Pulling 400NC

[franklphoto]

Anyone have experience with pulling kodak 400nc 8x10? i think this film is generally contrasty and was wondering about pulling maybe a 1/4 or 1/3.

[Filmnut]

In general, c-41 films are usually intended to be processed at their rated speed.
The amount of latitude is such that small differences won't make much of a practical difference, and the colour will get more messed up than with E-6 film, which was engineered to be pushed and pulled. In fact, a slight overexposure of most colour neg films result in finer grain, and better shadow detail.
I used to do this for customers from time to time, and usually either the colour was screwed up, or it went too flat.
Portra 400 NC is the least contrasty of these films, while the VC is the most contrasty and saturated.
Keith

[Bruce Watson]

Anyone have experience with pulling kodak 400nc 8x10? i think this film is generally contrasty and was wondering about pulling maybe a 1/4 or 1/3.

C-41 films are tough to pull. The C-41 process develops for 3 minutes 15 seconds. Exactly. That's not much time to screw around with.

On top of that, it's a diffusion process -- you have to give the developer enough time to diffuse through all the layers to the bottom layer (the red sensitive cyan layer), and give it enough time to fully develop that bottom layer. If you short the total development time you short the bottom layer the most, and will almost certainly create a color cast.

I know what you're thinking -- that you could lower the temperature to accomplish a pull. Won't work, for the same reason. Lowering the temperature slows the diffusion of the developer through the layers which will again short the bottom layer. Lowering the temperature is supposedly even more unpredictable than just lowering the developer time. So they tell me.

I would think that you'll have better luck trying to control contrast during printing. The RA-4 process is easier to manipulate IIRC. Or you could do what I do which is scan the film. And 400NC scans very easily for me.