Suggest a color film that's one step better than Kodak Gold or ColorPlus?

I have shot Kodak Gold and Color Plus and they work well enough. I am mostly happy with my photos. A couple of times I've been disappointed by the dynamic range. I shoot half frame and the grain of Gold & ColorPlus is fine, but I wouldn't complain if it was smaller. I want to try something better (more expensive) than Kodak Gold to see if I like it. This is 100% casual use. I just pop the film into my camera and spend 2 weeks shooting a roll. I mostly shoot in sunny conditions, so I'm looking at low-ISO films. Here are the options as I understand them:

• Ektar 100 --- $15 / roll --- Great for landscapes. Makes people look like lobsters.
• Portra 160 --- $15 / roll --- Great for portraits, but you're expected to post-process its muted colors to get the result you want.
• Aerocolor IV == Flic Film Elektra 100 --- $14 / roll --- Accurate colors. Watch out for light piping.
• Vision3 50 D == Flic Film Cine 50 D --- $11 / roll --- Finest grain. ISO 50 may be limiting. Develop in ECN-2 or cross-process in C-41.
• Pro Image 100 --- $10 / roll --- Larger grain (same as K. Gold), but with much better dynamic range.

My question is completely subjective: Which film(s) do you think I should try?

Portra 160 - because if you are scanning and then working from digital, every film's result requires post-processing.

I have used Pro Image, seems to be similar to Ektar 100 with larger gain, color was close to Ektar as well. If you print then printing Vision 3 or any repurposed movie film without the orange mask can be an issue. If you scan and print then I would give Vision 3 a try, the few rolls I have shot were printed using a Frontier which did a good of balancing the colors. To be truthful, I no longer shoot color film, just too expensive. If I want color I use a DSLR.

Portra 160. I agree with your impression of “muted color” but you might want to review Koraks posts on that topic as he may have a different opinion/experience.

Thanks!

Yes, I am scanning. No current plans to try RA4 (I don't even have the necessary equipment). I will try Portra 150, and also Vision 3 and see how it goes. Thanks for the help!

Ektar is a trickier film to work with. But If people look like lobsters, it's certainly not the fault of the film. Maybe the camera wasn't intended for underwater use in a boiling pot. You might try something more forgiving of error like Portra 400, which is also a little more saturated than Portra 160.

Portra 160 is capable of extraordinary color. It's the most accurate col9r negative film available today.

Ektar is extraordinary as well.

I would recommend portra 160. My favorite.

I would not say Portra 160 has muted colors, it simply does not have the artificial warmth of Color Plus and Gold. Ektat is weird for me, tones differ considerabley with the type of lightning.

Portra 160 is my favourite too.

Fujicolor 100. But, since it will be very hard to get any of that, get Kodak Portra 400.

dcy said:

Portra 160 --- $15 / roll --- Great for portraits, but you're expected to post-process its muted colors to get the result you want.

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All color negative needs to be 'post processed' to make the colors look less muted and correct. There's also nothing inherently muted about Portra 160. Print it optically on RA4 paper, you'll see. We just get to see a lot of photos that people made on Portra and that ended up looking desaturated and we've started to associate that look with 'Portra'. I've never found it an accurate assessment.

dcy said:

Aerocolor IV == Flic Film Elektra 100 --- $14 / roll --- Accurate colors.

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Aerocolor does not give 'accurate colors'. It's prone to quite serious color shifts and crossover, as you'd expect from an unmasked film. If unmasked films would give accurate colors, no manufacturer would have gone to the lengths of figuring out dye masking.

dcy said:

Vision3 50 D == Flic Film Cine 50 D --- $11 / roll --- Finest grain. ISO 50 may be limiting. Develop in ECN-2 or cross-process in C-41.

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Opinions vary, but I've never found ECN2 film to perform optimally in C41 developer. It can look OK in many cases, but ultimately I've always ran into crossover problems that made e.g. cloudy skies look particularly yuckie.

dcy said:

Pro Image 100 --- $10 / roll --- Larger grain (same as K. Gold), but with much better dynamic range.

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'much better dynamic range'? What does that mean, really? What I do see is that Gold has a sloped-off curve, so it's effectively self-compensating similarly to B&W films like Delta 3200 (just less strongly so), whereas ProImage has more linear curves - albeit diverging ones, so you can run into crossover issues at very high SBR's and/or overexposure. The term 'dynamic range' as applied to color negative film is rather tricky and its meaning ultimately depends strongly on what happens with the negative - how it's turned into a presentable image afterwards. Overall, I wouldn't get too stuck on it.

What's not clear from your post is what you're looking for and what you expect from a color negative film. Overall I'd expect you're looking for a decent all-round film, in which case Gold is just fine, ProImage is a decent alternative if you want a very slight improvement in grain, and Portra is the logical conclusion if your budget allows for it. They're all subtly different in terms of contrast, color rendition etc, but especially in a hybrid workflow, most of these differences end up being barely relevant and most of what you end up noticing is the evident difference in film speed and fineness of grain - although the results aren't that dramatically variable w.r.t. that last bit either.

dcy said:

A couple of times I've been disappointed by the dynamic range.

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You're better off investing your time into learning how to optimize your scanning and digital post processing instead of going into the minutiae of film differences. Even Ektar has massive dynamic range if you scan it properly.

koraks said:

'much better dynamic range'? What does that mean, really?...

What's not clear from your post is what you're looking for and what you expect from a color negative film.

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A couple of times I've had a situation where a shot has blown highlights and crushed shadows, at the same time. I interpret this to be a sign of limited dynamic range of the film. --- Dynamic range being the range of exposures where the film can capture detail.

With regards to grain: With Gold, ColorPlus, and UltraMax, I essentially do not notice the grain for outdoor shots, which is most of my shooting. But indoor shots with limited lighting often look quite grainy. I've learned that adjusting exposure helps mitigate that issue, but it does not eliminate it.

It's just enough to make me want to try another film or two and see how it performs in these two areas.

koraks said:

Overall I'd expect you're looking for a decent all-round film, in which case Gold is just fine, ProImage is a decent alternative if you want a very slight improvement in grain, and Portra is the logical conclusion if your budget allows for it...

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I haven't decided. In general, I am stingy and I shoot more B&W than color. But the truth is, even if I shot Portra exclusively, $15 every 2-3 weeks (how long it takes me to shoot a roll) isn't going to break the bank. But I'm still not going to default to the most expensive option if I find that I am satisfied with a cheaper one.

I'd probably stick with Color Plus and Ektar, while optimising my scanning techniques though I do know what you mean about white people on Ektar if the exposure isn't dead on.

If it ever becomes available again, Fuji Superia 200 or Superia 100. Even Fuji C200. Not that there's anything wrong with Kodak's fine colour films, but the colour palette does tend to the warm/red side.

Agulliver said:

I'd probably stick with Color Plus and Ektar, while optimising my scanning techniques though I do know what you mean about white people on Ektar if the exposure isn't dead on.

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I didn't know that this was exposure-dependent. The information I got came from this article. It compares Ektar 100 vs Portra 160 and it says that Ektar is great for landscapes but not at all good for portraits because it renders Caucasian skin with a reddish tone. It presents this example as evidence:




Honestly, the reddish skin doesn't bother me too much and between these shots, I love the greener grass from Ektar. Do you think the skin would have been more accurate with better exposure?

dcy said:

A couple of times I've had a situation where a shot has blown highlights and crushed shadows, at the same time.

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Lack of shadow detail means the negative is underexposed, or the shadow detail is lopped off during scanning/printing. Blown out highlights mean that the highlight detail was lost in scanning or printing. Simply put, the problem is in exposure and how the output medium (scanned digital or print) is handled, not in the nature of the negative film. I think you're looking into the wrong direction to solve this problem.

Can you post an example of one of the shots that has given you problems, and provide some details on how you handled the digitization?

By means of illustration, this is Kodak Ektar, which supposedly has low dynamic range:

Note lack of lobster-like appearance and differentiation in deep shadows ranging all the way to sunlit cityscape in the background. Saturation could be added as desired. Color balance can be altered as desired. Both, and many more, can be done selectively in parts of the image and/or parts of the tonal scale. The possibilities are infinite.
This is an example I had handy without having to dig too much for it. Exposure was deliberately held back on the shadows because, well, they're shadows. I could have given more generous exposure and still ended up with plenty of differentiation in the highlights. It was a choice, not something 'programmed' into the film.
Open up the shadows a little and more contrast in background? Sure. Quick & dirty:

It's still "low dynamic range, lobster-generating Ektar".

dcy said:

The information I got came from this article.

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There's a lot that can be done differently, and arguably better, in both exposing and digitizing the film than how it's done in those examples. The first example shown suffers from severe underexposure on the Portra shot and a little less so (but still) on the Ektar. The color balance on the Portra shot is horrible and it's not due to the film; it's due to the lack of sufficient exposure combined with unfortunate choices in digital processing. There are similar problems with almost all of the following examples. There's an overall severe bias towards yellow in all examples shown. That's not inherent to either films being analyzed. Etc. etc.
I'm not saying this to poo on the author of that article - anyone is free to handle the materials they have access to in any way they want and have their own preferences etc. What I do want to do is caution against drawing conclusions about the film as such based on assessments like the one you linked to. The problem is that choices in the handling of the material end up having far more influence on the outcome than the choice of film.