Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/06/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Jun 06, 2011 at 09:11 AM +0100, PHC wrote: >One factor I forgot to ask about - do you have an impression that any >of these films has a particularly broad exposure latitude? I expose at box speed frequently and get perfectly nice images. Portra 400 does benefit from 1/3-1/2 stop overexposure because it puts more of the exposure on the finer grained parts of the emulsion. It also gives you a bit of a buffer against sloppy metering. However, it's pretty fine grained as it is, so it's not absolutely necessary. I'd say Portra is good from -1 to +3, though looks best at box to +1 stops. You will get useable images from it even with gross over exposures. Ektar has less latitude than Portra 400, but better in my opinion than many people make it out to be. I'd say it's just ok at -1 or -1/2 stops, and does pretty decently up to +2. Of course, latitude really depends on the scene brightness range. Your film will have more latitude with scenes with less range. Mind you, when Kodak used to put up their exposure latitude ratings for these films, what I write above is pretty much what they say. For Ektar, look at question 2 on this page: <http://www.kodak.com:80/global/en/professional/products/films/ektar/qAndA.jhtml?pq-path=13319/1230/13328/13344> Again, I've not shot the new Portra 160 yet, but I would imagine it is more like Portra 400 than Ektar. For those that are interested, I ran some exposure tests with normal development and lab scans. The first test (first 3 sets) was in 35mm in daylight and tungsten using Portra 400 (new), 400NC, and 400VC. The second test (last 6 sets) is in 120 with Ektar, and Portra 160NC, 160VC, 400NC, 400VC, and 800. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/tgray1/collections/72157623656649261/>