 Raman Chawla |
Can I take advantage of film's inherent lattitude? I have been wondering if I can deliberately under-expose any print film and hope to get sharp results after telling the lab about my intentions? I will appreciate any helpful comments. Thanks in advance.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
What are you going to tell them? You only tell them you under exposed, they'll print lighter if needed as any lab would do. You tell them you under exposed because you want them to push process, they can do that as well. If the latter, they'd prefer when they aren't busy.
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Mark Feldstein |
Well, to elaborate a bit on Gregory's response: First, as a rule, pushing film (deliberately or otherwise, underexposing and over developing) usually adds contrast. Pulling film, overexposing and underdeveloping, flattens contrast and likewise colors in transparency film. Second, you mentioned under exposing "any print film". Push-pulls apply to b&w negative film and color transparency stock. It's not usually done to color negative film because it has a wide exposure latitude any way, usually a 4 or even 5 stop range if printed by someone who knows what they're doing. Also as a rule of thumb, to get better color saturation in transparency film, you generally underexpose slightly, while with black and white you expose for the shadow detail and process for the highlighted areas. As Greg noted, how you instruct the lab to handle your underexposed film, and equally important how MUCH it's underexposed, will determine the outcome in the print to some degree. Also the results depend on your subject matter to some degree. When you decrease contrast, (underexposing and pushing the film --overdeveloping) depending on the film itself, you may sharpen the image to some degree but this technique works better when the shots were taken in soft lighting and include subjects with soft details to begin with. Along the lines of instructing the lab, you should also know how much they need to push or pull the film in terms of f-stops, e.g., a full one-stop push vs. 1/3 stop or 2/3, or maybe just 1/4 or 1/2 stops. It can get tricky depending on what you want to accomplish. Also, some labs will develop by inspection, looking at the film as it develops and determining when it's had enough. Remember too, you pay extra for all these services. Overall, Raman, you might experiment a bit with this to see how you like the results in terms of contrast and sharpness, but unless you really have a more specific purpose in mind or are trying to solve a specific problem, you'll likely do better if you find the proper ISO to expose the film at and having the lab process the stuff normally.
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Raman Chawla |
Thank you Mark and Gregory for your comments. I will experiment and let you know. I find it liberating to get out of the 'expose correctly' mould!
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