera, calibrated for your meter and your lens (and of course you do) and found the optimum ISO/developer time combo for full range, a few thoughts. Color neg is very forgiving of over/under exposure but in any case if you are using a lab for processing, test for optimum ISO, given the lab's processing. For Tri -X 400: we recommended (as a starting point, and adjusting as needed) 1 stop over exposure and 15% under developing. It seemed to tame the contrast and grain that people disliked about Tri-X but gave better contrast than Plus-X or Pan-X.
This analysis also depends on what you do to print that negative. A B&W negative optimized for scanning, thereafter digitally adjusted and printed, is likely to be significantly more difficult to print traditionally in a darkroom, where it may be deemed too flat and require harsh, high contrast printing techniques. Compared to B&W, color negative materials and processing require a much more rigid adherence to exposure and processing standards, because extended or reduced development will (not May) yield color shifts which are proportional to density. This means that those shifts cannot be cancelled with conventional digital post-processing. That also explains why so many YT videos on that subject exhibit images with color shifts which are either ignored to treated as part of some enhanced and beneficial outcome.
Thank you!! But one thing I've been wondering that none of these vids answer - how do I treat shutter speet / aperture while pushing / pulling film? Thanks so much!
You experiment, and then experiment some more.
I think this video will be helpful to reference for shooting on film. I've been discouraged by so many videos of seemingly fantastic film stocks (Vision 3 50D) looking grainy, flat with weird colour fringes.. maybe it's just the way they be gotten the film scanned or they've just underexposed it too much? So hard to tell.
There’s a lot of variables that comes with lab scanning.
So the ISO bit about not changing that if you want to overexpose (about 7:00 in). That's exactly how I've always done this. I also do that if I am doing double exposures. If I have an exposure meter on my film cameras (like my Bronica RF645) is it better to change it to +1 when I do these things? I am not currently using an external light meter.
Your videos always make me want to read more. I have a basic question. I would really appreciate it if you could answer it.
1. is there any difference between cheating the ISO (ex, 400->200) and compensating with a camera with exposure compensation (0->+1)?
2. is the development time irrelevant when overexposing and developing film?(I want to do my home film development)
3. Color film is developed by pulling. B/W film is developed by pushing. Is this the basic way of shooting?
I always overexpose my shots, it looks clearer and sharper. That airy dreamy look is also achieved with particular lenses, and the editing methods from labs. Just say to your lab you shot a wedding and going for wedding look , they will make it dreamy and white.
yes
a bit
Interesting thanks. If you are in the UK for long and can fit it in your current project I'd be interested to see what you could do with the flatlands of Wiltshire.
Thank you, I'll check it out.
before seeing this, I'd have never thought that overexposing +3 stops would not result a blank white photo!! Such an enlightenment! thanks Kyle! how about nights?
Glad this helped. As for shooting at night, same idea applies, but you will likely have more intense contrast, because of deep shadows and bright lights. All comes down to deciding where you want to record information.
@@KyleMcDougall I still can't wrap my head around this! Maybe I don't know enough about film mechanisms. But how do the properly exposed areas not get too bright (burnt) when I let 3 times more light in, for the darker areas? the whole surface of the film would receive the light evenly! 🤔
Hi, Make next video about light and airy look scanning please.
Hey Kyle ! very interesting channel here ! but I'm a still a lil confused about the exposing thing, suppose I have kodak 400, should I set it on 200 (speed) on camera and it will be 1 stop over exposed? I know touched this topic but I still couldnt understand if thats the rightway or not...
If your box speed is 400, and you set your meter for 200, you are giving the film one extra stop of light. Negative films typically can handle this. When developing, have the lab process the film NORMAL.
This was so useful, thank you. I'm just getting into film photography and live in the currently very dreary weather of the UK (welcome by the way! looking forward to how you photograph the UK landscape). If shooting Portra 400 in low-light, how do I guarantee an exposed photo? Sometimes I am full open on aperture and don't want to go lower than 1/60th on shutter speed and it sometimes still needs a bit more light. This is where I get confused because to overexpose you should drop to 200 iso but the camera cant handle that. If I push to 800 will it just come out underexposed?
Hey there, if you want to rate Portra 400 at 800, youll have to push by one stop in your lab, by "pushing" what theyre doing is theyll be leaving your roll in the developer longer than usual because the light (or the picture) in your film is fainter. If ever you do shoot it at 800 iso (the portra 400), in order for it to be properly exposed, youd have to have it developed push'd one stop.
by fainter, what i mean by that is its a stop faster than what it shouldve been, so lets say you were rating Portra 400 as 400, the meter would read it as needing a 30th of a second speed, you dont want that since itll go blurry from shaking, so you rate the film as 800 and thus, the camera will think you have film thats more sensitive (even if its not). To counter the faster by one stop you shot it at, youll be developing it twice as long than normal, that way theres more time for the picture to come out. hope this helps, passing this advice along bc i used to be a newbie in this too. Best of luck!
@@drewvil you're a legend, thank you Drew! that makes sense : )
it would be interesting to see an exposure limits video for cheaper film stocks like kodak gold/color plus or fujicolor c200. and thanks for this video, it was very helpful.
I've just tried with kodak gold 200 shooting it at 100 and 50. At 50 highlights are completely gone and really bad and flat colors... Scanned with plustek 8200i
so if you want a airy/pastel look, you must ask the Lab for a low contrast scan?
As always, a really good presentation.
I wish people (not you) would go back to using the term Exposure Index to describe film rated at anything other than box. It helped drive home the fact that you can’t actually change a film’s ISO/sensitivity by twirling the ISO knob. :-)
For sure, good point.
another thing to note, is if you plan on printing, you will want a properly exposed neg. scanners are pretty forgiving compared to printing on an enlarger.
Yep, for sure. Good point.
When you change how you shoot film by more than 1 stop, it may be beneficial to find a lab that knows how to push/pull development times on their development process. It makes a big difference when, for example, shooting Ektar 100 at ISO 400 (something I loved to do for many years). I also developed for printing with scanning as a secondary intent.
So it is not always necessary to tell the lab that you are over-/under-exposing? e.g. I want to shoot Kodak Ultramax 400 at 200, do I need to tell the lab to pull development time?
@@jieelyuu No, if your goal is a slight overexposure then there is no reason to tell the lab to do anything special.
At 11:40 when you are showing normal vs multiple stops over.. was the over exposure pulled in the lab?
No. Developed normally.
What do u mean by 2stops and 4 stops.. pls explain.
Hello Kyle,what a pity there is no translation, excellent video as always, great technical information, many thanks!
Captions are on my list of things to do moving forward.
@@KyleMcDougall perfect,many thanks,keep up yr fantastic work!
I'm always suprised that most people seem to have forgotten that ISO is scaled in thirds for a reason : although scanning films doesn't teach the lesson, one full stop is a lot !
Also, loosly over-exposing "by one or two stops" has a price : you waste exposure speed, which induces more risk of shake blur, and/or depth of field, which makes focusing more critical. Then in the darkroom, you end up with a thick neg that is harder to read on the easel and in the focuser, with a wide lense aperture leadind to less depth of field making focusing more critical, and/or long exposures that will test the stability of your enlarger, the flatness of your neg, and waste time that could be used to make more prints.
I find well exposed negs sharper, and the more exposed they are, the more it seems like the grain (or "dye clouds)" are mushy, sorta smeared...
1 stop is/might be preferable to contrast and/or grain.
@@judychurley6623 : Yes and no, and no. When printing traditionaly, it might be preferable to over-expose neg film if you think that more contrast and saturation is better, but that isn't always the case because it's a matter of personal taste (some clients constantly under-expose by a half, for toned down colors and less deep shadows). But since computers allow for infinite increase of those parameters, why waste perfectly good film speed when shooting ?
Unless the over-exposure is excessive (beyond +2), it doesn't affect grain. But under and over-processing definately do...
@@marcupson Just looking through the comments here, you have to conclude a couple of things: (1) Nearly all are digitally processing scans of their film, so they have the significant additional flexibility that allows them to salvage their over exposed negatives resulting from membership in the "half box speed" cult, and (2) Nearly of them are technical morons when discussing film exposure and processing, starting with our author.
@@randallstewart1224 are you suggesting you are not a moron, seems unlikely by your comment.
People are just trying to dig a little deeper into photography, maybe you are more nerd than moron who knows.
Hi sir, Im still learning in fact 1st time using film and your video is great. Out off topic question, Im owned digital sony a7R4 which give 60mp. Then I bought minolta x700 and give the film to studio to develop and scanned by them, and I was quite dissapointed the highest resolution they give is 1840x1232px which is super small. My question is it normal film scanned resolution? or whats normally/useful pixel size film scan? Thank you so much hope you can answer so I can find another studio or stick with that studio
Hey there, scan sizes will vary depending on the lab you use. But often, you'll have the choice of multiple sizes to choose from. Those numbers you listed are very small. I'd assume they should be able to provide you with much larger scans if you asked.
This is amazing yes! Thank you...I am never happy with my Portra 400 negatives when shooting contrasty scenes since Dark areas / Bright areas have about 4 stops of light difference....so if I expose for shadows, then highlights will be a bit blow out, and if I expose for highlights then shadows will be very noisy and with a color cast :( Using sunny 16, my settings with Portra 400 are ISO 200 F8 1/1000 if shooting for highlights, F2 1/1000 if shooting for shadows, and F4 1/1000 if shooting contrasty scenes. Am I doing something wrong? And should I ask my lab to scan my files in a specific manner to avoid the issues I’m mentioning? Thanks in advance Kyle!
THAT AINT SUNNY 16
WITH SUNN 16 YOU SHOULD DO IT AT 1/500