What is the stop latitude for color film

[Seth Baldwin]

I've been applying the zone system to how I view exposure using my light meter. I shoot still color film like portra 400 and vision3 500t rolled for stills.

From what I've observed with how people apply the zone system to digital cameras, is they will keep the most important information nothing darker then 2 stops below middle gray, and nothing brighter then 2 stops above middle gray. Leaving the other 5 zones for highlights and blacks as those zones retain less information due to being too dark or too bright.

This had me thinking, what is the stop latitude or zones past middle gray in popular color film where information can still be retained? At what zones does information become too bright or too dark. So specifically, how many stops above middle gray and below middle gray retain important information on popular color film like portra 400 and vision3 500t?

Edited September 7, 2020 by Seth Baldwin

[David Mullen ASC]

I think Kodak claims about 14 to 15-stops of dynamic range for Vision-3 color negative. The micro grains added to Vision-3 over Vision-2 increased information in the brightest areas by almost a stop but it's not visible in a print, you have to scan the negative to see that detail.

But the Zone System is about stops of detail in a print or other display form -- you'd only see 15-stops of DR in an HDR presentation.  Probably more practical to work towards seeing 11 zones, one-stop for each.

[Tyler Purcell]

22 minutes ago, David Mullen ASC said:

But the Zone System is about stops of detail in a print or other display form -- you'd only see 15-stops of DR in an HDR presentation.  Probably more practical to work towards seeing 11 zones, one-stop for each.

I agree, with a normal scan, you won't get anywhere near the full dynamic range of motion picture film. The HDR scans I've done are eye opening. 

[David Mullen ASC]

Vision-3 color negative's extra latitude for overexposure is always amazing -- when I worked on HBO's "Westworld", the other DPs and I would talk about how when we'd shoot a scene in a dark saloon on the western street sets where it would be many stops overexposed out some window or door in the background... we'd be surprised to see detail out there when we got dailies back.