Testing The Exposure Limits Of Fuji Pro 400H 

About time!

Ha , you found the secret of the wedding photographers

🤣🤣🤣

Glad you found it helpful!

Portra 160 is on the list! Possibly some B&W in the future as well.

+1 for porta 160 i love to over expose by 2 stops

Great insight here, Wayne. Thanks for sharing your experience!

Thanks for the support! Really appreciate it.

Thanks, Andrew!

I've certainly been happy with the rolls I've shot of 400H, but I've only shot a handful of it. For the most part, Portra has been my go to. Looking forward to shooting some more with it in the future.

Thanks, Daniel. Normal would be ISO at 400.

Thanks, Zakk!

Thanks!

Thanks! Tripod is a 3 stage Benro CF legs, with a Markins Q20 ball head.

Hey there Charith, yes, when I say rate it at ISO 200, I mean set your light meter for 200, either on the camera or externally if you're using a handheld meter. I just posted this response on another video answering the same question: If you're "rating" Portra 400 at 200, you're doing that with your meter by setting it to 200 instead of 400. You're basically just telling your meter that you have 200 speed film in the camera (even though you don't), and then you know that any reading it gives you will be for film that is one stop slower, which means that you'll be overexposing your film by one stop since it's actually 400, not 200.

Possibly in the future.

Hey Zach, these were metered using the camera's internal meter, centre weighted average. Enjoy the trip!

@@KyleMcDougall Cheers Kyle - that's super helpful!

All were metered with the 67ii, centre weighted.

Tough to say without actually being there and looking at the scene, but it sounds like the results of underexposure to me. Any examples you could send me?

Sure, where should I send them?

Info@kylemcdougallphoto.com

Averaged meter reading from the 67ii, using centre weighted.

Kyle McDougall thanks.

J Ison if you know your number, subject in bright sunny day is 15LV=17EV[iso400], and 17EV can be (1/500, f/16). The normal exposure mentioned was 1/250 at f/16, so it’s 16EV[iso400]=14LV ==> it corresponds to less bright conditions for the subject being taken. The clouds that were there, plus the amount of shadows in the frame can explain why the meter gave this value. @Kyle, do measure with an incident meter next time, so you know for sure what you are exposing properly for

In all of my years as a photographer, I've learned a lot of things about exposure and metering, but I'd never learned the light value and corresponding exposure values. A good reminder. .

it really is easy :) just get any hand-held meter at a garage sale. You might as well want a working and accurate one. Then it's all about measuring incident light.

Development of colour negatives is a standard procedure with fixed times

Um yeah. If you shoot a 400 box speed film at 200 iso, you are over exposing the film by 1 stop when developed normally for iso 400.

380stroker you shouldn’t pull or push as doing this will mess up the color response and you’ll likely have mismatches when wet printing

Alberto Amatucci I agree with you. You're probably not understanding me.

Hi Mason, I'll definitely keep this in mind for future tests.

@@KyleMcDougall I'd really love to see Fuji 200 (AKA Fujicolor 200, AKA Fuji C200) tested.

If all photos are metered the same it doesn't matter what meter he used😃

Assuming the metering is the same in all shots, that’s true only for *relative* exposures. But you can’t say “400H looks like this at speed X” unless you’ve metered it properly.

Thanks, George! Really appreciate it.

Thanks for the input, and for watching! I thought it may be a WB issue as well, but when I spoke with the lab they said that nothing was changed between frames and that the colour shift was from the exposure. These were scanned on a Frontier. The auto WB would seem to make sense though, as I haven’t experienced a drastic colour shift like this between two exposures, especially normal and +1. Once I’m home I’ll have a chance to look at the negs, and will re-scan myself on my flatbed.

Yes that is correct, like the Noritsu, the Frontier also has auto white balance natively running. You can not turn them off. So when they say they didn't adjust white balance that is true but they may not realize it will fluctuate on its own. To be honest its a pain in the butt. ;) But once you have hands on you can see the changes and correct during the scan. Its annoying that we have to correct something that is added. I just wish they would release a firmware update so we can stop the auto wb. Oh well the price of nice scanners. :)

Gotcha, interesting and good to know. Thanks for the heads up!

I've been through this process many times and ended buying my own Frontier for the same reason as what you are seeing eg inconsistent results caused by the subjectivity of the operator of the scanner and the scanning process itself. There's absolutely no way that the negative would go from warm to cool and then suddenly back to warm at +4 - it makes no sense. You can actually get negs scanned on a Frontier with the corrections turned off altogether - it is a setting in the admin section and it definitely is an eye-opener for what the negative actually looks like before the Frontier works its magic on the colours and exposure. It will give you results that are closer to what you might see out of a raw scan on an Imacon before any corrections are applied. Another issue is the warmth or coolness of the scan. Over the years I have re-scanned all of my negs that were previously done by local labs and my scans are, in many cases, very different as my eye and interpretation of the scene is of course different from the person scanning it. The Frontier (and Noritsu) has three settings for each frame for Cyan, Magenta and Yellow (like a colour print in a darkroom) and then density correction. Each of those colour changes can then have different "step" sizes assigned to each button so that +1 Cyan on one machine might move it 3 places and on my machine +1 Cyan may move it 8 places. There are also a myriad of other settings that can vastly change the output of a negative "look". That "warmth" in the Fuji 400H probably isn't inherit in the neg - if the operator popped the Cyan in the preview window a little then that warmth is gone - simple as that. I tend to scan fairly straight (eg let the film be whatever it is) and rarely tweak the colour in daylight images as the Frontier default does a great job. The look that you get from places like RPL and Indie Lab or whoever, is their interpretation of the negative but if I or someone else had scanned the same neg it could/would be far different. You can also set up film defaults so that the Fuji reads the barcode and knows it is Kodak Portra 400 and applies a preset look but that is still controlled by what someone has to enter in to the settings that they think looks good. It's not to say any lab is right or wrong as that is a personal choice but it sure caused me some issues when I started as you start questioning why "x doesn't look like y" and blaming yourself, blaming the development etc and then when you get a little experience you find out exactly why. Unlike slide film there is no 100% answer to what the shot was exposed like or what the colour should be - you're taking a negative orange image and applying a subjective positive look to it, which can never be "correct".

@@bebox7 Actually you can have an aproximately 100% answer of your negative if you make a contact copy of the film. I think this is the only way to really know for sure what is going on.

Seriously, though 😂😂

Yeah, surprising results with this one. Will definitely have to do another test in the future.

@@KyleMcDougall Am I mistaken, or did you expose at EI 200 (you mentioned 1/250 @ f/16 in the video)?

Very well could have been. I do try my best to make sure nothing is changing. But yeah, even a slight shift could have an impact.

Fuji 400H is definitely not rebranded Portra 400. I’d suggest going with some Portra 160 or 400 in 120. Both excellent options that will scan well and give you nice results. They’re also very forgiving films.

@@KyleMcDougall Thanks Kyle.

Hey there, normal developing when I get it developed. As for shooting at 200, I would do that simply for a bit of insurance if I was using a camera with a built in meter-to avoid any underexposure.

Kyle McDougall thank you so much for the response! I’m learning so much and I love it 🥰 Very grateful!

Kyle McDougall Btw I am a follower now;)

Thanks for watching. Possibly some B&W in the future.

Box speed for this one.

Thanks!

That’s correct. With a leaf shutter, you’re probably fine at 1/60. I try to stay at 1/125 or faster while shooting handheld.

Hey, Chris. Sorry, don't have any experience shooting 400h for long exposures.

Thanks!

Thanks, Gustav! Really appreciate that!

Unfortunately I'm not sure of a workaround for that particular camera.

@@KyleMcDougall: I found a solution at photothinking.com/2018-02-03-film-dx-coding-a-photographers-life-hack/

oops looks like i missed "i rate it at 200" at the end of the video! Well then you always keep development time constant?

You got it, always keep development time the same. I shoot it at 200 ISO, and then during the scan it's corrected.

What is the difference between those two things? Shouldn't the results be the same? Been trying to look for an answer to this for a while

Thanks, Alan! Glad you enjoyed!

Thanks! And yes, printing straight from the negative would be different.

Thanks!

Thanks! Not much of a B&W shooter, but it's something I plan to explore more in the future.

Thanks for the support, Chris!