Porta - My Observations - Skin not Sky

[copake_ham]

I finally had the opportunity over the recent holiday season to try out the Porta freebie film (some of it) that I received.

I received a mix of both 35 and 120 and both 160 and 400 and within that NC and VC. Quite a grab bag!

I chose to first shoot the 35mm, 160NC.

The below side-by-side shots were taken in Copake and then Tucson, portraits first, then landscapes. I have Nikon F5's at both locales. The lenses are higher-end Nikkor AF Zooms - a 35-70 in Tucson and a 24-80(?) in Copake. On each lens is a UV filter only (under my personal belief - "smash the filter, not the lens").

The "people" shots were taken indoors with Nikon auto flash units (SB-26 in Tucson, SB-800 in Copake).

The landscape shots were shot w/o flash, of course.

Both of the landscape shots were shot at sunset facing East with a bright sun over the shoulder. In the Tucson landscape shot (i.e. rightmost pic) the Sun was blocked over the shoulder by our house (hence a more panoramic composition). In the Copake landscape pic, the Sun was unblocked (I think I avoided my shadow) - although it was playing "peek-a-boo" with the clouds.

Sorry, I do not have the f-stop data.

From my pics I would certainly agree that the Porta is a fine portrait film. But as an outdoor film - it seems to over-emphasize the yellows - at least from this very small sample.

My conclusion is that this is probably a fine film for portraiture - but probably wouldn't be my first choice for exterior shooting.

I'd be curious what others find when they shoot this film - which, overall, I think is a nice tool to have in the "kit" for particular purposes.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

What are they printed on in these examples?

I was pleasantly surprised by the contact sheets I got back from the 400 films on Endura. The color might be skewed a different way on a paper like Crystal Archive even assuming optimal filtration choices for both papers.

I've got some contacts from the 160 films waiting for me down at the lab, including one roll of old 160NC to compare with the new 160NC. I'll post when I get a chance to pick them up.

 

[copake_ham]

What are they printed on in these examples?

I was pleasantly surprised by the contact sheets I got back from the 400 films on Endura. The color might be skewed a different way on a paper like Crystal Archive even assuming optimal filtration choices for both papers.

I've got some contacts from the 160 films waiting for me down at the lab, including one roll of old 160NC to compare with the new 160NC. I'll post when I get a chance to pick them up.

David,

These are scans of negatives. Actually, the 'scapes are less "yellow" in the scans than the commercial prints I got when I had the film developed.

In looking at them here on the screen - I will say that they render very nice blues both interior and exterior.

But I'm always reminded that with monitors - what you see is not necessarily the same as what I see....

EDIT: Scans were only cropped to eliminate film edges and resized for upload to meet website sizing parameters.

 

[juan]

My impression has been that Kodak films, with perhaps the exception of Kodachrome, emphasize yellows more than Fuji films. I happen to like that look, so I'm excited about testing my own Porta samples - and I'll be doing it outside.
juan