Any advantage using Portra for urban photography, or will cheap film do the trick?

[Lamar]

That's interesting. I have the same experience with great B&W conversions from Portra. I don't do color film to B&W conversions often though. Somehow it makes me feel like I'm cheating on my B&W film..........

Well I ran through a roll of Portra 400.

Very nice. The lack of grain when scanned is particularly impressive. Or, should I say, the lack of *intrusive* grain – I have no problem with grain in itself.

From a colour point of view, it's hard to say. Subjectively, looking at some Kodak 200 shots I have, the Portra seems to have a bit more depth and smoothness to it. I've no intention of of doing any 'scientific' testing mind you.

Interestingly, when I did a couple of black and white converstions, the Portra gave some fantastic tones.

 

[Roundabout]

I suspect that it's just having a good base to start with.

If you use a colour film that captures the widest range of tome, and scans well, then it will surely give the best latitude when converting to black and white... maybe? But yes, it does feel like a 'misuse' of expensive colour film, when there's perfectly good black and white film available.

 

[Roundabout]

Haven't really had a lot of time to play with the scans, but this is a recent Portra 400 shot.

 

[Alan Klein]

Lamar: Those are really nice shots. Since these were scanned, were there any adjustments made that would have changed the results as compared to if it was chemically printed? If I would be scanning my pictures (landscape photography), where color saturation and contrast adjustments could be made, which film would you recommend? Thanks.

 

[Lamar]

Thanks!!. I've never printed optically so I don't have a way to compare but the shots from my earlier post were pretty much straight scans. Other than adjusting final color balance and tone after the scan I don't do much. For scanning C-41 I have had the best results with Kodak Ektar or Porta and Fuji Pro 400H.

I do on occasion have to really work at it to get nice results. These are the toughest I've done. http://www.lamarlamb.com/On-Film/Film-Blog/Future-Country-Music-Stars-in These were tough scans because of the wide range between highlights and darkest shadows. The film easily held all the detail in the shadows and highlights, it was tough getting it in a scan though. I had to use two scan passes to get all the detail, one exposed for highlights and one for shadows. Also, because the stage lighting was a single light pointed to the girl in the center I had to reduce the exposure in the center a bit in those shots to even the lighting across the entire frame. I'm not sure what the analogous optical printing process is exactly but I know I've read it is done quite often.

Lamar: Those are really nice shots. Since these were scanned, were there any adjustments made that would have changed the results as compared to if it was chemically printed? If I would be scanning my pictures (landscape photography), where color saturation and contrast adjustments could be made, which film would you recommend? Thanks.

 

[ww12345]

Any advantage using Portra for urban photography, or will cheap film do the t...

I wonder what went wrong with mine. I bought some Portra 400 recently (just to get some faster film than my EKTAR 100 - I knew I was going to be shooting inside, so I wanted the extra speed).

Anyway, I used the first portion of the roll on my friend and his relatives and the grain was really, really huge. I'm normally a fan of grain, but this was a bit excessive. I shot at box speed, metered through a Nikon FM2n. If it would help, I could post some examples.

 

[ww12345]

Any advantage using Portra for urban photography, or will cheap film do the t...

Here are some crops of the images. Faces have been cropped for privacy (I didn't get a release, and was doing it for a friend; not sure what his position on posting the full images would be so I'll err on the side of caution).

The grain isn't too horrible, I guess, but the results are a touch bit worse than EKTAR under the same lighting situations.

By the way, this is a 2200dpi negative scan on an Epson v600.

 

[Roundabout]

 

[Fixcinater]

Here are some crops of the images.

The grain isn't too horrible, I guess, but the results are a touch bit worse than EKTAR under the same lighting situations.

By the way, this is a 2200dpi negative scan on an Epson v600.

I would not find that grain offensive, but if you do, maybe medium format would give you similarly grainless results with Portra 400 as Ektar in 35mm.

Also, try some wet-lab prints from a pro shop and see if you still feel the same way. Looking at results on screen exacerbate grain compared to physical prints.

 

[Alan Klein]

You have to make adjustments in post or during the scan that will effect saturation, contrast, etc. How do you know what you really got if you scan Ektar? Isn't the same true with Portra and all negative film?

 

[Alan Klein]

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ReasonScanning and software are off topic for APUG, but on topic at our sister site, dpug.org.

Deleting my post because of this reason seems bizarre. The OP's question asked about which film is good for scanning and digital manipulation. If you're going to delete answers, why aren't you deleting questions and topics?????

 

[patrickth]

A subjective question of course.

But, I tend to do... let's call it urban photography, for the sake of discussion. If anyone is familiar with Wim Wender's still photography (as opposed to his movies), then you'd be in the ballpark (other than him being better than me, probably).

I've generally stuck with black and white film for my work and used digital for colour. But I have been thinking about trying a bit with colour film. I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on using Kodak Portra (or other pro film) for this kind of photography? Or, is Portra only really advantageious for skintones and suchlike, and will I be just as well off using something like Kodak Gold and saving my money?

I always shoot 35mm, handheld.

Also, I'm not a pro photographer, but I'm a digital graphics pro. So, I don't need the punchiest, brightest colours 'out of the box'. Nor do I want high contrast particularly (I can bring all of that out in post-production, if I want). Ideally, I want to capture, as much as possible, the widest dynamic range, image detail and colour subtleties. Then it's up to me to make a mess of it scanning, and in digital post-production.

Thoughts welcome.

I can't remember what film I grabbed on the way out the door the day I got my Rolleiflex. It might have been Portra, but it could have been Provia too. I do know I like the softness of it for street shooting.