Portra 160 vs 400

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Stone, when it comes to scanning, the difference between reversal film and negative film is their contrast: slide film high and negative film low. As a result, the negative scan must be contrast expanded, which amplifies scanner noise a great deal. What you see there has nothing to do with film grain and everything to do with a lousy scanner (let me guess: Epson V700/750?).

This being an analog forum and all, I still think that color negative film would have a MUCH better reputation here if there was an affordable film scanner that wasn't noisy as heck.

The V700/750 is not lousy. It's a middle of the road scanner, neither great, nor lousy. With a wet mounting kit it is surprisingly good, however.

Color negative film can be amazingly great from something like an Imacon or a Heidelberg. So can slide film. I often find that my V700 doesn't have near the dynamic range to come up with clean blacks no matter what I do. The same film scanned on a Flextight looks much better.

Anyway, whatever method the OP is using to get their final presentation they should pick the film that suits their work flow and supports their output best. I don't know enough about the three current Portra emulsions to tell much of a difference between them. I do know I have used all three and they are all remarkably good films.

 

[Lamar]

My E6 doesn't do that either but my E6 doesn't capture the dynamic range my C41 does either..... I'm good with a little grain in the shadows, if the C41 is exposed well it's not a problem for me. When it gets less exposure than it should in the shadows you start seeing the bad stuff.

Here is one of my Portra 400 shots with lots of shadow but exposed to my liking with acceptable grain.



And one that I inadvertently underexposed by setting my exposure on the grass near the train, mistake in this case.


Should have opened up a stop or two in the shot above. Portra 400 can handle overexposure in the highlights just fine and it helps minimize the issue you are seeing. Not advisable with E6 though as i'm sure you're well aware.

An E6 sample that shows what you are talking about, nice blacks without noise but the compromise is blown highlights in high contrast scenes.


Personal taste....... I'm good with TriX at ISO3200 stand developed, I think the grain looks wonderful. I can accept Portra at ISO 1600 if needed but try to avoid. Portra exposed correctly looks fine to me though, even in the shadows. E6 and C41 are just different. Either you like the way one looks or you don't.

The shadows have "grain" it stands out more than E6 blacks because of intermittent colored grains in the blackness (apparently this is a scanner problem described above?) still, my E6 doesn't do that.

 

[Rudeofus]

The V700/750 is not lousy. It's a middle of the road scanner, neither great, nor lousy. With a wet mounting kit it is surprisingly good, however.

I have the V700 myself and know quite well what it does - and what it doesn't. Wet mounting can help with all kinds of things, but AFAIK not with sensor noise. The V700 is probably one of the best flat bed scanners for film out there, but still woefully inadequate for negatives.

Color negative film can be amazingly great from something like an Imacon or a Heidelberg. So can slide film. I often find that my V700 doesn't have near the dynamic range to come up with clean blacks no matter what I do. The same film scanned on a Flextight looks much better.

You don't need dynamic range for scanning negative film, because the density range is minuscule (check data sheets). What would help the V700 is a sensor that produced very low noise in that narrow dynamic range.


As a result I use my V700 mostly for previewing, which points me at negs with potential for optical RA4 enlargements.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I have the V700 myself and know quite well what it does - and what it doesn't. Wet mounting can help with all kinds of things, but AFAIK not with sensor noise. The V700 is probably one of the best flat bed scanners for film out there, but still woefully inadequate for negatives.

You don't need dynamic range for scanning negative film, because the density range is minuscule (check data sheets). What would help the V700 is a sensor that produced very low noise in that narrow dynamic range.

As a result I use my V700 mostly for previewing, which points me at negs with potential for optical RA4 enlargements.

Yes, the V700 is not a complete product at all. With that said I have scanned 6x6 120 negatives for printing digitally to 72x72". Ideal? No. Works? Yes. The print looks pretty good, actually.

I was referring to dynamic range with slide film, if you read my post again.

Agree with what you say. RA4 enlargements will always produce better results from C41 neg film than any flatbed scanner will even come close to.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The problem with cheap scanners and color neg film is the sampling size in relation to the curve shape. The smaller the film format, the better
the scan you need, otherwise color reproduction (and not just detail or range) is likely to significantly suffer. Plus the scanner has to read thru the orange mask and properly interpolate the actual image, which most amateur scanners were never engineered to do well. Wrong forum for going into the details. But many problems blamed on the film are really scanning issues. Even graduating from 35mm to medium format will significantly help, but is no substitute for a real drum scan. I'm glad I print color negs directly, using an enlarger, but sometimes do use scans
in lieu of a proof sheet, just to preview work.

 

[timparkin]

From a SCAN done at 2400dpi I can see grain. It's a discoloration that bothers me, almost like the effect of "dead pixels" in a long exposure image taken on a digital camera (just using that as the description as I can't describe it better than that).

It was mentioned Portra400 was designed for scanning, so I'm using the method the film was designed for.

All I can say is that it looks ugly 1:1

I took a 4x5 sheet using Portra400 against Provia100f in 4x5

Yes Provia is a slower emulsion and probably finer grained, but there was no noticeable grain or odd pixel issues in the Provia and a lot with Portra400.

With a proper hires scan, 160 & 400 are very similar. 400 seems to interact with lower res scanners quite poorly thoug. On my screen cezanne i can hardly tell the difference in grain

 

[pdmk]

I use Portra 400, I have also Epson V700, scans look nice to me (I am no pro, this is just my hobby). OT: I had problem to get nice colors from scan, but this was solved by buying ColorPerfect plugin (found a video on youtube where guy describes his scanning process using this).

I have prints 24x24 (61x61 cm) and 24x27,6 (61x70cm) and they look nice to me. If the photo is properly exposed, grain is visible from closer look, but it is not disturbing, I like that grain. From normal viewing distance grain is visible a little, most people will probably not notice if they are not interested more in photography. Bigger the print, longer the viewing distance and smaller chance to notice grain.

To OP maybe try to look also at Kodak Ektar100 (but I think it has more saturated reds and greens)

 

[timparkin]

I use Portra 400, I have also Epson V700, scans look nice to me (I am no pro, this is just my hobby). OT: I had problem to get nice colors from scan, but this was solved by buying ColorPerfect plugin (found a video on youtube where guy describes his scanning process using this).

I have prints 24x24 (61x61 cm) and 24x27,6 (61x70cm) and they look nice to me. If the photo is properly exposed, grain is visible from closer look, but it is not disturbing, I like that grain. From normal viewing distance grain is visible a little, most people will probably not notice if they are not interested more in photography. Bigger the print, longer the viewing distance and smaller chance to notice grain.

Here's a 5300dpi scan of a Portra 400 neg downsampled to 4000dpi. This was done on the Screen Cezanne Elite. The original ended up 11,000px by 11,000px. That's a pretty sharp 36" square print with very little sign of noise.

http://static.timparkin.co.uk/static/tmp/portra400-at-4000dpi.jpg

Tim

 

[Jaf-Photo]

I wouldn't blame the scanner.

It's possible to produce perfectly good images from film with a V700 or less. At least for hobbyist use.

The rub is finding a workflow that delivers what you want. The rule of thumb is that you have to do a little post-processing with slide film, more with b&w and a lot with colour negatives.

After about six months I ended up with a workflow which is very similar to this one:

http://youtu.be/_pfQ61WTbug

The difference is that I don't use color perfect but set colour balance manually by sight. I just wish that I had seen the video before I started to figure out film scanning.

 

[Alan Klein]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Looks like I'll open the box of 160 first, shot a few rolls and see how everything goes. I'll save the 400 for outdoors in the morning or evening. I 'll have to order a roll of the 800 still. I've heard it looked worse than the 400 pushed a stop. Guess I have some testing to do.

What are you shooting outdoors that you need 400?

 

[benjiboy]

I was always taught that if you want to get the maximum quality out of film you should use the slowest film practicable for the job in hand, and I find Portra 160 very suitable for most portrait photography I undertake and find it capable even in 35mm of beautiful 20"X16" prints, and for the odd occasion when it isn't fast enough I carry another body loaded with Portra 400.

 

[rubyfalls]

I've been tinkering with all three of the portras. My thoughts? Insofar as MF and studio lighting are concerned, I prefer 160 over 400. And 800 is actually my favorite colour film.

For outdoor snapshots with my 35mm cams, I always keep portra 400 around.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[rubyfalls]

Here is an example of 160 with tungsten lighting.

ETA: I like the 160 because I feel like it softens the artificial lighting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[timparkin]

I've compared Portra 160 and Portra 400 on very high resolution scanners and the grain is very small. So effectively what most people are seeing is a difference between the performance of the scanners. My Epson 750 interacts badly with Portra 400 but is better with 160.

Also, Portra 400 has an extra stop in the shadows but with that extra extension comes a magenta/blue cast in the shadows (easily fixed).

So I expose Portra 160 by placing shadows at -2 and Portra 400 by placing shadows at -3

 

[nworth]

Portra 400 is quite usable, but if you have the light, go with 160. The grain and quality differences are noticeable even on 120 film, especially in more or less flat areas and shadows. That doesn't say that Portra 400 will give you a bad image, only that the Portra 160 image will be a tiny bit better. If you need the versatility of a 400 film, Portra 400 will work well.

 

[John_Nikon_F]

Here's the old 400VC, shot at ISO 250 through an F5...



The current 160, ISO set to 100 on an F2AS...



Current 400, ISO 250, shot with an F4s...



-J

 

[NJH]

Some good points guys. I get my scanning done for me by my local lab, they use a Noritsu scanner for 35mm and can given me 6MP or 30MP images. I always pay more now for the 30MP images because the grain and look at 100% looks more or less identical for C-41 whether it is a 6MP scan or a 30MP one, therefore I think its better to scan really big not sharpen the file at that size (which I think a lot of scanning systems do making the images look more gritty) or maybe soften it a touch to counter the scanners PP and then down sample to the output size. Loads of tricks which can be played.

 

[pdmk]

potra 400
100% crop from original image (17286x13776px 4800 resolution)

daylight only, light from back and side

 

[StoneNYC]

potra 400
100% crop from original image (17286x13776px 4800 resolution)

daylight only, light from back and side

This doesn't tell anything, it's blurry or out of focus or too much aberration or scanned at too high a resolution to gain any valuable insight IMO

 

[markbarendt]

... scanned at too high a resolution to gain any valuable insight IMO

Umm, no, a high resolution scan isn't a problem. Just had some Kodachrome slides done a month or so ago at 30 and they were perfectly workable.

If you want to understand why, head over to someplace like Dead Link Removed and do some research on resizing, sizing for printing, and scanning. http://www.lynda.com has some great info on this too. If one works with a Pro-Lab one can generally get good info from them too about what matters and what doesn't.

Yes I know those sites charge real money, it's worth every penny If you want good info.

 

[StoneNYC]

Umm, no, a high resolution scan isn't a problem. Just had some Kodachrome slides done a month or so ago at 30 and they were perfectly workable.

If you want to understand why, head over to someplace like Dead Link Removed and do some research on resizing, sizing for printing, and scanning. http://www.lynda.com has some great info on this too. If one works with a Pro-Lab one can generally get good info from them too about what matters and what doesn't.

Yes I know those sites charge real money, it's worth every penny If you want good info.

Umm, I don't even know what to say, what does this have to do with the image above that is fuzzy...

 

[markbarendt]

Umm, I don't even know what to say, what does this have to do with the image above that is fuzzy...

I didn't take issue with you on the subject matter being a bit fuzzy, that is a bit of a puzzle yet, I don't really get what's being demonstrated there either.

What I'm saying Stone is that having a lab scan a photo at a high resolution doesn't make a photo end up looking fuzzy. There are lots of things that may make it look fuzzy, that's just not one of them.

 

[StoneNYC]

I didn't take issue with you on the subject matter being a bit fuzzy, that is a bit of a puzzle yet, I don't really get what's being demonstrated there either.

What I'm saying Stone is that having a lab scan a photo at a high resolution doesn't make a photo end up looking fuzzy. There are lots of things that may make it look fuzzy, that's just not one of them.

I meant from over interpolation, like scanning way higher than the scanner is capable of scanning at, would make it blurry, but I think it's not that, I just wanted to cover all the bases because someone would come in and say "no stone it's this, don't talk about what you don't know" so I just said all the things it might be that I could think of.

 

[Russ - SVP]

"Way too grainy?" Is this based on experience or just some thought that 400 film must be?

I shoot Portra 400 in 35mm. It's plenty fine grained enough for me, really superb film. If you're printing, say, 16x20 from 35mm then it might be worth going to 160, but up to 11x14 I think Portra 400 is a great film.

I agree. My 35mm Portra snaps print up beautifully with very fine grain. A truly amazing film.

 

[WilmarcoImaging]

Nice portrait Kiron.

I like both. Portra 400 is very versatile in the studio, on location and works well when pushed to 800. I use it in 135, 120 and 4x5.

Portra 160 is different. Finer grained and different (pleasing) palette imo. I have more color balancing difficulty in postprocessing with Portra 160, than I do with Portra 400. In the studio both films can benefit from a warmer light.

Grain in Portra 400 is perceivable, and adds character imo. Grain is hard to detect in Portra 160.