Pushing Portra 400 to 12800

[@Boswd]

The 4:50 Mark.. the street shit under the 6400 push. My favorite shot of all. Just gorgeous.

[@apolotary]

Portra 12800 looks like those instagram filters people put on when the app just came out in 2010

[@DerGeileEisbaer]

You, my dearest Sir, deliver the weird film content I have always been craving without even knowing it :D

[@gusatvoschiavon]

The 6400 roll looked the best to me, very silent hillesque, the last one would be nicer if you had a flash I think

[@atticdarkroom]

It never occurred to me to use a flash. That probably would've made things a lot easier. I might have to try that sometime.

[@adamszuszkiewicz1709]

Definitely useable with the right circumstances

[@sartori2226]

The 6400 photos are awesome, i live how underexposed everyting gets

[@5muli]

Wouldn’t using a flash either overexpose the shot (and making the point of pushing redundant) OR have the exact same results if metered correctly for the highlights provided by the flash?

[@gusatvoschiavon]

@@5muli its like some of the shots only have the sky exposed so if you got a flash you could get a better exposure overall, it would be just like using an fade ND filter

[@rumperdumper]

I spoke to an older photographer recently, and he talked about overexposing film by several stops (e.g. exposing 400 as 50 speed). Then he would use a different chemical makeup than usual to develop the film. The overexposure and underdevelopment greatly reduced noise and gave higher dynamic range. The altered chemistry corrected the white balance.

[@andrewbroekhuijsen6770]

There's always a sleeper image when you're out goofing around with film way outside of its intended use parameters. Today's is 4:50. That's a sick shot.

[@jordanlaine7412]

5:01 is pretty rad as well.

[@iNerdier]

Nice to see you sorted out the frame spacing problems you had.

[@atticdarkroom]

Frame spacing issues is like a herpes, gone for a while and then comes back at the worst time.

[@Brunovdvoorde]

@@atticdarkroom have the same issue, any advice on how to solve it?

[@atticdarkroom]

Send it in to get it serviced and hope it fixes the issue. Of the two backs I sent in one is working fine and the other is having issues again. It's just how it goes with 40+ year old gear.

[@iNerdier]

@@atticdarkroom I got into servicing cameras after mine was doing it and having the body looked at (expensively) did nothing. It’s usually lubricant in the tensioning mechanism that gets more viscous and it makes the frames just not quite far enough apart. Worst part about trying to fix it is when you’re done it looks exactly the same…

[@psajgal]

That shot at 4:50 looks soo good. I'd say 3200 still maybe useable, anything over that just seems scary.

[@shuddercount6278]

that may be thanks to the foggy atmosphere

[@Boswd]

Just said the same thing.... Absolutely love that photo

[@jw48335]

And now for the real bank account pain: Portra 800.

[@q3dm17]

😂

[@q3dm17]

Let’s leave that to mr beast

[@thelemon5069]

Pull Porta 800 to iso 5

[@jw48335]

@@thelemon5069 and develop it in toilet bowl cleaner!

[@dylangergutierrez]

Last time I checked, Portra 800 was actually cheaper on B&H than 400, at least in 120. But it's been a couple months

[@joshuam7702]

This is such an awesome, underrated channel. Everytime I get a notification that there's a new attic darkroom video, I know it'll be an interesting watch. Also some of these shots are absolutely stunning, I love the vibes they give off, especially the one with the car and the stop lights!

[@RichardStroffolino]

The blues at 1600 look wild, flat and super punchy. Good stuff man.

[@BillyMcBillface]

Me: I hope I get a 35mm roll of portra for Christmas, it looks cool! Attic darkroom: I’m gonna shoot 6 rolls of 120 portra 400 just to see what happens! I appreciate your mad scientist ideas

[@runinair12]

Towards the end the color shifts towards blue because the only thing in the film getting enough exposure to form a silver image and a respective dye image is the fast blue sensitive emulsion layer (grainy) that forms yellow dye. The rest even solarizes out, but is then held back by DIR couplers in the emulsion. The base probably looks so off, because the actual mask is becoming less mask and more filter layer, as masking dyes form even where imaging dyes have formed in the first place due to excessive overdevelopment.

[@Slime_Head]

Your channel is an absolute gem. I just finished binge watching all of your videos and I'm still craving more

[@noahmacomber5970]

I would like to say that you are one of my favorite chanels on KZbin... I have now binged all your videos

[@davidbelgrave1971]

I'm subscribed to a lot of channels and this is the only one that I have notifications on for. You do amazing work!

[@tylerhuttosmith]

I think the overcast shots on the ones pushed to 3200 and above look nicer because they're overall lower in contrast scenes. Any images that were take on sunny days past 3200 looks bad because the higher contrast from pushing goes even further. My understanding of it at least. Awesome to experiment though and why I love your channel! Keep up the experimentation!

[@atticdarkroom]

Yeah, any contrast and everything in the shadows gets crushed. Unfortunately even/flat lighting is harder to find.

[@lucasammelung6567]

Honestly this channel is just pure analog joy, you should collab with grainydays you somehow got a similar vibe

[@titaniumtester6]

Am I nuts for liking the look of all of the pushes? It just looks so creepy and dream like that I think it looks great. Definetly not good if you're going for realism but as an effect even the 12800 looks awesome to me

[@c1m1w]

Those 6400 shots are absolutely great imo It’s a look and it’s hitting so well

[@LENSDADDY]

And I thought I was crazy pushing pro image 100 to 1600. Nice work!

[@ewbaite]

Really want to see cine films pushed next both in c41 and ecn2. I read that ecn2 pushes great as it has lower contrast

[@SamPrescott99]

I’ve pushed 500T in C41 3 stops. Looks a bit funky but still useable!

[@katarina7520]

not exactly the same but i accidentally shot cinestill 400d at 1600, pushed 2 stops in development, and it was surprisingly good

[@dfiglide]

Just stumbled on to your site, thank you for all your work in posting these videos.

[@DarkWafflesOfDoom]

Love this! You make my favorite film videos on youtube!

[@maxrownes7914]

Just finished binging all your videos! I am absolutely hooked, I’m not sure if I’m just high on rodinal fumes or tri-chrome acid but keep whatever you’re doing up.

[@juxtaposedmultiplicity7372]

"this one could have been okay if.... everything wasn't bad" this is my new favorite sentence

[@timo3798]

once again you showed us what we can but should not do

[@LPSminecrafter]

"babe wake up, the Film man tortured more films again!"

[@spieler440]

I like to push mine to 800. Always thought it looked better. One big thing I did notice though is no matter how far you pushed it, the blues looked really good

[@campfire2953]

honestly 1600 and 6400 looked pretty cool. they almost look like two completely different film stocks

[@Bonsees]

Whoah the shot at 4:50 is so good!

[@GeorgeK356]

This is how we learn, an experiment well worth doing.

[@Leotheepic43]

I recently pushed Fuji Superia 400 to 6400 and I feel a lot of your pains, but the shots that aren't underexposed make it worth it imo.

[@ronen_khazin]

With most pushed colour, past 1 stop it's not quite linear, and you gotta push it more than you under exposed. So like for a 2 stop underexposed, you should push 2.5-3 stops, and so on

[@atticdarkroom]

Makes sense. I guess I could've bracketed some shots. That would've helped to rule out a few moving variables. I'll keep that in mind for the next time. Thanks!

[@FinalManaTrigger]

yeah, it's like reciprocity failure, but on the other end

[@runinair12]

@@atticdarkroom One stop of push approximately gives only one third of a stop in increased film speed. You get an image that is underexposed by 2/3rds of a stop. After about 2 stops of push you only really develop the faster emulsion layers to completion. But after that, the increase in film speed is effetively zero. The max real sensitometrically evident increase in film speed that is achievable therefore is 2/3rds of a stop. So if you'd shoot Portra 400 at 640 and pushed it two stops you`d end up with a more or less balanced exposure but with increased contrast and less sharpness.

[@gunnarelgersma5215]

Not gonna Lie, the 4:50 shot is pretty sick!

[@gaarakabuto1]

I use film for concerts if clients ask me to. I've used plenty of stocks, ironically enough the best one has to be lomo C800 when it comes to pushing. I have pushed it to 3200 and the results were pretty nice for a concert pic, lots of saturation, nicely rendered (and plentyful) grain and pretty warm. The details were blown out of the window, only things you could see were mussy faces with mics barely recognisable and whatever backlights you get. Cinestill has better detail but not a great colours and portra, well portra 800 isn't too far away from this shown in the video. I would suggest trying out the lomo, I know it's just vision film repacked but there's something into it.

[@SamCyanide]

The foggy shots at 6400 looked neat. Were you exposing for each speed? I'm guessing yes otherwise you'd just have nothing

[@DelayAndMentlegen]

dem shots @6400 iso are straight up fire

[@dev9184]

hey, at every speed, you have some beautiful images!

[@dev9184]

the blown out highlights on the 12800 is interesting - it intensifies the sky gradients that are normally just lost. Would be interesting to exploit this idea shooting very bright things only

[@filmpjesman1]

What area do you live that there is so much junk to be found? That broken car, the mattress, the garbage? I like the vibe, but it also looks a little sad ... Or did you specifically look for the junk because the rolls were getting more junky?

[@atticdarkroom]

I wish I would've thought about making it junkier with each stop. I guess it kinda worked out that way but that was unintentional. Personally I find ephemeral crap more interesting. In that regard I guess I consider myself as a garbage photographer.

[@filmpjesman1]

@@atticdarkroom well that would be a thing for a next test video, pushing makes the subjects junkier and pulling makes them cleaner ;P I like the style, just as much as I like your videos!

[@PrebleStreetRecords]

Have you ever tried pre-flashing film? I’ve done it for paper negatives, basically I’d flash them with my enlarger for some amount of time, just before a test strip would turn light gray with normal development. It’d lower contrast and help even out the highlights when I later exposed it in my camera. I’ve never tried it with real film, but it might be a way of making really aggressive pushing work. I’m no chemist (I got a D in orgo), but I guess it reduces the silver grains “most of the way”, so that they’ll “flip” to exposed with less light in the camera?

[@atticdarkroom]

I have not. But it definitely sounds interesting and I'll have to try it sometime. Thanks for the suggestion!

[@nantxcel9005]

Looks like you have found a way into silent hills.... Portra 400 at 6400

[@sambrumley_productions]

What if you combined push processing and bleach bypass with Portra 400? Maybe you might get usable density at 3200 or even beyond that if you leave the silver in. Maybe you could try exposing for 12800 and developing at 6400, then using a fixer that does not include the bleach

[@gumasealinc]

The 12800 looks like this batch of portra 400 NC that's 20 years expired I have. Really intense blue cast on everything

[@mishkamcivor409]

Pushing Portra 400 to 800 Portra 800: Am I a fucking joke to you

[@turismoavenue]

Man these look amazing!! so glad to see this i've pushed porta up to 3200 (my cam onlygoes this far) :) an they seeem just fine, but actually i really love fuji c200 pushed to 3200, the grain air still nice compared tto natura 1600 ( which grains are much bigger, and seem a bit congky). i always push film nowadays, its much easier to add a filter for daylight (if its to bright) rather than bringingg 2 cams with different asa's

[@jkerman5113]

Do you have any samples of C200 pushed to 3200? I often push to 400 but have never tried higher.

[@DisturbedVette]

i would also like to see this sort of testing with cinestill 800t

[@jakewestbrook3214]

I will say I liked the dramatic look of the 6400 frames.

[@bobbleczar]

I have pulled Portra 400 two stops after accidentally exposing it at 100. It actually did a lot to bring up shadows, Now I kind of always pull -1 stop as a way to reduce grain and lift shadows.

[@SingleMaltZombie]

I am surprised how well it seems to hold up... Even though there is already quite a bit of color shifting before, I feel like only going above 3200 it starts to have really notable grain... I even like the slightly blown out colors of the 1600 and 3200 exposed ones

[@gusatvoschiavon]

Yes

[@uNpOpuLArOpInION69]

Thanks for making a tutorial on how to properly take pictures of bigfoot, now I’m prepared if i ever encounter it

[@miroslavmartinek522]

Very interesting. Could you please try to pull it to ISO 5 next time?

[@KrispieKomrad]

6400 and up feels like something you would use to have fun with silhouettes and floating effects if you put someone in a dark suit

[@SinaFarhat]

You maniac! Well at least now I know what not to do with porta 400! Keep up the good work!

[@Emariess]

I'd like to see what happens if you camera scan you negative film with more negative film, does it make a positive? are the colours any good?

[@goldenfurniture123]

5:04 is so cool

[@bopmicrofunk]

that 4:50 shot tho 😍

[@jomy10-games]

But what if it stood for Pull? 🤔

[@Supercon57]

In terms of the underexposure, did you take into account reciprocity failure as you pushed it to higher speeds?

[@LaskyLabs]

Magic conch, will we ever get Ektachrome P1600 or P800 ever again?

[@aguy4247]

Actually really like the shot at 4:50

[@meebz0rp]

I’m surprised how cool looking the some of the underexposed shots are, in the right situation it could make for some really good shots

[@wochenendedestodes9015]

Really a nice youtube channel. Did you ever thought to pull an adox cms 20 to its limits? Would be interesting.

[@danem2215]

"This could've been okay if everything wasn't bad" Story of my life

[@w2.ill_]

Somehow I instantly noticed it’s in oregon @ 2:51 … Corvallis by any chance?

[@atticdarkroom]

PDX

[@vicentemoller3540]

A noob question but, any tips on how to get color rolls with less contrast (by pushing or pulling idk). I find that no matter the film and film speed with color film I keep getting very contrasted shots in my opinion

[@atticdarkroom]

What film are you using? Portra is lower contrast compared to Ektar for example. Also how the film is scanned can dictate how much contrast is in the final shot.

[@prakticanova8228]

Pushing increases contrast by definition, since you lose one zone of density for each stop (in this example, 5 zones are lost out of a possible of 7, more or less. That's why there's not much image information left at the end). If you want a lower contrast, you need to pull your film. C41 films are not meant to be pushed/pulled because they're multilayered (10 layers or more in many cases) and each layer tend to live its own life when the c41 standard is not accurately followed. Pushing/pulling is a BW technique of contrast control, meant to optimize the image information being recorded on film in order to offer as much flexibility as possible at the printing stage.

[@ajkohkoh3921]

"this one could have been okay as well if everything wasn't bad" that's how I feel about my life

[@rastalukee]

hey! are you planning some experiments with vision500t filmstock? :)

[@DisturbedVette]

12800 looks like a cinematic horror movie

[@danieldevine]

I feel like i read / watched something on this topic before that said as you push you have to also account when metering for some weird quirk the films have - apparently on a data sheet? - that means 1 stop more isn't actually 1 stop you've gotta go like stop and a 1/8th or something and it gets worse the more you're pushing? could maybe explain why as it went on the shadows and mids were worse - obviously they'd be worse anyway but even more than expected.

[@jsdlr488]

Oh yeah, we're Pushin' P 😎

[@arturors30]

What would happen with portra 800? 🧐🧐🧐

[@Tom5TomEntertainment]

Now we know to develop for 20 minutes for those expired t0n3z

[@atticdarkroom]

Expired film sellers HATE this one trick!

[@mjfan653]

it seems like the exposure-development balance is off even more than it should be, as in the film was underexposed or underdeveloped. now it will certainly "collapse" at some point as the film cant be pushed past a certain point, but as the surviving shots show, there was actually potential to create images of some ""quality"" if exposed for iso6000 and developed for 6400 or exposed fro 11000 and developed for 12800 I think there might actually be some images there... highly shifted and freaky, but understandable recreations of the original scene

[@spectrive9739]

7:01 nuff said

[@ailivac]

6:31 is my favorite

[@kyleaegis5613]

I too love the shot @4:50 but my favorite shot is @5:01

[@koltinn]

3200-6400 asa was the sweet spot atleastto me and artsy? photos but the shot with the tree at 7:02 was cool. Then again I a bit of a sucker for grain and higher contrast.

[@drdufault]

When pushing at each stop, for example from 400 to 800, did you do anything different in development, like longer process times? If so, what did you use as a guide to determine process times? ETA: Guess I should have finished the vid, as you do address this. However, what was the extra development from 400 to 800?

[@atticdarkroom]

Development times are in the description. I used Cinestill's notes to calculate up to 3200 and then winged it for 6400 and 12800.

[@drdufault]

@@atticdarkroom I need to read more, write less. 😊 Thanks!

[@EbondsCarpon]

I am no sure if you know already know about Truth ND. I wonder if that will reduce some color shift? or just like you said the film back problem.

[@AB-rn8cy]

I was waiting for an epic trichrome at the end

[@user-le8ul4nr5t]

That's a good question though, can you push color film further if you also cross process it in b&w?

[@atticdarkroom]

That's a good idea. Hmm...

[@ZachACameraGuy]

6400 has a strong lomography metropolis vibe to my eyes... maybe you've discovered something

[@gonzounderscore]

Im dying to know what lightpad/lightbox you have

[@atticdarkroom]

It's a cheap A2 light pad from eBay.

[@elbert5208]

@@atticdarkroom oof does it have 99+ CRI? could be the reason why the shots are wonky

[@atticdarkroom]

I don't use it to scan.

[@gonzounderscore]

​@@atticdarkroom would you ever go over your scanning process?

[@otherSmallCities]

I wonder if the 800 as baseline would fair better

[@VariTimo]

Portra 400 doesn't have the greatest underexposure latitude to begin with. It's not bad but I believe even Gold can handle underexposure better in relative terms. This test would probably have been better suited for Portra 800 since that is crazy light sensitive and can handle the worst underexposure without being pushed. Pushing C41 probably only makes sense up to two stops because the overdevelopment will do more harm than just pushing it lens and printing up/making the scan brighter.

[@Frisenette]

Why didn’t you pre-flash some frames?

[@KingofStreet3]

So pushing is developing for longer? Or is that pulling? I just shoot box speed

[@The-KP]

Good photo tech series

[@chrisrigby3694]

What colour is the ND and could this be having an effect on the colour cast?

[@caesar8955]

6400... kino af. Nice

[@churchyard]

you’re a real interesting fella guy

[@drownedingold]

“This one could’ve been okay if everything wasn’t bad”

[@Lucas66632]

hey just curious on how you scanned these? thanks!

[@frankmartinez2968]

I shoot mostly BW, but with these extremes wouldn't reciprocity departure come into play? Wouldn't you have to compensate by giving it more light?

[@sneakingelephant]

I’m a editing noob here. How did you edit out the red cast in the shot at 2:45

[@atticdarkroom]

In Photoshop I used auto-color. It's a quick and dirty way to correct the red cast. It's not perfect but a good place to start.

[@sneakingelephant]

@@atticdarkroom thanks for the advice. I didn't even know that was a function!

[@Al_Bx]

The 20 min dev time made me think : have you ever experimented stand dev for color negative ?

[@atticdarkroom]

It's on the list of things to try!

[@Campake]

wow i love p ortra

[@kennybroomfield8402]

Would be really cool to see you push and than pull the same film stock the same amount of stops. So here 400 up to 12,800 than do 400 down to 12 and see what you get. Or the 3200 that went 102,400 pull it down to 100 or even less.

[@NordicLab]

When you wanna push so high you need change concentration of the chemicals already to have more aggressive development for shorter time.