Snuck in a film portrait during a session

duparis00 · Mar 14, 2014

Nat's been out of the country for about 3 years, which was before I got into photography. So when she came back I had to call her out for a portrait session.
Shot with Mamiya 645 AFD 80mm 2.8 on Kodak Portra 160. I must over exposed by at least 1/3 of a stop her skin shouldn't be shiny like that, it wasn't that way in real life or on digital.

I did 2 shots on my 4x5 but I totally screwed up my exposure. Not only did I forget to account for the bellows factor but I forgot I'd loaded 100ISO provia instead of the 160 Portra, so I was under exposed by over 2 stops. There was no coming back from that lol....ahhh live and learn. I was so excited about shooting a portrait with the 4x5 for the first time I totally messed that up.

This shot was the only saving grace.

MattKrull · Mar 14, 2014

Very nice
Love the lighting.
Very good scan too btw.

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 14, 2014

Portra 160 should not be sensitive to 1/3 stop overexposure. I've shot it at EI 80 when bracketing and no problems. For Portra 160 to block up highlights due to overexposure you would have to try a lot harder.

Very nice portrait. Good lighting.

CatLABS · Mar 14, 2014

duparis00 said:
View attachment 84383

Nat's been out of the country for about 3 years, which was before I got into photography. So when she came back I had to call her out for a portrait session.
Shot with Mamiya 645 AFD 80mm 2.8 on Kodak Portra 160. I must over exposed by at least 1/3 of a stop her skin shouldn't be shiny like that, it wasn't that way in real life or on digital.

I did 2 shots on my 4x5 but I totally screwed up my exposure. Not only did I forget to account for the bellows factor but I forgot I'd loaded 100ISO provia instead of the 160 Portra, so I was under exposed by over 2 stops. There was no coming back from that lol....ahhh live and learn. I was so excited about shooting a portrait with the 4x5 for the first time I totally messed that up.

This shot was the only saving grace.

ISO 100 = X
ISO 160 = X +2/3 stop.

In reality, portra is not really 160 anyways.
Its easy to push E-6 +0.5 stop.

The highlights in the scan are probably due to the limited dynamic range of the scanner, and that area will have detail in the negative.

benjiboy · Mar 14, 2014

I don't think there's anything wrong with the way the lady's skin tones are rendered, and it's not the exposure because 1/3rd of a stop wouldn't be perceivable on Portra 160.

duparis00 · Mar 14, 2014

Interesting, thanks for the feedback guys. I assumed it was over exposure since I couldn't think of another reason for the skin to render like that. But catlabs brings up an interesting point about the scanner's dmax. I started with digital and even then not long ago, so entering film is like a whole new world I need to understand.

giannisg2004 · Mar 14, 2014

Nice, though I'd frame her head on the right third.
Or flip the image horizontally.
My eye reads it from left to right, so in your framing I set from the head and are lead to nothing.
Anyway, that's me and maybe others read it the exact opposite way.

As for the ⅓-⅔ overexposure, if you account your lens' true t-stop, the shutter'a and the lightmeter's accuracy, it's as small as a normal statistical error.

giannisg2004 · Mar 14, 2014

duparis00 said:
Interesting, thanks for the feedback guys. I assumed it was over exposure since I couldn't think of another reason for the skin to render like that. But catlabs brings up an interesting point about the scanner's dmax. I started with digital and even then not long ago, so entering film is like a whole new world I need to understand.

Btw, I think her skin rendered like that because mostly of her makeup (she needed to apply a bit more foundation/powder, maybe she has oily skin), then the lighting and thirdly the scanning.
The overexposure is the least important of factors I can think of.

duparis00 · Mar 14, 2014

giannisg2004 said:
Nice, though I'd frame her head on the right third.
Or flip the image horizontally.
My eye reads it from left to right, so in your framing I set from the head and are lead to nothing.
Anyway, that's me and maybe others read it the exact opposite way.

As for the ⅓-⅔ overexposure, if you account your lens' true t-stop, the shutter'a and the lightmeter's accuracy, it's as small as a normal statistical error.

Yeah you know I was imaging an over the shoulder shot so I started framing her on the left side, but she doesn't really look over the shoulder and you're right I think she should have been framed on the right.

Great point about the exposure.

CatLABS · Mar 14, 2014

duparis00 said:
Interesting, thanks for the feedback guys. I assumed it was over exposure since I couldn't think of another reason for the skin to render like that. But catlabs brings up an interesting point about the scanner's dmax. I started with digital and even then not long ago, so entering film is like a whole new world I need to understand.

Its a good point to remember that digital works exactly the opposite from film, those highlights in digital mean less data, where as in film, its means more data then the very thin areas. A good scanner can get all that info out for you, perhaps in 2 scans and an overlay layer.

omaha · Mar 14, 2014

CatLABS said:
The highlights in the scan are probably due to the limited dynamic range of the scanner, and that area will have detail in the negative.

This.

Judging from my own very similar results, what you are seeing there is a function of how the scan was made. Easy fix in Photoshop if you want to bring that down a bit.

You'll have to try a lot harder than this to blow out highlights using Portra 160!

Love the shot, BTW. Love the "Portra-ness" of it. I'm shooting a lot of stuff like this lately, and am totally in love with the results.

benjiboy · Mar 14, 2014

duparis00 said:
Interesting, thanks for the feedback guys. I assumed it was over exposure since I couldn't think of another reason for the skin to render like that. But catlabs brings up an interesting point about the scanner's dmax. I started with digital and even then not long ago, so entering film is like a whole new world I need to understand.

The skin is rendered with a sheen like that because the girl is human and is perspiring.

Dinesh · Mar 14, 2014

I like the way it is currently framed.

duparis00 · Mar 14, 2014

Dinesh said:
I like the way it is currently framed.

Thanks Dinesh! It's really interesting gather feedback, I have it on another board too and it's similar to this one. About 1 in 6 like it, 1 isn't bothered, and 4 will say she should be on the right side. Really cool insight into peoples tastes.

duparis00 · Mar 14, 2014

omaha said:
This.

Judging from my own very similar results, what you are seeing there is a function of how the scan was made. Easy fix in Photoshop if you want to bring that down a bit.

You'll have to try a lot harder than this to blow out highlights using Portra 160!

Love the shot, BTW. Love the "Portra-ness" of it. I'm shooting a lot of stuff like this lately, and am totally in love with the results.

Very good to know, I definitely need to experiment with scanning more, it really is like an art to itself.

I'm totally in love with portra it scans so well too. I'm literally spending all my extra money to support my film habit lol.

Jeff Kubach · Mar 15, 2014

I like it. Very nice.

Jeff

Nuff · Mar 15, 2014

Too me it looks like there was too much contrast added. Portra, especially 160 has very low contrast and under saturated look. I would decrease the contrast and bring down the highlights. It's next to impossible to blow highlights on negative film.

GarageBoy · Mar 23, 2014

Was that lit or natural light?

Snuck in a film portrait during a session

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency