C-41 The Long and Short of it

[David F. Stein]

Are color negative emulsions still offered in long and short exposure versions (I remember using Vericolor L in the past) or are the reciprocity characteristics of modern films considered sufficient. Any comments, suggestions re: long exposures, say 2 seconds and greater. THANKS.

[tim atherton]

Portra (160 & 400) is supposed to be good out to 10 seconds - after that you need to do your own testing

[David R Munson]

Regardless of the official product specs, I've used Fuji NPS with exposures up to about 8 minutes long with good results. I rate it at EI 100.

[Henry Ambrose]

Two seconds isn't long! I also use NPS well past its published specs. Exposures of minutes, not seconds and it works fine. I do shoot additional "insurance" sheets to cover myself but 9 out of 10 times what I have shot as metered is good (and the plus one stop is good too). I've shot a little Portra 160VC in a head to head test with NPS and the results were very similar with NPS being lower contrast and Portra being warmer. You could pick either one you like and not be wrong. I scan my film and print digitally and it might be that wet darkroom work could be compromised but my film scans great. Do a search of this forum for those films - I think I remember a long exposure test someone did in the last 6 months.