Portra 800 color rendition under artificial light (streets by night)

nicowestlicht · Feb 3, 2015

Hi everybody,

Hopefully I have picked the right group for the question... if I am wrong, let me know where I can post the thread. So, here it goes: I would like to use Kodak Portra 800 medium format film for portraiture in low light/artificial light conditions (I will be shooting in the streets by night). Does anybody have experience with it? How about color rendition? Also, do you think it is possible to push it 1 or 2 f-stops? Any suggestion is more than welcome!
Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Greetings from the Netherlands!
Nico

frotog · Feb 3, 2015

If you're shooting portraits at night by streetlight, I assume you're going for mixed lighting effects. As such, you should be able to color correct for reasonable skin tones - but they will be weird, which can be nice if you get lucky or know what you're doing. I'm not sure why you'd want to push development as the scene will already be extremely contrasty. In fact, I'd do the opposite - pull development by 1/2 stop, expose fully for subject.

shutterboy · Feb 3, 2015

Why not use something like Cinestill Tungsten? Street lights, I assume are closer to Tungsten. Cinestill is however only available in 135, so if you are trying to shoot medium format, it is a different story.

Reference: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...135_cinestill_800_tungsten_film.html/mode/edu

Rudeofus · Feb 3, 2015

Cinestill 800 is really, really nice in tungsten light (and most fluorescent light bulbs are also tungsten light balanced), but there are odd halo effects if any such light source is in the image frame. And since a kickstarter campaign for Cinestill 800 in 120 roll film format failed just recently, I would not hold my breath with this format in mind.

Les Sarile · Feb 3, 2015

If you haven't looked it up, the data sheet for Kodak Portra series oddly enough only has push processing for 800 - for one and two stops.

I have used a few rolls for night shots and find it's colors in mixed lighting very manageable.

Roger Cole · Feb 4, 2015

Les Sarile said:
If you haven't looked it up, the data sheet for Kodak Portra series oddly enough only has push processing for 800 - for one and two stops.

I have used a few rolls for night shots and find it's colors in mixed lighting very manageable.

Well they probably figure if you need faster than 400 it's best to start with a "born at 800" film than to push a 400 and if you want faster than 800 better to push, say, 800 one stop to 1600 than push 400 two stops.

Portra 800 is a great film but the price difference could skew the above decisions. It is considerably more expensive than Portra 400.

Les Sarile · Feb 4, 2015

Roger that is sensible as I would prefer to use the "native" ISO film for the application. However, along with the cost you pointed out, there is also the convenience factor if the slower film was all you had at the time.

I looked back at the Kodak Portra docs and it is for the previous KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA 160NC, 160VC, 400NC, 400VC and 800 Films and not the current Portra offerings. These are all available at KODAK PROFESSIONAL Color Negative Films. The two docs with the Portra 800 info are E-4040 (newer) and E-190 (older).

Shutterspeed · Feb 4, 2015

Hi Nico,

I also have some experiences with Kodak Portra 800 at night. Some months ago I was shooting on Portra 800-135 in the city at night. I opted for EI 1600. In some cases the light was too low, so I gave it a try and underexposed the film two stops. I developed the film with the Tetenal C-41 Kit at home. I pushed it approximately 1 1/2 stops. The denses in the midtones and in the lights increased but you don't get more shadow detail. At least not noticeable. The pictures with EI 1600 were acceptable but EI 3200 was a bit too much for my taste. I would recommend you to push the film to a maximum speed of 1600. At least at tungsten light and if you don't want to miss much of shadow detail. About the colors I can tell you that it wasn't easier or harder to get out realistic colors of the scanned pictures.

Les Sarile · Feb 4, 2015

Shutterspeed said:
Some months ago I was shooting on Portra 800-135 in the city at night. I opted for EI 1600. In some cases the light was too low, so I gave it a try and underexposed the film two stops. I developed the film with the Tetenal C-41 Kit at home. I pushed it approximately 1 1/2 stops. The denses in the midtones and in the lights increased but you don't get more shadow detail. At least not noticeable. The pictures with EI 1600 were acceptable but EI 3200 was a bit too much for my taste. I would recommend you to push the film to a maximum speed of 1600. At least at tungsten light and if you don't want to miss much of shadow detail. About the colors I can tell you that it wasn't easier or harder to get out realistic colors of the scanned pictures.

I haven't tried pushing Portra 800 either 1 or 2 stops. Can you clarify what you did? You used Portra 800 and set your camera for ISO1600. Even then you still had to underexposed the film (some frames?) by 2 stops? Then you push process by 1 1/2 stops. Results that were metered at ISO1600 came out ok but those underexposed by 2 stops not ok?
Also, just to account for any variables, you were using unexpired Portra 800? How are you evaluating the results? TIA.

Meyer Trioplan · Feb 4, 2015

Greetings Nico,

I've recently shot Portra 800 under Sodium Vapor city streetlamps at night, and it carries the usual orange-yellow cast of that light source. I tried scanning the negative to post, but the scanner put forth too much correction, so I'd be better off taking a photo of the print to show you the portrayal, but it's too dark here now to do so.

Not sure if you have a different type of lamps in the Netherlands, but the ones here are very orange.

Roger Cole · Feb 4, 2015

Shutterspeed said:
Hi Nico,

I also have some experiences with Kodak Portra 800 at night. Some months ago I was shooting on Portra 800-135 in the city at night. I opted for EI 1600. In some cases the light was too low, so I gave it a try and underexposed the film two stops. I developed the film with the Tetenal C-41 Kit at home. I pushed it approximately 1 1/2 stops. The denses in the midtones and in the lights increased but you don't get more shadow detail. At least not noticeable. The pictures with EI 1600 were acceptable but EI 3200 was a bit too much for my taste. I would recommend you to push the film to a maximum speed of 1600. At least at tungsten light and if you don't want to miss much of shadow detail. About the colors I can tell you that it wasn't easier or harder to get out realistic colors of the scanned pictures.

There was a thread here before about pushing C41 with some amazing results at +2 stops or more using preflashing plus push. The preflash basically pushes any additional exposure up off the toe so you get a real increase in shadow detail.

zehner21 · Feb 5, 2015

Roger Cole said:
There was a thread here before about pushing C41 with some amazing results at +2 stops or more using preflashing plus push. The preflash basically pushes any additional exposure up off the toe so you get a real increase in shadow detail.

Also, it involved the use of Rodinal at 1+100

MartinP · Feb 5, 2015

Meyer Trioplan said:
Greetings Nico,

I've recently shot Portra 800 under Sodium Vapor city streetlamps at night, and it carries the usual orange-yellow cast of that light source. I tried scanning the negative to post, but the scanner put forth too much correction, so I'd be better off taking a photo of the print to show you the portrayal, but it's too dark here now to do so.

Not sure if you have a different type of lamps in the Netherlands, but the ones here are very orange.

Sodium streetlights (the orange ones) have a discontinuous spectrum - they do not produce all of the colours seen in daylight. Of course, this means that they cannot be corrected to appear 'normal' by a simple modification in filtration. A tungsten filament does produce the same range of colours as daylight, but the balance is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum - this means that it is frequently possible to improve results by means of filtration at the time of the exposure, completely so for tungsten-filament lamps designed to be used for photographic illumination and more-or-less for other random light-sources.

Many towns in NL are moving towards LED based streetlighting, but it is a gradual process. In many scenes there will be a wide mix of light-sources. My night-time pictures of the town are all in black-and-white, which reduces the problem somewhat

macfred · Feb 7, 2015

nicowestlicht said:
Hi everybody,

... I would like to use Kodak Portra 800 medium format film for portraiture in low light/artificial light conditions (I will be shooting in the streets by night). Does anybody have experience with it? How about color rendition? ...

I tried Portra800 and 400 for shooting portrait in the streets by night (sometimes with a little daylight) -
Portra400 works better for me ( better = more natural colors). I don't know why.

I tried FUJI Superia400 -in addition with a B&W KB15 /80A (1.2 f-stops)- with even good results.
Using a tri- or monopod is required.

wmoore · Feb 7, 2015

Some Portra 800 at night.

Here is some Portra 800 I shot at a local night time Christmas market last year. Shot at box speed.

Link

macfred · Feb 7, 2015

wmoore said:
Here is some Portra 800 I shot at a local night time Christmas market last year. Shot at box speed.

Link

You have got some good results !

Christmas markets 14 by wmoore72, on Flickr

MattKing · Feb 7, 2015

wmoore said:
Here is some Portra 800 I shot at a local night time Christmas market last year. Shot at box speed.

Link

The subject of that first photo - a Mr. Grinch, I believe, looks awfully green .

(Nice photos!)

Portra 800 color rendition under artificial light (streets by night)

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