portra 400 excessively grainy (what am I doing wrong)

jojoman2 · May 8, 2016

Hi folks, I just purchased a Rollei C41 processing kit from freestyle and have developed about 8 rolls of film--all pushed one stop. To be honest, I was expecting better, smoother results. Everything I shot looks a little soft, and when you factor in the large grain, the sharpness is barely acceptable to me for what I want to do.

I exposed all of the rolls of 400 at 800.

I'm not looking for an image critique, mainly I want to know if I the images look like they were correctly processed. I've only done a rough job spotting the dust, haven't altered the appearance of the grain in any way. I attribute some of the softness of the images to the shutter speed I was using, all 250th of a second, and I was probably moving at the time of exposure.

The Rollei developer I bought has a few working temperatures. I chose 25 degrees for 15 minutes (added 2 additional from the recommended 13 minutes to push the film), and did a pretty good job maintaining the appropriate temperatures for the chemicals.

Anyway, I thought portra was supposed to be a finer grain film. This looks like my tri x pushed to 1600.

Thoughts? Is anybody else shooting portra able to achieve finer grain results? I might take a roll to the lab to be processed to compare their results with my own.

BrianShaw · May 8, 2016

"I exposed all of the rolls of 400 at 800."

In daylight outdoors, why?????

And the rest of the story? What camera, meter, exposure settings etc.

jojoman2 · May 8, 2016

BrianShaw said:
"I exposed all of the rolls of 400 at 800."

In daylight outdoors, why?????

And the rest of the story? What camera, meter, exposure settings etc.

Brian, it was heavily overcast and raining. I shot the whole day at f4, 250th with minor adjustments here and there, a few shots at 5.6 when the rain let up. Had I not pushed the film I would have had very little depth of field to work with. Are you really asking why someone would want to push their film? Sheesh. I shoot a Leica mp. The meter underexposes by a stop, I know, I've tested it. I compensate for that.

I'm specifically looking for answers from people who regularly shoot portra 400 and know what it is capable of.

jojoman2 · May 8, 2016

Whoops I see I mistakenly put this thread in b&w rather than color

cblkdog · May 8, 2016

Why are you pushing c41 1 stop? Pushing c41 is a waste of time, it doesn't work. C41 is not the same as b/w or e6. I've tried it for people in various labs I worked at and as I said its a waste of time. Open up a stop or use a slower shutter speed, that will help much more. Read Kodak's tech sheets, they can explain it better than I can. If you're processing it yourself be very exact with all of you chem temps. That might explain your "grain". c41 is designed to be more forgiving of over rather than underexposure.

jojoman2 · May 8, 2016

I use an electronic thermometer and am constantly checking the temperature, adding more hot water to the bath I have all the chemicals in to maintain the correct temperature within .3 degrees.
I understand what you are saying about c41 films about not pushing well in general, however, people are pushing portra 400 with a lot of success. Google it if you want. There will be 10+ examples of people pushing it up to 3200 with less grain than I have at 800.

I'll probably continue to push process b&w when I need to and use color film when the light is strong. Still--I would like to know how people are getting those gorgeous results pushing portra.

jojoman2 · May 8, 2016

I scan my negatives in an epson v600 photo scanner, too. My b&w negatives scan fairly grainy as well, so that might have something to do with it. I got a really helpful pm from someone saying the grain could be from the scanner.

jojoman2 · May 8, 2016

I was agitating too much. I just developed a roll of 400 exposed at 1600 with only one inversion every minute. The grain is much finer than the rolls at 800. will post results in a minute

KidA · May 8, 2016

That does look strange… Are you absolutely sure your exposure was correct? I feel like it could be either underexposure (which, if your settings were as you say they were, that should be enough exposure) or it could be your scanning method. I have a v600 as well and the presets/auto exposure/settings I find are terrible. Did you use auto settings? Did you shoot any other film stocks from the same developed batch? If so, how did they turn out? Have you ever scanned other Portra rolls with better success? I can tell you, I pushed Portra two stops once, processed at home with the exact same developer (only at 102F), and way at the end of a 15 roll stint on just 1L… It was an experiment with extremely vigorous agitation, I was curious to see how this film stood up to more 'abuse'. The photos came out really, really good. I've only scanned, but grain is much less than your examples and contrast is also a lot healthier.

Nice pictures by the way; it's rare that I like street photography in colour. It looks like stills from a movie. I know it's frustrating to have these problems, but with a tad more contrast, I think the grain works with your subject matter.

BrianShaw · May 8, 2016

jojoman2 said:
Brian, it was heavily overcast and raining. I shot the whole day at f4, 250th with minor adjustments here and there, a few shots at 5.6 when the rain let up. Had I not pushed the film I would have had very little depth of field to work with. Are you really asking why someone would want to push their film? Sheesh. I shoot a Leica mp. The meter underexposes by a stop, I know, I've tested it. I compensate for that.

I'm specifically looking for answers from people who regularly shoot portra 400 and know what it is capable of.

No need to be a brat about it. Im specifically telling you that your exposure looks like it is part of the problem. Portra 400 (and 160) is highly capable film... When used correctly. Good luck.

jojoman2 · May 8, 2016

Sorry, that was a mite bratty. My biggest pet peeve online is extreme usage of "???????????" and, "!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (which, to me, reads as bratty--or at least an expression of extreme bewilderment).

I'll take what you said under advisement and shoot a few rolls in my backup cameras. The negatives look healthy to me, but I'm not as familiar with portra as I am with tri x.

BrianShaw · May 8, 2016

Sorry,,,,, bad habit!!!! Nothing was intended by excessive punctuation!!!!!

One thing I've found important with film, or anything else, is to use a product exactly as intended before adapting. Suggest you try Portrait 400 at 400 next time. It is a highly capable film. I love that film... And 160 for more formal portraits.

jojoman2 · May 8, 2016

yeah that's a good point as well. I'm heading out to shoot a roll of 400 now (at 400). I'll check back in with a few results if anything noteworthy comes of it. Thanks for the tips

Pat Erson · May 8, 2016

cblkdog said:
Why are you pushing c41 1 stop? Pushing c41 is a waste of time, it doesn't work. C41 is not the same as b/w or e6. I've tried it for people in various labs I worked at and as I said it's a waste of time.

Well in the 90's Anton Corbijn achieved a certain look by pushing his neg films...

MattKing · May 8, 2016

I would be most suspicious of the development temperature - 25C when the film is designed for a 38C process.

Combine that with moderate under-exposure (metered at 800 EI rather than 400 EI).

Combine that with increased development.

Combine that with a flatbed scanning workflow (with all the additional variables added as a result).

All of the above factors make it unlikely that it is the film that is at fault.

It certainly is possible that the negatives might print with much less grain than appears in the scans.

Sirius Glass · May 8, 2016

Shoot the film at box speed and normal development at 38 degrees C. We are only talking about one stop which is well within the latitude of the film. If you really need the one stop use Kodak Portra 800 instead. [No punctuation was over used in the making of this post.]

BrianShaw · May 8, 2016

Hey Jojoman,

I know you didn't ask for input on anything other than grain... So I won't give you any. But I did want to say the I really don't like most street images... But I like yours.

ic-racer · May 8, 2016

The prints look like the prints from underexposed negatives. What do the negatives look like?

removed account4 · May 8, 2016

i dont shoot much color but this film you upload looks under exposed and under processed,
if you are going to process the film 13 degrees colder you will have to increase your
time/maybe your agitation scheme. to compensate for developer inactivity.
good luck

canvassy · May 8, 2016

I would guess it's the development temperature. 102F/38C is the normal developing temp, I would start there first. Portra seems to have a pretty wide latitude, and in my experience the grain is quite good on it. Possibly your negs are under developed and the scanner is compensating for that giving you more grain and noise.

Ai Print · May 9, 2016

cblkdog said:
Why are you pushing c41 1 stop? Pushing c41 is a waste of time, it doesn't work. C41 is not the same as b/w or e6.

Interesting, because as a freelancer and then a staffer at medium to large sized metro newspapers from 1993 to 2004, we pushed C41 all the time. Fuji seemed to handle it considerably better than Kodak but it was all designed to be pushed as it was designed for professional press and event photographers.

One film that pushed incredibly well, to the point that buying the higher speed was not needed was Fuji 800 Super G. We pushed it to 2,000-3,200 on very much a regular basis and it held contrast very well. In one such case I pushed it to 2,000 for a shot of Comet Hale Bopp that ran in over 300 newspapers worldwide. It ended up being a poster 20x30 in size and looked fantastic.

It's all in the light, the exposure, the processing and the steps afterward for reproduction.

Athiril · May 9, 2016

jojoman2 said:
I scan my negatives in an epson v600 photo scanner, too. My b&w negatives scan fairly grainy as well, so that might have something to do with it. I got a really helpful pm from someone saying the grain could be from the scanner.

There's a few reasons for that related to scanning, V600 (and all the other epsons) have very poor resolving power from film. It's possible for that to be caused by oversharpening. And also possible to be caused by aliasing by your choice of dpi to scan it. If you know someone with a good scanner (not a flatbed) you can check it if you can get one frame scanned through them.

The more you can rule out from that side, the more you can narrow it done to exposure (Doubtful 1 stop would make it significantly worse than at box speed though), chemistry, or other problems etc.

Huss · May 9, 2016

I shoot Portra 400 all the time and get results like this. Very imperceptible grain.

It looks like something went south for you as the images look very underexposed and/or underdeveloped.

jojoman2 · May 9, 2016

KidA said:
That does look strange… Are you absolutely sure your exposure was correct? I feel like it could be either underexposure (which, if your settings were as you say they were, that should be enough exposure) or it could be your scanning method. I have a v600 as well and the presets/auto exposure/settings I find are terrible. Did you use auto settings? Did you shoot any other film stocks from the same developed batch? If so, how did they turn out? Have you ever scanned other Portra rolls with better success? I can tell you, I pushed Portra two stops once, processed at home with the exact same developer (only at 102F), and way at the end of a 15 roll stint on just 1L… It was an experiment with extremely vigorous agitation, I was curious to see how this film stood up to more 'abuse'. The photos came out really, really good. I've only scanned, but grain is much less than your examples and contrast is also a lot healthier.

Nice pictures by the way; it's rare that I like street photography in colour. It looks like stills from a movie. I know it's frustrating to have these problems, but with a tad more contrast, I think the grain works with your subject matter.

Hi KidA (great to see another Radiohead fan), in general I use the auto settings and then tweak in photoshop unless the image is noticeably underexposed, then I use the levels function while scanning. Do you find its performance improves when you adjusts manually? Thanks for weighing in--the next time I go out I'm going to take a roll I feel good about to a pro-lab in the area. It'll cost me $10, $20 if I push the film, but it'll be worth it to compare the results. I was a b&w shooter until two weeks ago, so I'm very very new to processing c-41 and shooting color in general.

Thank you for the feedback on my work as well. Stills from a movie--pretty nice compliment to receive haha

StoneNYC · May 9, 2016

I'm going to guess its the temp. This looks like the kind of negative I get when I've developed too many rolls and the chemistry is beginning to exhaust. So I'm guessing such a low temp caused the chemistry to effectively not really develop the film fully/properly, that combined with all the extra agitation over 15 minutes. That's insane for color.

Most important thing I've learned with color is stick to the proper and normal higher temps, 100-105 degrees F depending on your chemical developer, some 3 bath developers have different recommended temps, follow those.

Good luck!

portra 400 excessively grainy (what am I doing wrong)

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