Any hope in salvaging Velvia 50 shot at 400?

[kmallick]

I made a blunder today. 😡 I forgot to set the film speed on my Mamiya 7 II after loading Fuji Velvia 50 slide film. I shot an entire roll at film speed 400 before I caught my mistake. Is there any hope in push processing this film and expect any reasonably exposed chrome? Or should I sacrifice it to the learning process and be happy with the other roll that was shot at the correct speed? I am hoping to send this (these) roll(s) out at Walmart. 🙄

 

[andredossantos]

Well, there's only one way to find out!

 

[Coldkennels]

Well, there's only one way to find out!

Exactly; you might as well push it and see what happens. Just be sure to post a few shots on here so that we can see what happens, too!

 

[sevo]

I made a blunder today. 😡 I forgot to set the film speed on my Mamiya 7 II after loading Fuji Velvia 50 slide film. I shot an entire roll at film speed 400 before I caught my mistake. Is there any hope in push processing this film and expect any reasonably exposed chrome? Or should I sacrifice it to the learning process and be happy with the other roll that was shot at the correct speed? I am hoping to send this (these) roll(s) out at Walmart. 🙄

Well, you may have to look for another lab. And be warned that Velvia is already a high contrast beast even when not pushed.

Hereabouts, Fujifilm themselves offer one stop pushing for twice the price (around 3€). Dedicated pro labs sometimes offer a two stop push - at a often hefty surcharge (as they may have to run a separate batch on your film) and at your responsibility. You might brute force a third stop out of it DIY, but the results will be way too odd and unsafe for most labs to venture into that terrain. Unless the images have unusually high documentary value or benefit from experimental treatment with weird colours and bizarre contrast, it probably is not worth while.

 

[umcelinho]

go for it and see what happens. i've pushed elite chrome 100 to 400 once after doing the same mistake. contrast was higher than normal, but negs came out decent. as said, velvia already is a high saturation and contrast film, so consider that. but a roll with images is still better than one with no images.

 

[oftheherd]

Anyone have experience with developing this film as monochrome? Might it give better images, albeit b/w? I am inclined to agree that it is probably better to go for the push if the shots are worth it, but if not, then at least b/w processing at home might give usable and interesting results.

 

[randomm]

If you develop it in C41 chemicals you'll have more latitude. This might help you a bit, but you'll end up with negatives rather than positives.

I shoot Ektachrome 64T at 125-200 ASA regularly and develop it C41. Although my tests don't go as far as a 3 stops, -2 stops looks pretty good: http://www.flickr.com/photos/randomm/sets/72157626416308435/

No color correction etc done mind, so the tests look as they do. Here is the same material with more PP and color correction done on them: http://www.flickr.com/photos/randomm/sets/72157626540878538/ ... all shot at at least 125 ASA, so one stop "push".

 

[randomm]

Oh, and the "more latitude" comes from me publicly wondering on another forum why the underexposed images look as good as they do, and someone with much more experience than me said that the wide latitude of c41 is not due to material but processing...

Just wanted to come clean with that statement 🙂 ... results speak for themselves though. Plenty of shadows still present at 160 ASA.

 

[B.S.]

I did exactly this with 35mm Velvia 50iso slide film. It came out very poor-- I certainly wouldn't do it again and, honestly, if I did it again on accident I wouldn't pay to get the roll developed. Not worth the money.

Here are some of the pictures from that role:

http://i.imgur.com/DfRl0.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/cSkB1.jpg

I'm having trouble with the file attachment manager right now so I just posted on imgur and linked there. For whatever reason it rotated the images to portrait, but I've already spent way more time with these than I ever should have, so ignore that. Hey, it's better than nothing.

 

[Waterman100]

If you're located in NYC, try Manhattan Color Lab. I believe they push process w/ no extra charge.

Fujifilm themselves offer one stop pushing for twice the price (around 3€). Dedicated pro labs sometimes offer a two stop push - at a often hefty surcharge

 

[thegman]

You may as well give it a try, my regular labs in the UK tend to push either for free, or £1. 3 stops is obviously a big push, but personally, I'd be curious to see how it turned out.

I once shot Velvia 100 @ 50, asked the lab to pull 1 stop, and the results to me looked perfect. Maybe Velvia is more tolerant than we think.

 

[excellent]

Developing in c41 might be your best bet. You will get some funky colors which could be interesting. Velvia already being high contrast will most likely come out looking pretty gross when pushed.
Good luck! Sometimes you learn great new things when you make those mistakes. Post your results when you get them, I'd love to see what you got.