The guy at the camera shop told me to stop shooting at box speed and I ignored him for months

I met this older guy named Ron at a little shop in Portland called Blue Moon Camera. He looked at some of my shots and said I was ruining my Portra 400 by rating it at 400. He told me to shoot it at 320 and pull it a stop in development. I thought he was just being a snob with his fancy opinions. I kept shooting at 400 for like 4 months because I figured film is film. Then I finally tried his way on a roll of my wife's birthday party last weekend. The negatives came out with way more shadow detail, no weird blue highlights, just creamy tones. Now I feel like I wasted 8 rolls doing it the wrong way. Has anyone else had good results pulling consumer film like that or was this just luck?

2 comments

2 Comments

cora4001mo ago

Ron at Blue Moon knows his stuff. I've got a buddy who shoots Portra 400 at 200 and pulls it a stop, and his family photos look like they came out of a 70s magazine. The thing nobody talks about is that box speed is just a suggestion from the factory, not a rule. Film emulsions change a little bit every year, and your meter might be off by a third of a stop anyway. The real test is if you like the results, and it sounds like you do. Did you notice any difference in grain after pulling it?

the_sage1mo ago

@cora400 Actually I think you might have that backwards. Pulling film means you OVEREXPOSE it, then develop for LESS time. So your buddy shooting Portra 400 at 200 is overexposing by one stop, then pulling development by one stop. The grain usually stays the SAME or gets slightly finer with pulling, not bigger. I've done this exact thing with Portra 400 and pulled it one stop, and my shadows got cleaner and the grain stayed tiny. The colors shift a bit warmer too, which is why those family photos probably have that nice 70s look. Just wanted to clear that up because the terms get mixed up all the time, even by people who know their stuff.