My experience with Portra (and tmax 400) developed normally and for scanning is that if you expose for good shadows and have extreme dynamic range in the scene, the highlights will be on the film no problem and perhaps your scanner or scanner software might be challenged by how dense the brightest highlight areas scan.
That is true. But I do try to get my highlights to be within a couple stops of the darks (zone V) This seems to give me latitude for adjustments, especially in PS/LR. But sometimes I don't make it and I am still 5 or 6 stops over. I want to get the shadow detail correct, and not go to far over on the highlights, but if i do, I want to be able to recover them without them looking all whacked out.
I tried this concept with digital the other day and it works out well. Following the same methodology as film, I exposed for the shadows, used a 3 stop grad nd filter and the result was good shadow detail and the skys looked blown out big time, but they weren't the histogram was misleading as well as the "blinkies" When I processed it (equivalent to developing a sheet of film) the highlights are pulled into place very well. This is what I want to do with film. Although, I would work on not having the sky quite so bright. Progbably needed about 8 stops to avoid this and maybe a slight faster exposure, but I was wanting to avoid any straight black areas in the image. Not 4x5 and posted only as example of where I am going with this thought process. If needed I could delete the images/reply.
_BD15999_Orig by Steven Ruttenberg, on Flickr
_BD15999 by Steven Ruttenberg, on Flickr
When you're trying to compress the range of exposure with color neg film, overexposure is your friend. Like multiple stops! Because the highlights are contained within the shoulder of the curve all you have to do is bring up the level of the shadows. Don't mess with developing - unless its + a little to add a touch of contrast.
The zone system was developed for traditional b/w, and not t grain films, so difficult to apply to color neg work. With portra or ektar, just overexpose, and if you're worried about too much contrast, expose a few more stops! Fuji is a bit more temperament, so 3-4 stops overexposed max.. Unless you like the silver look.
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Good discussion. I have a lot to try!
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