 BetterPhoto Member |
Pictures were underexposed I went to a horse show today in an indoor arena and shot three rolls of film. I wanted to use an aperture of about 19 or so, but when I set the camera to that aperture, the camera set itself to a shutterspeed of two. I was not in the position (sitting in the bleachers)to use a tripod,so the only thing I knew to do was go to the "TV" mode and set the shutterspeed to 60 so as to avoid camera shake. The camera set the aperture of 5.6 when I entered the shutterspeed of 60. I had the camera loaded with Fuji film (200ISO) and bumped it up to 800ISO. All of my pictures turned out almost pitch black. I am by no means a professional, but these pictures were horrible. When I asked the person at Wolf Camera why they turned out that way, she said, "oh, that happens sometimes when you change a film speed from 200 all the way up to 800". She said that if I had bought a roll of 800ISO film, the pictures would probably have turned out okay. Is she right? I am confused because my camera's exposure mode was balanced before every shot. I did tell the person working there that the film speed was changed from 200 to 800 when I dropped the film off. Isn't there some way that the developers can "push" film? Thanks in advance for your help.
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John A. Lind |
Jamie, You shot the film "push 2" or "P+2" (pushed by two stops). This should not be done with just any film, it should be done with one made to be pushed and pushed that hard. Even if it wasn't, proper "push processing" would have pulled something out of it. I feel some of your pain at the results you got. Push processing is very special, you pay an extra premium for it, and it requires special handling. It cannot be developed with other film that was not pushed. This is because the time spent in processing steps changes dramatically. In spite of telling the processor where you had it developed that you pushed the film by two stops, they may not have understood what you meant and processed it normally. The clue to this is the response you got from the processor (and quoted in your question) when you picked it up. If you push film, you need to push the entire roll at the same speed (which I think you did). Then take it to a professional lab that knows what push processing is, does it routinely, can handle it, and tell them you want "push processing" for it. The lab will need to know how many stops you pushed it so they can adjust processing times accordingly. Also strongly recommended is writing "push" follwed by the number of stops you pushed the film on the cannister using an indelible marker like a "Sharpie." It would be quite unusual for a "consumer" film lab, especially a one-hour, to know what to do with pushed film! They're accustomed to nearly all of their processing being consumer films shot using point-and-shoot's that cannot be set up to push a film even if the user wanted to. In other words, they may know C-41 (the standard color negative process), but that's probably all they know. As to films that are designed for push processing, see the Kodak, Fuji and Agfa web sites and look at the data sheets for the films. If the film is designed to be pushed, it will not only state it in the description on the data sheet, it will also give instructions on how to modify normal processing for push processing under the processing section of the data sheet. Typically it is a table showing what to modify depending on how much it was pushed. Most films amenable to being pushed are professional, not amateur. If you push a film, expect contrast and graininess to increase. -- John
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