By: Nicholas Teo
What is pushing film and how to do it?
Alright let's get down to it. Pushing film is basically when you have a film,let's say for the sake of this example ISO400 and you set your camera's meter for ISO800 (That's one stop over or +1EV). Okay now if you don't tell me you set your meter to ISO800, we will develop it normally at ISO400 and in turn your photos will be underexposed by one stop but if you tell me you pushed your film to ISO800 then we will make sure it's not underexposed by developing your film longer.
On your end, pushing is as simple as setting your meter to a more faster speed and marking it on your film. On our end it's a different story, we have to calculate how long we have to compensate for your pushed film process and sometimes if you push your film too far we'll have to develop it for an hour! So this is why we have to charge extra for pushing film. (But we do like the challenge!)
Why and when to push?
Usually back in the days when you're out and about for a shoot, you check the weather and if the forecast says it's sunny then you just bring an ISO100 film so you can get those creamy, wide open bokehmon shots. Then the next day during your shoot the day becomes gloomy and ISO100 is just too slow for your shoot! So what do you do? You push your film by two stops to ISO400 so you don't have to whip out your tripod to prevent those blurry images.
Now before you start sending me your film pushed to ISO12800 there's something you need to know regarding pushing film - there's a couple trade off;
- More grains due to longer processing time
- Lost of film latitude i.e, loss of details in shadows and highlights
- More contrast (for colour film)
- Higher saturation (for colour film)
Not to mention some film pushes better than others just like Kodak Tri-X 400 can be pushed safely to ISO6400 compared to Kentmere 400 so you have to do a bit of research before you start pushing your film!
That's the fundamental of pushing film! If you're interested in knowing more then feel free to join us on our regular(ish) Coffees & Cameras hangout! Keep an eye for the announcement on our IG!
Personal notes to advanced film shooters from Nicholas Teo
Personally I like pushing film but I only do it with B&W films. I can see the difference in the density of the negatives for B&W films but I don't believe c41 films can be pushed like B&W films can be. I've tried various developing styles with c41 such as higher temperature + shorter dev time, constant temp + longer dev time (up to 9 mins) but it doesn't seem to affect the density of the negative from what I observe. I've tried to develop an ISO200, ISO400 and ISO800 film up to 9 mins (recommended time is 3:30 and 38.8 degrees Celcius) but the negatives didn't turned out as dense as B&W negatives. I have tried developing pushed film up to 9 mins also but the negatives just came out thin so I came to a conclusion that c41 films is just not suited to be pushed like B&W film. The extra saturation and contrast actually comes from scanner compensation as the negatives are thin so the inverted image will be darker than usual. The scanner and the scanning software then compensates for the underexposure by bringing the exposure up and in turn it will also compensate those dark areas with colours that it interpreted to be originally there resulting in a higher saturation. The colours of course depends on the colour depth of the scanner, mine does it just fine as the colour depth is 48bit while older scanners such as Noritsu HS-1800 can only get to 18bit, Fuji Frontier SP3000 can only get to 8bit and the Pakon can only get to 16bit. So in theory you can pull out more realistic colours from modern scanner compared to lab scanners provided you know how to edit your film shots. The added grains for c41 film is just digital noise as the scanner compensates for the underexposure. This is why I never push my c41 films as I can just play around with the DNG negative and get pretty much the final look that I want and at the same time preserving all the details in the shot.
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