At 04:20 7/11/01, Garth Wood wrote:
At 02:15 PM 7/11/2001 +1000, you wrote:
Can someone clear my mind on pushing and pulling film.
Is it true that underexposing slightly or pushing slide film gives better
results i.e. more colour saturation/definition in shadow areas, and that
overexposing or pulling print/negative film is better?
Not necessarily.
20 years ago, I used to underexpose Kodachrome by about 1/3 stop to
increase the saturation. I still do this from time to time with
Kodachrome. However, the more modern E-6 emulsions don't need this
treatment. And Kodachrome doesn't *require* it, either -- to my eye, it
still seems good at recommended exposures.
On my last roll of film (colour negative) I actually pushed the film one
stop and forgot to mention it to the lab. The prints however have come
out very well, so it makes me think that slight overexposure on print
film is not always the best thing to do!
Negative film has a much greater latitude than transparency film. That's
why you can get away with under- or over-exposures with it in situations
where doing the same thing to transparency film would stuff up the
shot. Negs have so much latitude, in fact, that frequently you can use
Sunny 16 with great success.
Garth
In addition to the good response Garth has written . . .
If you are in doubt about exposure, err on the side of overexposure with
negative films, and err on the side of *slight* underexposure with
transparency. If you are off (guessed incorrectly), this leaves a slightly
thicker emulsion which is easier to "burn through" making a print from it
than a thin emulsion which has complete loss of detail in the
highlights. You get away with this more easily with negative films (wider
latitude) than with transparency (less forgiving of error).
-- John
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