Reading your film exposure

While negative film is very forgiving and has a nice amount of latitude, nailing your exposure is still the ultimate goal.

An underexposed negative has very low contrast, overall low density, lacks detail in the shadow and weak highlights.

An overexposed negative has low contrast, overall high density, is too dark in the shadows and too dense in the highlights.

A negative that is correctly exposed has normal contrast, normal density, detail in the shadow and highlights.