Is it just me? (a Portra 400 question)

[GLS]

For my opinion the FUJI 160NS is a little more contrasting and saturated than the Portra 160

Agreed. Especially in brightly lit scenes. It and its cousin 400H also have heavier grain than the Portra equivalents, which is the main reason I've used them much less.

 

[sillo]

I think it all depends on how it's shot, developed and scanned. The colors I get with p400 + Pakon I couldn't be happier with. They're very neutral, but rich and saturated. I don't get the flat images people usually associate with portra. I really like p160 in 120 though. Personally not much of a fan of p800, especially with the new base.

 

[unityofsaints]

It's not just you, of the 400-speed films I found 400H more pleasing, of the Portras i find 400 the flattest. The good news is you can easily avoid it by shooting Xtra 400 in 35mm and pushing Portra 160 in 120 or shoot Lomography 400.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Portra 400 is excellent if you understand that it balances correctly as a warm-ish neutral, and it sits between 160 and 800 in terms of saturation. If you're getting 'boring' results it's because of fundamentally inept scanning/ inversions and/ or not printing it in the darkroom. The only real reasons not to shoot it are because you want the neutrality/ slightly lower saturation/ finer granularity of Portra 160.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I really prefer Ektar 100 for outdoor hues. But for portraiture, Portra 160 would be my first choice, followed by Portra 400 if I needed more speed, like for handheld shooting (I never use flash). It's an excellent compromise film with good skintones. But I rarely do color portraits anymore. Both of these Portras are slightly warm balanced, just like most traditional color neg films. Fuji versions, in my opinion, are a little better balanced to Asian skintones, which shouldn't be surprising.

 

[JensH]

I really prefer Ektar 100 for outdoor hues. But for portraiture, Portra 160 would be my first choice, followed by Portra 400 if I needed more speed, like for handheld shooting (I never use flash). It's an excellent compromise film with good skintones. But I rarely do color portraits anymore. Both of these Portras are slightly warm balanced, just like most traditional color neg films. Fuji versions, in my opinion, are a little better balanced to Asian skintones, which shouldn't be surprising.

Hi Drew,

I like Portra 160 and 400 for contrasty outdoor moments (no portraits)... but as a result of the warm balance sky tones tend to get cyan tinted.
What filter would you recommand to correct this? A reddish KR 1.5 / 3 or something blueish like a 82C / 80D?

Best wishes
Jens

 

[GLS]

I like Portra 160 and 400 for contrasty outdoor moments (no portraits)... but as a result of the warm balance sky tones tend to get cyan tinted.

That's odd. I find Ektar has a tendency to do this more than either Portra emulsion, if the sky is too brightly exposed. A grad filter or a polariser can help to counteract the effect, if their use is appropriate for the scene.

 

[JensH]

That's odd. I find Ektar has a tendency to do this more than either Portra emulsion, if the sky is too brightly exposed. A grad filter or a polariser can help to counteract the effect, if their use is appropriate for the scene.

Hmm, it is most obvius in brighter parts of blue sky...
Btw, Portra 160 is exposed @ EI 100, the 400 @ EI 250. 120 film.

 

[pentaxuser]

No.
Besides the modelling work, she also had a day job - a mathematician specializing in statistical projections for industry!

A useful person to know.Matt. Any chance that the next time you see her you can ask her to do a sales projection for Photrio members interested in the likely effects of the forthcoming Kodak film price increases?

pentaxuser

 

[GLS]

Btw, Portra 160 is exposed @ EI 100, the 400 @ EI 250. 120 film.

This won't be helping. If you expose for box speed the colour should be more neutral. Even so I wouldn't expect 2/3 of a stop to make a huge difference.

 

[MattKing]

A useful person to know.Matt. Any chance that the next time you see her you can ask her to do a sales projection for Photrio members interested in the likely effects of the forthcoming Kodak film price increases?

pentaxuser

Most of her work was, IIRC, being used by the pharmaceutical industry.
I don't expect to encounter her again, but she was great to meet and to work with, so I would be happy if I did.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Ektar exhibits cyan crossover if a sky is overexposed, or cyan in shadows under and open blue sky if underexposed. One might think they are getting away with "latitude" error, but that only applies to density, not to consistent hue. Yes, you have more wiggle room than a chrome film, but not a lot either direction. Meter for it carefully and expose at box speed of 100.
Pleistocene "Overexpose It" advice is likely to backfire. It's different from those old films.

Portra films are warm-balanced in the shadows by actually creating "fleshtone" crossover, which might be beneficial for portraits (after all, that's what "Portra" stands for); but that same fact means closely related natural hues will not be well differentiated and will automatically be muddied somewhat, though not as badly as most older color neg films. That applies to 400 Portra too. I miss former Portra 160 VC, which was a nice compromise.

 

[JensH]

...
Portra films are warm-balanced in the shadows by actually creating "fleshtone" crossover, which might be beneficial for portraits (after all, that's what "Portra" stands for); but that same fact means closely related natural hues will not be well differentiated and will automatically be muddied somewhat, though not as badly as most older color neg films. That applies to 400 Portra too. I miss former Portra 160 VC, which was a nice compromise.

Drew, are you saying between the lines that it doesn't make sence to fiddle with blue/red/magenta filters
as so one problem will only get replaced by others?

 

[YoIaMoNwater]

I prefer Portra 160 over 400. But I agree with the opinion that 400 is too pastel. I mostly shoot street so films with high contrast (such as Ektar) suits me better. Now I mostly shoot slides as the colors are more realistic.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Jens - CC filters are rarely used anymore with respect to color film. But warming and cooling filters relative to exposure color temperature, as well as UV filters, are still valuable, indeed essential if you want Ektar to behave. Once crossover occurs, it's very difficult to post-correct. If people tell you they can correct "anything" in PS, that's like an alleged chef telling you he can salvage any dish using a microwave oven a week later; but the taste simply won't be the same.

For Ektar I always have along a 2B Skylight filter for minor corrections, and either a KR1.5 or 81A amber warming filter for bluish overcast conditions. Correcting deep blue shadows under an open blue sky, especially at high altitude, requires even stronger warming, like an 81C. Split lighting, with part of the scene in deep blue shade, and some under open sun, is a more complex problem requiring a longer answer.

Porta films generally do not need the same kind of corrective warming filtration because it's kinda built-in. But that comes with the penalty of less neutrality of color. And I personally dislike the pinkish-orangish exaggerated Caucasian skintones of amateur color neg films like Kodak Gold. Portra 400 isn't quite as bad, but the effect is still there. But with all of them, green reproduction suffers as a result, and so too does decent differentiation between yellows, gold, oranges, warm tans,etc - those tend to get dumped right into the same generic bucket of "skintones". Ektar is distinctly better in that respect, but has its own problem with getting blue and cyan confused.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Hmm, it is most obvius in brighter parts of blue sky...
Btw, Portra 160 is exposed @ EI 100, the 400 @ EI 250. 120 film.

What meter are you using - and what are you taking your reading from?

 

[Lachlan Young]

Also, anyone who is stating that the Portra films are 'pastel' has a very strange idea of what 'pastel' means (or whoever is doing the scanning is terrible at their job). If you are getting less saturated colour from Portra 400 than from 160, you are doing something very, very wrong.

 

[Moose22]

What meter are you using - and what are you taking your reading from?

I do the same. Doesn't matter how I meter it.

I shoot Portra 160 metered to 100, Portra 400 metered to 320 or 250. Both metering with the Sekonic or just adding +2/3 compensation on my F6 (or similar compensation on the other SLRs) and doing TTL metering. I get better scans that way.

I do the same with Ektar, usually going 2/3 stop over what the meter says for 100.

 

[BrianShaw]

Also, anyone who is stating that the Portra films are 'pastel' has a very strange idea of what 'pastel' means (or whoever is doing the scanning is terrible at their job). If you are getting less saturated colour from Portra 400 than from 160, you are doing something very, very wrong.

Yup

… and I don’t see any reason to rate at different than box rating. Just doesn’t make sense to me unless it can be better explained.

 

[JensH]

What meter are you using - and what are you taking your reading from?

Hi Lachlan,
a Gossen Profisix (Luna Pro SBC in the US) mostly in reflective mode, no spotmeter.
I like shadows best at +2/3 EI...

 

[JensH]

Also, anyone who is stating that the Portra films are 'pastel' has a very strange idea of what 'pastel' means (or whoever is doing the scanning is terrible at their job). If you are getting less saturated colour from Portra 400 than from 160, you are doing something very, very wrong.

Portra 160 and 400 don't give me a pastel look, colors are just not highly saturated.
I always liked such, took a lot of Agfacolor XRS 100 and XPS 160 (@ EI 100...) in the older days.

 

[Lachlan Young]

metering with the Sekonic

That doesn't help much - reflective, incident or spot metering?

a Gossen Profisix (Luna Pro SBC in the US) mostly in reflective mode, no spotmeter.
I like shadows best at +2/3 EI...

Try taking an incident reading from your own shadow at a stop above box speed and see how it compares. That is likely to be much closer to a reasonably correct shadow keyed exposure.

However, what I have seen time & again is that minilab scanner presets often inherently chop off (and then try to synthesise back in) the inherent characteristics of many films to make it harder for the operator to mess things up too thoroughly - or people unquestioningly accept the shoddy results most scanner software presents as an inversion. Getting the colour space correct at the inversion step also matters. Portra is massively more colourful than the professional films of the VPS etc generation.

 

[JensH]

Try taking an incident reading from your own shadow at a stop above box speed and see how it compares. That is likely to be much closer to a reasonably correct shadow keyed exposure.

However, what I have seen time & again is that minilab scanner presets often inherently chop off (and then try to synthesise back in) the inherent characteristics of many films to make it harder for the operator to mess things up too thoroughly - or people unquestioningly accept the shoddy results most scanner software presents as an inversion. Getting the colour space correct at the inversion step also matters. Portra is massively more colourful than the professional films of the VPS etc generation.

Comparing with incident reading like that sounds promising, will do so. Thank you for the idea.
I scan all color films on an Agfa Duoscan 2500 (IT8 calibrated for transparancies, factory inversion curves for negatives).

 

[BrianShaw]

Question. Outdoors I generally either spot meter or general coverage reflected with attention to avoiding too much sky. Portra looks great to me at box speed. Do you think that the incident metering may yield different exposure recommendation that favor the adjustments that you make?

BTW, I just bought a LunaPro SBC. Aside the bulk it’s a really nice meter. I’m looking forward to using it.

 

[JensH]

Jens - CC filters are rarely used anymore with respect to color film. But warming and cooling filters relative to exposure color temperature, as well as UV filters, are still valuable, indeed essential if you want Ektar to behave. Once crossover occurs, it's very difficult to post-correct. If people tell you they can correct "anything" in PS, that's like an alleged chef telling you he can salvage any dish using a microwave oven a week later; but the taste simply won't be the same.

For Ektar I always have along a 2B Skylight filter for minor corrections, and either a KR1.5 or 81A amber warming filter for bluish overcast conditions. Correcting deep blue shadows under an open blue sky, especially at high altitude, requires even stronger warming, like an 81C. Split lighting, with part of the scene in deep blue shade, and some under open sun, is a more complex problem requiring a longer answer.

Porta films generally do not need the same kind of corrective warming filtration because it's kinda built-in. But that comes with the penalty of less neutrality of color. And I personally dislike the pinkish-orangish exaggerated Caucasian skintones of amateur color neg films like Kodak Gold. Portra 400 isn't quite as bad, but the effect is still there. But with all of them, green reproduction suffers as a result, and so too does decent differentiation between yellows, gold, oranges, warm tans,etc - those tend to get dumped right into the same generic bucket of "skintones". Ektar is distinctly better in that respect, but has its own problem with getting blue and cyan confused.

Hi Drew,
the only place I use CC filters are in the filter tray of a microscope, here are that many glass elements in the optical path resulting in a warm green cast. More or less, some optics are warm toning like a Leica Noctilux f1/50mm. A CC20M is standard here when taking photos... here I have a good set of CC's, 80's and 81's, but just in 32mm, so unusable for general photography.

I've newer tried Ektar 100 so far, should give it a try some day. No Gold 100 in older times for me, disliked it's magenta grays, Ektar 25 was better here.

Best wishes and thanks
Jens