Portra 400 Help needed!

[chodgson45]

I got some of my negatives back from the Fuji Sendout today and scanned them in tonight/this morning and found these:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chodg/7459439748/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chodg/7459446262/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chodg/7459448586/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chodg/7459451672/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chodg/7459454524/

Now here is my question: What is up with the massive amounts of grain? There is no edits to these pictures besides some heal brushing to remove the dust and scratches on the negatives (Fuji cut the negs and threw them into the package with no sleeves or anything). Scanned on a Canon CanoScan 9000F with default software, unsharpened mask (I did try Vuescan and the results were the same...even after configuring the Vuescan Settings to what has been suggested for Portra 400ASA) at 2400dpi

All were taken with my Kiev II. Like a newbie, I never recorded my shutter speed and f-stop (need to start doing that...d'oh!). There might have been a UV filter on at the time.

Any suggestions as to why this happened - or better yet, what can I do to have properly exposed Portra (I am aware it is forgiving when over/under exposed) with less grain?

Any help is appreciated 🙂

-Corey

 

[gavinlg]

Looks like pretty bad underexposure and/or bad developing too. Possible chemicals were old?

 

[chodgson45]

Looks like pretty bad underexposure and/or bad developing too. Possible chemicals were old?

Not Sure, it was a send out to one of Fuji's big plants.

 

[sleepyhead]

The grain is CERTAINLY not normal for Portra 400. I have done WAY higher resolution scans with nothing like that.

Could be bad exposure/development as suggested above.

Could be X-ray exposure to your film?

Could be the film wasn't stored properly before or after exposure (exposed to heat)?

A final hypothesis: have you tried scanning at HIGHER resolution than 2400 dpi? I don't understand the physics/optics behind it, but with some films and scanners the resolution around 2400 dpi interacts badly with the grain pattern and actually creates more grain-like noise. This is not seen if scanned at a lower or higher (say 4800 dpi) resolution. Could be worth a test.

Good luck!

 

[thegman]

They are all quite dark, so under exposure could easily be doing that. With negative film, err on the side of over exposure, with Portra 400, don't be afraid to over expose by *many* stops, it'll be fine. Your flatbed is not optimal for 35mm negs, but you should still be able to get better than that. Perhaps let Vuescan have multiple passes at the neg, see if it can drag some detail out. Also, try sharpening or noise reduction in Lightroom, Neat Image, something like that.

 

[hipsterdufus]

Are the negatives mostly clear (thin?) If so, they're underexposed. If not, I agree with the rest of the folks about bad development.

 

[stompyq]

Looks like badly underexposed negs to me. Is this 120 or 35mm?

 

[chodgson45]

It's 35mm and the Negatives are pretty thin. looking at the roll after a night of sleep it looks like I just under exposed big time.

No X-Ray exposure, film was stored in the coolest room in the house (the only one with AC and is in a dark place.

Thanks guys. Looks like I just need to over expose a few stops. I'm not good with color film as I shoot it like I would B/W.

Besides overexposing by a good few stops in the Portra, are there any other tips?

 

[redisburning]

kodak could have gotten away with rating Portra 400 at 800; I'd personally suggest just getting as close to 400 as you can; these must have been close to 3 stops underexposed. I've had a few frames at 1600 with no push and they were usable, although not great.

 

[Denverdad]

-snip-
Thanks guys. Looks like I just need to over expose a few stops. I'm not good with color film as I shoot it like I would B/W.

Besides overexposing by a good few stops in the Portra, are there any other tips?

Rather than planning on overexposing by some number of stops, I think you should try to figure out what went wrong with the exposures in the first place. I would have thought that "shooting it like you would B/W" would have resulted in better exposure than this - certainly not the several stops under that it appears to be. We should try to ascertain whether it was something wrong with how you were calculating/setting the exposure, or if it was perhaps a malfunction of the camera itself (or an external meter, if you happened to be using one). Have you obtained good exposure using B/W film with this camera in the past?

 

[chodgson45]

Rather than planning on overexposing by some number of stops, I think you should try to figure out what went wrong with the exposures in the first place. I would have thought that "shooting it like you would B/W" would have resulted in better exposure than this - certainly not the several stops under that it appears to be. We should try to ascertain whether it was something wrong with how you were calculating/setting the exposure, or if it was perhaps a malfunction of the camera itself (or an external meter, if you happened to be using one). Have you obtained good exposure using B/W film with this camera in the past?

External Meter - well its an exposure guide based on the EV index. It works for black and white but apparently not color in this situation. I think the problem was exposure. My external meter is not the best for a low light situation. I think that I'm going to buy some Superia to play with and for low light I'll start using my SLR's that have built in meters (my Studio Deluxe L-398 III isn't great in low light 🙁 ).

I've had great exposures with my Kiev using B/W film.