Ektar 100 vs Portra 160 - what's the exact difference?

[BrianShaw]

“Artificially warmed”... can you please explain? I’ve said similar about other film being “artificially color enhanced” but always felt that I might be a bit uninformed or even in error.

 

[DREW WILEY]

By "warming" I'm not referring to the overall color balance. That either might be, or might not. But if you study how the base of the dye curves overlap to some extent in typical color neg films, you'll begin to understand how they're engineered to form complex neutrals, or what I would term "mud", that gravitates toward pleasing skintones. But the down side to that is that the same characteristic tends to make similar hues in nature or materials also gravitate into skintones. For example, it's quite difficult to get cleanly differentiated yellows and oranges and yellow-tans, reddish tans, etc. At the other end, cyans and greens tend to be poorly differentiated. This is quite apparent in older Vericolor films. Stephen Shore built entire body of work on the hue contrast (or clash) of pumpkin orange and poison green, where every related hue in the scene collapsed into the same category. Exploiting this flaw in color neg films was quite popular among artsy types in the 70's. Current Portra films are quite an improvement over those days, but still share that characteristic to a degree. There's still a distinct amount of "mud" due to the dyes not being sufficiently separated over parts of their curves. I'm not qualified to discuss the mfg details. But let's face it, lots of people place a priority on skintones when selecting a color neg film, and aren't as fussy about background hues. Ektar is different. It's more realistic across the board. It also has steeper more cleanly differentiated dye curve spikes. This leads to both higher contrast and better distinction between similar yet distinct hues. It's not perfect; and the most common complaint seems to be blues getting infected with cyan. That's why I recommend an 81A warming filter on overcast days, or a light salmon 1B skylight filter for minor correction. Once "mud" is created in the emulsion, it's darn hard to correct, even in PS. In the case of most color neg films, the mud tends to be warm; in the case of Ektar, it tends to be cool or bluish. Now if you look at the paintings of the great early Impressionists, they recognized that shadows under a blue sky are actually bluish, and painted them that way. But in certain photographic situations, we might not want bluish shadows, especially in a person's face. Or we might not want our blues trending cyan. Just trying to correct the overall color balance in PS after the fact doesn't work if the problem is localized, say, only in the shadows. Sure, you can jump through all kinds of convoluted hoops trying to get where you want, but it's soooo much easier just using a corrective filter in the first place. And for those like me who print in the darkroom, it's a no-brainer to use corrective filters when the lighting demands it.

 

[BrianShaw]

Thanks Drew!

[edit... got disconnected before finishing]
I really appreciate the detailed explanation.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Drew I just sent Tmax 400 to a pro lab in NYC. I haven't gotten them back. They charge $12 for the contact and $12 for 10mb scan of each of the 10 120 6x7 shots. The processing is $8 plus $9 shipping. If you want prints (6x8) another $3. HOw does that compare with what you pay? (Same prices color or BW negatives (35mm or 120).

 

[DREW WILEY]

Hi Alan. Well, the lab I use is local - Photolab in Berkeley, CA, so I don't pay shipping; and I haven't used them for scans lately, since no significantly new color neg films have come out for awhile. I do routinely use them for ordinary C41 processing. They have a web price list, but seem cheaper than what you list. They do a lot of inkjet printing for amateurs and light commercial photographers. Large format film is subcontracted out to a different lab for C41, then scanned afterwards. Like I already hinted, the mid-level or mid-priced scans don't do well with 35mm, and aren't good enough for large prints, but are quite adequate for screen viewing when 120 film is involved. Likewise, the contact sheets are readable with 120 film, but aren't individually balanced for any exposure errors etc. But that is really what you want in a contact sheet - everything "as is" to help you go forward if any gross mistakes are perceived.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Drew, Well I'm experimenting with 35mm and Tmax400 vs. Tri-X. I wanted to see how the yellow, orange, red and polarizer filters do on both the zoom lens and on the fixed 50mm f2 lens against no filter. So I wanted to have a contact print as a guideline. Scanning can be confusing with negatives because you have to adjust in post processing. So you really don;t know what you started with on the negative. I'm trying to get a handle on how the internal light meter works or doesn;t work with the filters on. It seems that I need to add a stop on them. But I tell better once the processor returns the negative, contacts to me. I want to commit to one film or another. That's why I'm trying these two. I might wind up using Tmax 100 which I've shot before. We'll see soon.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, this is a color thread. The lab I referred to uses Xtol in a Refrema machine for 120 b&w, and I have no personal experience with Xtol, and do all my own b&w film processing anyway, mostly in pyro. The two films you are comparing have very different personalities, and one has much bigger grain than the other, if enlargement is a concern. But I don't want to say more on a color thread, except that they use parallel Refrema machines for color vs b&w film, each equally dependable. Push or Pull options come with a surcharge, as usual.