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Vision 3 Under exposure / Push in Lab


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Looking for a bit of advice.

 

I just shot something in what I would describe as an overcast day, in pine woodland, so mixed canopy cover.

 

Half way through the day I had one shot I needed looking directly up which required a 1.8ND. The loader left that in but also left the 0.9 sticker on the matte box. Therefore half that roll and following few rolls are all 3 stops under.

 

I rated my meter for 320, so technically i'm 2 and 1/3 stops under exposed. Im now just debating how many stops I should push in the lab. If I push 2 stops, Id be nearer my intended exposure but at the same time it would be nice to try and recover the first half of the roll which will now be near 3 stops over.

 

I could just push it 1.5 stops and then try to recover a bit more in the scan and grade, I would obviously have less grain then but Im worried that I might not get enough back if I do that. The grain isn't necessarily a bad thing as it doesn't need to cut with anything in particular, its more of a mood film so could work BUT if I can get it all back with a cleaner negative it would be preferred

 

Any thoughts would be fantastic

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Pushing doesn't increase the sensitivity (or granularity, at that) much - the film's sensitivity curve (H&D) is only slightly shifted to the left (towards lower exposure, by 1/3 stop or so) and quite noticeably upwards, which means denser fog and generally denser shadows. So yes, a one stop push pulls out more shadow detail, but it doesn't precisely compensate for 1-stop underexposure. What it does is, first of all, increase midtone contrast and let you see color there, while with normal processing strongly undexposed midtones are murky and desaturated.

 

I would worry less about overprocessing the rest, since it was an overcast day and there were hardly any important details exposed more than 3 stops over key - if you weren't shooting in the shadow and shifting your exposure accordingly.

A two stop push might look too contrasty to you on normally exposed shots, but it won't be much grainier than 1.5. Sky will get lighter and lose detail, clouds will stand out less, and it can look almost uniformly white. Highlight detail will be largely still there, just a little too dense for the telecine/scanner.

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