Need advise: Portra400 green color shift while developing at home

LomoSnap said:

Many Portra400s have X-ray and heat fogging problems. Please make sure you buy the imported films from Kodak Alaris dealers. In China, I usually recommend you to buy from "柯达产品经营部".
By the cyan D-min of the film.I think your problem with the film itself.

Another problem is that your fixing time may be too long. The too long fix time maybe can cause leuco dye. This may not be the cause this time, but it is recommended that you correct it next time you process other films.

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Finally I solved the mystery, after rounds and rounds of testing, changng chemistry, changing light box, changing process timing, the culprit turns out to be bad film.
Bought Portra 400 from "柯达产品经营部" and the result is perfect. After so much hassle, I got the long sought-after Portra look!
The fact that I got the same cyan cast from 2 different vendors mislead my judgement in the first place, making me think that the problem did not lie in the film itself. Looks like there is indeed lots of bad Portra 400 on Taobao.
Thank you LomoSnap, and all the others who have provided so much help! Here is a photo of my good Portra 400.

Nice image and great model! I personally prefer less cyan/green in the highlights (even if I know that reflection from the grass is the culprit here). Can we see more photos?

Glas you've been able to track down the issue @Skycreeper!
I think the better light box helps as well, but I agree the main issue was the fogged Portra film.

Skycreeper said:

the long sought-after Portra look

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That's kind of subjective. Your example looks very different from the results I get from Portra. Like @Romanko I prefer less cyan, and I also don't think that Portra necessarily looks overexposed and low in contrast as shown here. If that's what you like, of course then by all means make it look that way!

If that's the look you are going for, save your money and buy Lomography Color Negative 100 (if available in China, of course). It's got much of that muddy tones and tendency for shadows to go magenta/brown instead of black - which is all present in your example of Portra "look". Unless, of course, you need ISO 400 film, but even then you are better off with Lomo CN 400, it's closer to your look than Portra 400. It will save you some post-processing to get the look (unless, your scanning actually gives you this "out of the box", in this case I'm afraid that you still have a problem).

Btw, wet-printed Portra 400 looks nothing like your example. On currently available RA-4 paper it would look something like this...

(the lower right frame is Vision3 5129, the other two are Portra 400)

brbo said:

On currently available RA-4 paper it would look something like this...

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Yeah, that looks more familiar to me.

koraks said:

Glas you've been able to track down the issue @Skycreeper!
I think the better light box helps as well, but I agree the main issue was the fogged Portra film.



That's kind of subjective. Your example looks very different from the results I get from Portra. Like @Romanko I prefer less cyan, and I also don't think that Portra necessarily looks overexposed and low in contrast as shown here. If that's what you like, of course then by all means make it look that way!

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Yes I did overexpose for 2 stops. 1 Stop deliberately, 1 stop because my 645n max shutter is too slow. I like the overexposed high key feeling, very Japanese style and I did saw some examples of Portra 400 online which suited my high key taste.
I guess that is the beauty of Portra. It is versatile and you can process It as you like. Negative inversion is subjective after all. What's important is that it does not have the uncorrectable cyan cast I had before.
And yes, the new light box indeed makes my scanning result much better. Pays off much more than buying an expensive lens. Thanks for the advice!