Pushed my development times by 30 seconds on expired film and it fixed my muddy shadows

3 comments

3 Comments

barbarah1911d agoTop Commenter

I mean, I've had pretty good luck pushing old Portra 160 a stop and pulling the development time back a bit, but every roll is kind of its own thing. Metering for the shadows before you push can help too, like spot meter on something dark and base your exposure off that. Just my two cents but if the shadows are muddy it's probably a combo of expired stock and how you metered, not the dev time alone.

lily7012d ago

lol this feels like the kind of tip where results vary a ton depending on what film stock you shot. I did the same thing once with some old Portra 160 and it just gave me blown out highlights with weird color shifts. Muddy shadows might not even be a development issue, could just be how you metered the shot.

gavinb9712d ago

Yeah but even with metering, some stocks just fight you more than others. Portra 160 is picky about exposure, it's not the most forgiving film out there. Sometimes you just gotta accept the roll is cooked.