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 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.
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
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
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 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
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 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'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.
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!
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.
@@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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 TH-cam experts. However, your work and your approach to sharing knowledge is amazing.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 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!
8:32 I just don't understand it. If you overexpose your film, the film itself will be darker (when it's negative). If you scan the negative and invert it, the darker the negative is, the brighter the positive will be but according to you, it won't be brighter. If it doesn't change the actual brightness of the image, why would you need to shoot at a correct exposure in camera if it won't affect the brightness or darkness of the image? There has to be a step in the process that adjusts itself for overexposed images. As far as I know, if you shoot 2 photos of the same film, one at a correct exposure and one overexposed, if you develop them for the same duration and scan them with the same settings, the overexposed image has to be brighter right?
There's still one thing I don't understand. At 3:57 you compare the normal exposure with the +3 stops over-exposed image but the exposure looks completely the same on both images. With digital, if you compare a normal exposure with a +3 stops over-exposure, the over-exposed photo will look a lot brighter. Why doesn't the final digital scan look brighter compared to the correctly exposed scan? The sky is darker in the negative of the over-exposed photo so shouldn't that look brighter in the digital (positive) scan (because now the sky looks the same on both scans)? Or does your scanner compensate for the over-exposure / change its settings to give you a well-exposed digital positive?
Hey Joran, yeah, exactly. The scanning software is compensating and trying to make the image look normal, regardless of how dense (overexposed), or how thin (underexposed) the negative is. I think that's whats most confusing for people coming from digital, where your image will be visibly darker or brighter depending on how you expose.
@@KyleMcDougall Thank you so much for clarifying! Yes, I've been shooting digital for years and only started shooting film about a year ago. That's why the concept of overexposing film was a bit confusing for me. I'm only 18 years old so I didn't really grow up with film. I just love shooting film, the process is completely different yet so special. You have to be intentional with every shot and receiving your scans a few weeks (or months) later is the best feeling there is!
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!
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?
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.
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.
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.
i'm more confused than ever about the developping part, i always heard that when you use the technique where you put your iso lower to tell the camera to overexpose that you had to develop for a longer time in the tank, but if you run it at box speed, and you just overexpose buy slowing down the shutter or opening up the aperture, you can just develop at box speed?
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.
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?
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.
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)
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! 🤔
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.
Light and Airy Look is the hole reason I just started to shoot film but all my scans from the local lab look like CRAP. Extremely Contrasty and heavily saturated and grainy. It's making me think twice about shooting any more film and throwing money down the drain. I have tried all kinds of film stocks Portra 400/ 160, Fuji Superia, Kodak Ultramax. Ektar, Kodak Gold none of it looks good. Please enlighten us with further details about the light and airy look specially if there is a recommended lab. Thanks
shoot Portra 400 at 200 then meter for the shadows and scan yourself, even an Epson v550 is good enough for good scans, if you can push to get a V700/800 then even better
Invest your money into your own personal scanner and learn how to do that process. That would probably be a better investment of your time and money as a film photographer than relying on a film lab to do your scans.
@@sednasix6608 Definitely scanning with a personal scanner (my personal choices and experience was what lead me to the above choices) and getting used to using Silverfast over Epson Scan or NLP, it ends up being the fastest way to scan at the best quality. I've been using it in professional work for years and wouldn't dream of changing it for anything outside of a Flextight.
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 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!
This was very clear but one last question: Can you lower the ISO as a method to overexpose? Or is it just the aperture or shutter speed that you should be adjusting?
actually, I just read that you shouldn't overexpose (pull?) with ISO. So the only way to overexpose is by increasing the aperture or lowering the shutter speed. Am I understanding this right?
The only thing the ISO controls on your camera is the actual light meter. So if you lower the ISO, all that it'll do is make your camera expose differently via either the aperture or shutter speed. All depends on if you're shooting manual and controlling those things yourself, or if you shoot in an automatic mode.
One thing I am still unsure about when people talk about over exposing is what their start point is in terms of metering, i.e are you taking an average meter of the entire scene and then overexposing by x stops? I tend to meter for the shadows, and so am already slightly overexposing compared to an average meter of the scene.
Yeah, I was referring to an average reading, similar to what a center weighted meter in a camera would give you. But yes, if you have an incident meter and you’re placing it in the shadows, then you’re already giving the film some extra light.
Just Depends on the film type and lighting situation. Sometimes I can’t stand muddy underexposed photos - Especially when people think it’s cool. In my opinion, it just means they misexposed the shot and don’t know what they are doing or lazy and call it “cool”. Rarely - stylistically it looks ok. I guess it’s just subjective at the bed of the day.
@@labandedancefing totally, that's why it's subjective. it just irks me a little when they are haughty, or boasting and say look how awesome I am at film photography... when it's like.. well..... technically not so much. But good for you for getting what you wanted I guess? But then I'm not sure if they really wanted that look to it just turned out that way and they are stoked. At least they have some enthusiasm and yeah like you said, if they like it - they like it. Hopefully that makes sense.
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!
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...
@@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.
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!
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.
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.
Hello, thanks for this! At 4:14 and 5:12, I just don't understand how the two shots have almost exactly the same brightness. Sure, there are some color shifts, but +4 should be way brighter. Are you darkening the overexposed shots to match the +0 exposure? Is the general idea to overexpose the shot to achive color shifts and then use darkening to match the normal exposure?
The lab will correct for over and underexposure. So yes an overexposed photo would be much brighter but the lab will correct for it to make it the correct exposure.
@@jieelyuu They SHOULD correct for overexposure without you saying anything. All photos are reviewed by people. Only difference is you get a properly exposed photo with more detail at the end
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.
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.
ISO doesn't change the sensitivity of the sensor... The sensor has a sensitivity of base ISO (50/100/200 usually, Depends on camera). The ISO changes the Electrical Amplification of the Light Signal coming into the camera (Like a "Volume" knob on your radio. You can't get a better reception of the radio station, So you try increasing the volume, and therefore increase also noise in the Radio station with the bad reception together with the sound of music on the station)... :)
So something that confuses me is that I think different photographers advocate different little ways to overexpose film. For example a lot of Folks say “meter for the shadows”, so to do that I use my Light meter app and point it at the shadows, and use that reading. That should theoretically therefore raise the exposure for the whole photo if my camera is trying to make the shadows neutral grey, right? So then do I AFTER THAT need to add a stop via shutter speed? Or do I meter for my subject, ignore the shadow thing, and then add stops via shutter speed? A lot of my images look weird and washed out, and I like contrasty rich images. I’m confused 🤤😵💫
Yeah, they're all just different ways to achieve similar results-or different ways of explaining things. People say 'meter for the shadows', as then you'd technically be overexposing the rest of your scene, and making sure there's information in the shadows. But it would be no different then taking an average reading of the entire scene, and then adjusting your exposure by a stop or two (scene dependent). I just released a video about metering for film using an internal meter, where I explain some of this a little further.
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.
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
@@KyleMcDougall Set it half on the camera to what the box says, right? On the light meter I would set it to what I just set the camera to and then just adjust SS and aperture during the rest of the roll?
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. :-)
In some sense you should select the exposure that will render the possibility of the outcome you desire. Ansel Adams in his moon over whatever exposed "knowing the luminance of the moon". If you look at the regular print, the sky is much too light, what makes it compelling is the dark sky with a nice moon while still having light in the foreground. So he exposed for the final result understanding the manipulation he would do, to get what he wanted within the context of the film, developer, camera, paper and printing. A 'proper" exposure rendered by camera meter alone is subjective to the intent of the final result within the confines of technological limits. It is why one may expose for the highlights in digital and for the shadows with film. Or to the right. Or why one may sacrifice one or the other ends of the dynamic range. Most of us try, when we think of it, to get a record, film or digital, (when print film is involved) of the most flexible recording of the image, depending on how we may process it or not. For slide film you are living in the realm of OOC jpegs, you better shoot it for the final look right in camera. So, as you already know. It depends.
Hernandez, New Mexico :-) And he bleached the hell out of that moon in post production in the dark room, Not in the exposure in camera..... Kind of a "Overly Photo-shopped" of today.
@@sharonleibel Kind of a black and white HDR in a sense, yet unique and believable because the human eye finds it within an expected possibility, or so it seem to me. In the end, what is the right exposure is up to the intent of the shooter. I liked slide film in the past because quality processing of print film and printing at labs declined to really ugly places. They cared about it more in the early 1970's and it just started to decline so that by the 80's it was wretched. With slides the colors were fixed and the exposure was fixed in camera and they would have a harder, though not impossible, time to screw it up. I have slides I took 30 years ago that look great. But back then there was no such thing as pixel peeping, in my mind dust was quite an ugly thing, still is. It was also not so much about being tack sharp, assuming you ever were.
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 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.
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
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 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
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Coming from digital, I love how you explained this thanks
thank god for the only video with accurate information on youtube about film exposure
11:31 wow I'm still very impressed how the Ektar held up with +5 exposure!
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!
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.
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.
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.
This is so helpful thanks so much for sharing! Very insightful.
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.
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!
At 11:40 when you are showing normal vs multiple stops over.. was the over exposure pulled in the lab?
No. Developed normally.
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.
Never overexpose slide film, btw!
Spot on! Thanks for this excellent presentation! 🎉
thank you man you just answered the 3 main questions I've been asking over and over
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 TH-cam experts. However, your work and your approach to sharing knowledge is amazing.
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.
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?
Cracking video. Learnt more about film in this video, than I have in many years! Cheers!
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.
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.
Kyle and Joe upload at the same time, what a day.
Who TF is Joe?
@@jeremiahwilderness Joe Greer
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?
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.
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.
I think the internet needed this one!
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.
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?
Love your videos man, super informative and helpful!
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 will be what I send folks who ask me these questions now, best explanation on youtube!
8:32 I just don't understand it. If you overexpose your film, the film itself will be darker (when it's negative). If you scan the negative and invert it, the darker the negative is, the brighter the positive will be but according to you, it won't be brighter. If it doesn't change the actual brightness of the image, why would you need to shoot at a correct exposure in camera if it won't affect the brightness or darkness of the image?
There has to be a step in the process that adjusts itself for overexposed images.
As far as I know, if you shoot 2 photos of the same film, one at a correct exposure and one overexposed, if you develop them for the same duration and scan them with the same settings, the overexposed image has to be brighter right?
There's still one thing I don't understand. At 3:57 you compare the normal exposure with the +3 stops over-exposed image but the exposure looks completely the same on both images. With digital, if you compare a normal exposure with a +3 stops over-exposure, the over-exposed photo will look a lot brighter. Why doesn't the final digital scan look brighter compared to the correctly exposed scan? The sky is darker in the negative of the over-exposed photo so shouldn't that look brighter in the digital (positive) scan (because now the sky looks the same on both scans)?
Or does your scanner compensate for the over-exposure / change its settings to give you a well-exposed digital positive?
Hey Joran, yeah, exactly. The scanning software is compensating and trying to make the image look normal, regardless of how dense (overexposed), or how thin (underexposed) the negative is. I think that's whats most confusing for people coming from digital, where your image will be visibly darker or brighter depending on how you expose.
@@KyleMcDougall Thank you so much for clarifying! Yes, I've been shooting digital for years and only started shooting film about a year ago. That's why the concept of overexposing film was a bit confusing for me. I'm only 18 years old so I didn't really grow up with film.
I just love shooting film, the process is completely different yet so special. You have to be intentional with every shot and receiving your scans a few weeks (or months) later is the best feeling there is!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
i'm more confused than ever about the developping part, i always heard that when you use the technique where you put your iso lower to tell the camera to overexpose that you had to develop for a longer time in the tank, but if you run it at box speed, and you just overexpose buy slowing down the shutter or opening up the aperture, you can just develop at box speed?
Yeah, two different methods of working. But to keep it simple, yes, you can just develop at box speed with negative film when it's been overexposed.
@@KyleMcDougall thank you, it's a little bit more clear that way! :)
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.
Finally I understood..... Thank you sir!!!
Very informative!!! Thank you very much for making sense of this!
Glad it was helpful!
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.
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.
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
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! 🤔
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.
Just what I was looking for. Thank you very much Kyle!
Very helpful tips to beginners with digital photography background as I am. I appreciate you uploading such valuable videos like this!
FINALLY the answer I was looking for! Thank you Kyle!!
You’re welcome, Austin.
Light and Airy Look is the hole reason I just started to shoot film but all my scans from the local lab look like CRAP. Extremely Contrasty and heavily saturated and grainy. It's making me think twice about shooting any more film and throwing money down the drain. I have tried all kinds of film stocks Portra 400/ 160, Fuji Superia, Kodak Ultramax. Ektar, Kodak Gold none of it looks good. Please enlighten us with further details about the light and airy look specially if there is a recommended lab. Thanks
shoot Portra 400 at 200 then meter for the shadows and scan yourself, even an Epson v550 is good enough for good scans, if you can push to get a V700/800 then even better
Invest your money into your own personal scanner and learn how to do that process. That would probably be a better investment of your time and money as a film photographer than relying on a film lab to do your scans.
@@sednasix6608 Definitely scanning with a personal scanner (my personal choices and experience was what lead me to the above choices) and getting used to using Silverfast over Epson Scan or NLP, it ends up being the fastest way to scan at the best quality. I've been using it in professional work for years and wouldn't dream of changing it for anything outside of a Flextight.
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.
Great video -- great work -- thanks for taking the time and discussing this. I'm interested to hear your workflow with Slide.
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!
@@greydev97 you're a legend, thank you Drew! that makes sense : )
Thanks! This is informative!
This was very clear but one last question: Can you lower the ISO as a method to overexpose? Or is it just the aperture or shutter speed that you should be adjusting?
actually, I just read that you shouldn't overexpose (pull?) with ISO. So the only way to overexpose is by increasing the aperture or lowering the shutter speed. Am I understanding this right?
The only thing the ISO controls on your camera is the actual light meter. So if you lower the ISO, all that it'll do is make your camera expose differently via either the aperture or shutter speed. All depends on if you're shooting manual and controlling those things yourself, or if you shoot in an automatic mode.
One thing I am still unsure about when people talk about over exposing is what their start point is in terms of metering, i.e are you taking an average meter of the entire scene and then overexposing by x stops? I tend to meter for the shadows, and so am already slightly overexposing compared to an average meter of the scene.
Yeah, I was referring to an average reading, similar to what a center weighted meter in a camera would give you. But yes, if you have an incident meter and you’re placing it in the shadows, then you’re already giving the film some extra light.
@@KyleMcDougall thanks for the reply. Yeah that makes sense!
Very helpful. Thank you.
Just Depends on the film type and lighting situation. Sometimes I can’t stand muddy underexposed photos - Especially when people think it’s cool. In my opinion, it just means they misexposed the shot and don’t know what they are doing or lazy and call it “cool”. Rarely - stylistically it looks ok. I guess it’s just subjective at the bed of the day.
they may dont know how to handle exposure but still, if they're happy with what they got well thats what matter
@@labandedancefing totally, that's why it's subjective. it just irks me a little when they are haughty, or boasting and say look how awesome I am at film photography... when it's like.. well..... technically not so much. But good for you for getting what you wanted I guess? But then I'm not sure if they really wanted that look to it just turned out that way and they are stoked. At least they have some enthusiasm and yeah like you said, if they like it - they like it. Hopefully that makes sense.
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.
Thanks for the presentation and info! :)
Keep up the good 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.
I've just started film photography and this video was really helpful. Thanks alot 🔥🔥
No problem!
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!
Nicely done!
Thanks for the video. I think It's super useful for people like me, who is starting in film photography.
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.
Great stuff... I'm still waiting for that "future Coolscan 9000 Film Scanner video" you said you're gonna do!
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.
Thanks Kyle! This episode was very helpful.
Cheers, Joe.
vvv helpful, thank you!
You're welcome!
Hello, thanks for this!
At 4:14 and 5:12, I just don't understand how the two shots have almost exactly the same brightness. Sure, there are some color shifts, but +4 should be way brighter. Are you darkening the overexposed shots to match the +0 exposure? Is the general idea to overexpose the shot to achive color shifts and then use darkening to match the normal exposure?
The lab will correct for over and underexposure. So yes an overexposed photo would be much brighter but the lab will correct for it to make it the correct exposure.
@@reeve7929 Do I need to tell the lab how many stops I over-/under-exposed, or would they do it themselves?
@@jieelyuu They SHOULD correct for overexposure without you saying anything. All photos are reviewed by people. Only difference is you get a properly exposed photo with more detail at the end
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.
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!
ISO doesn't change the sensitivity of the sensor... The sensor has a sensitivity of base ISO (50/100/200 usually, Depends on camera). The ISO changes the Electrical Amplification of the Light Signal coming into the camera (Like a "Volume" knob on your radio. You can't get a better reception of the radio station, So you try increasing the volume, and therefore increase also noise in the Radio station with the bad reception together with the sound of music on the station)... :)
So something that confuses me is that I think different photographers advocate different little ways to overexpose film. For example a lot of
Folks say “meter for the shadows”, so to do that I use my Light meter app and point it at the shadows, and use that reading. That should theoretically therefore raise the exposure for the whole photo if my camera is trying to make the shadows neutral grey, right? So then do I AFTER THAT need to add a stop via shutter speed?
Or do I meter for my subject, ignore the shadow thing, and then add stops via shutter speed?
A lot of my images look weird and washed out, and I like contrasty rich images. I’m confused 🤤😵💫
Yeah, they're all just different ways to achieve similar results-or different ways of explaining things. People say 'meter for the shadows', as then you'd technically be overexposing the rest of your scene, and making sure there's information in the shadows. But it would be no different then taking an average reading of the entire scene, and then adjusting your exposure by a stop or two (scene dependent). I just released a video about metering for film using an internal meter, where I explain some of this a little further.
Really enjoyed this one Kyle and well explained as always!
Thanks, Joel!
Super informative thank you
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.
Very practical video, you gonna use the knowledge soon!
Here a year later listening to some incredible info! Great stuff man.
Thanks, John. 🙏
So if I’m using ISO 400 film, to go one stop over exposed, I’d set my camera to 800iso? I always get the over and under exposed mixed up.
You'd set your ISO to 200. As 200 is one stop less sensitive, therefore your camera meter would give you an exposure that's one stop over.
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
If I’m using an external lightmeter and would want to overexpose by a stop what would I swt my ISO to?
Change the ISO one stop lower than the normal reading.
@@KyleMcDougall Set it half on the camera to what the box says, right? On the light meter I would set it to what I just set the camera to and then just adjust SS and aperture during the rest of the roll?
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.
In some sense you should select the exposure that will render the possibility of the outcome you desire. Ansel Adams in his moon over whatever exposed "knowing the luminance of the moon". If you look at the regular print, the sky is much too light, what makes it compelling is the dark sky with a nice moon while still having light in the foreground. So he exposed for the final result understanding the manipulation he would do, to get what he wanted within the context of the film, developer, camera, paper and printing. A 'proper" exposure rendered by camera meter alone is subjective to the intent of the final result within the confines of technological limits. It is why one may expose for the highlights in digital and for the shadows with film. Or to the right. Or why one may sacrifice one or the other ends of the dynamic range. Most of us try, when we think of it, to get a record, film or digital, (when print film is involved) of the most flexible recording of the image, depending on how we may process it or not. For slide film you are living in the realm of OOC jpegs, you better shoot it for the final look right in camera.
So, as you already know. It depends.
Hernandez, New Mexico :-) And he bleached the hell out of that moon in post production in the dark room, Not in the exposure in camera..... Kind of a "Overly Photo-shopped" of today.
@@sharonleibel Kind of a black and white HDR in a sense, yet unique and believable because the human eye finds it within an expected possibility, or so it seem to me. In the end, what is the right exposure is up to the intent of the shooter. I liked slide film in the past because quality processing of print film and printing at labs declined to really ugly places. They cared about it more in the early 1970's and it just started to decline so that by the 80's it was wretched. With slides the colors were fixed and the exposure was fixed in camera and they would have a harder, though not impossible, time to screw it up. I have slides I took 30 years ago that look great. But back then there was no such thing as pixel peeping, in my mind dust was quite an ugly thing, still is. It was also not so much about being tack sharp, assuming you ever were.
if you want them to, my lab actually will develop longer or shorter if you push or pull for an additional charge
Excellent tutorial.
Thank you.