Category Archives: test drives

Christmas at ISO 3200 (new Kodak Portra)

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Continuing on from the last post, here are the results of my other test: rating Kodak Portra 400 at ISO 3200 (!), and then having the lab push it two stops. Why two? Because it’s cheaper than having them do three stops. I’m planning for the future when I might have multiple rolls of this stuff to push, so I wanted to see what that combination would yield. We’ve already seen what simple underexposure does, both on my previous post and on the Twin Lens Life site. And we’ve also seen what rating the film at 3200 and then pushing it the appropriate three stops yields, on Jonathan Canlas’ blog post. My local lab, which will remain nameless, was shocked that I asked them to push C41 film two stops. Never fear, Richard Photo Lab to the rescue again. Two stops is no problem for them.

One purpose of the test was also to see what such extreme pushing and underexposure does to skin tones. Sadly, I decided to shoot this in my living room! We have beige walls, and the walls add a sickly yellow-green color cast to everything. So I’m unable to determine how skin tones really look. I’ve tweaked as much color as I could in Lightroom, but didn’t want to overdo it. These were scanned, like the images from my previous post, on my Epson 4990 film scanner. Perhaps a lab scan would yield even better results, and I’m sure the color would be correct.

These images were shot on my Mamiya 645AF. I set up two strobes in two corners of the room, bouncing the light off the wall/ceiling junction. I metered in front of the Christmas tree, so that each strobe was properly exposed at ISO 3200. The data didn’t print on the film for some reason, so I can’t bore you with f-stop info.

To my undiscerning eye, the combination of ISO 3200 and pushing two stops looks a lot like simply underexposing the film two stops, at ISO 1600, with no push. With a difference that the grain is slightly increased in the more extreme test. Compare the Christmas tree branches in both posts. The shadow detail appears to be about the same. And I must point out that either one of these tests look better than the (expired, cold-stored) Fujifilm NHGII 800 film I also shot on Christmas, rated at box speed. That film looked so bad that I had to convert the images to black and white!

Is Kodak Portra 400 a wonder-film? Can you push it to ISO 3200 and have it look like Ektar? No of course not. Is it usable at 3200, and something you’d be glad to show a client? Yeah, I’d say it is. I would not hesitate to shoot it at these speeds for night photography, or for indoor/event work.

And here’s a thought: my (mostly-disused) dSLRs are about three years old, and so are only decent up to about ISO 400. Do I spend several thousand dollars to get usable ISO 3200? Or do I spend $5 and buy a pack of Portra 400? I don’t really need to answer that, do I?

And here’s a thought: Ilford Delta 3200, and Kodak Tmax 3200 black and white films both go for about $7 each (35mm roll, B&H Photo). Both films are the ‘nuclear’ option when lighting is so bad you can’t shoot with anything else, color or black and white. The new Portra 400 is about $6 per roll. Given the decently subtle grain, and the lower cost, does it make better financial sense to shoot ALL low-light work on Portra, and convert digitally to black and white when the urge hits? I guess it all depends on whether your lab charges the same to push Delta/Tmax to 3200 vs Portra, and/or whether you’re developing your own black and white film. An interesting way to simplify your film stocks though. Anyone have some thoughts on that?

That’s me on the right, in the shorts.

Christmas at ISO 1600 (New Kodak Portra)

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I thought I’d give the new Kodak Portra 400 a test to see how it handled in low light conditions. Especially after reading about other photographers and their experiences uprating the ISO, as well as pushing it to 3200.

A quick primer for those new to film speeds. A film stock has a native ‘speed’, which is stated on the box as its ISO (sometimes these ‘box speeds’ are not accurate, but let’s not argue that point for now). If you shoot with an ISO 400 film, you would normally set your camera’s meter to ISO 400. Simple, huh? But what if you want to shoot in lower light, and still have reasonable shutter speeds for freezing motion and preventing camera shake blurring? You could get a higher-speed film. But you have two other options: simply ‘uprate’ the film (pretend the film is faster/has a higher ISO than it really does), or uprate and ‘push’ the film.

Film has a much wider exposure latitude than does digital. Mostly this latitude is to be found when overexposing the film: extreme highlights are compressed in a pleasing way, rather than being clipped to pure white like digital. Film also has an underexposure latitude, although traditionally it hasn’t been all that much. You can underexpose your film and still hope to get some usable images out of it.

You can also ‘push’ the film, which means simply that the film is left to cook in the developer longer. This will increase the overall exposure, although the increase is more in the highlights and less in the shadows. It also increases grain and can shift color, which is not usually desirable. But it does allow you to use a film at a higher than rated speed, with theoretically a better outcome than if you simply uprate (underexpose) by itself. For example, Kodak TMax 3200 black and white film is designed specifically to be pushed in this manner, and can be used anywhere from ISO 400 to 3200 and beyond.

The new Kodak Portra 400 has changed the playing field. It is no possible to uprate/underexpose this film significantly, and still have very nice looking images. While others have done some testing as mentioned above, I thought I’d give it a whack myself. Christmas morning seemed like as good a time as any!

Using my Bronica ETR-s and a 75mm lens, I set up some strobes in two corners of the room (Nikon SB-28s, bounced off the wall/ceiling). I metered so that the main area I’d be photographing—in front of the tree—was at the correct exposure for ISO 1600 (two stops underexposure). I don’t recall my exact settings anymore, so you’ll just have to trust me on that part. I had my local lab develop the roll of film, and then I scanned it on my Epson 4990 film scanner. The film was not pushed, just underexposed. The color was a bit yellow-green, but this was primarily because of our beige walls. I’ve adjusted in Lightroom very quickly, so they’re not very consistent. That’s not the film, that’s just me and my bad color adjustment abilities!

I’m impressed with the results! Obviously the shadows suffer from a loss of detail, which makes the images more contrasty. But the images are very usable, and the grain isn’t out of control. I scanned these at a lower resolution (1200 dpi) just so I wouldn’t be all day at the scanner. I’m pleased with the result, and would definitely use this film in low light situations.

I also exposed another roll later in the day, using the same set up. However for that roll I metered for ISO 3200 (three stops!), and am having the lab push the film two stops. My local lab refused to push it more than one stop, so I sent it to Richard Photo Lab and they’re happy to push it until the film catches fire (or nearly so). I won’t have that back for a week or so, and will scan it post the results when I do.

I hope you had a great Christmas, and wish you a wonderful 2011!

—Matt

New Kodak Portra 400 Film: Does It Work Miracles?

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Ever since I read the Twin Lens Life brothers blather on about Kodak’s Vision3 movie film, which they were using to shoot wedding stills with, I’ve been in search of the new Portra 400. Apparently Kodak took some amazing film technology from their motion picture division, and were repurposing it for the photographic crowd. I’ve been searching for the new Portra 400 (no “VC” or “NC” designations anymore, those are all being discontinued). It was supposed to be released in October, but by the first of November I’d seen nothing.

Then I got an email from Freestyle. They had received 120 format in the store, but it was phone-order only. It was too new, and too limited of a quantity to be up on their website. So of course I ordered 10 rolls of 120 right away. Meanwhile Samy’s has it, and I’ve ordered from them too (semi-local pickup in Santa Barbara).

So how does the film stack up? I shot the above image at box speed. The shadows appear to have less grain than Fuji Reala 100! I have yet to do a same-camera, same scenario test, but comparing negatives of the Reala vs the Portra 400, both scanned at 2400 dpi on an Epson 4990, showed considerably less grain in the 400. That’s pretty friggin’ amazing.

Having a film that I can shoot at ISO 400 is a big deal, because I can finally get good depth of field from cameras such as my Mamiya RB67. Shooting at f/8 with a 35mm or equivalent dSLR is perfectly acceptable for a group shot. But with a large negative like 6×7, f/8 turns into a pretty limited depth of field. Suitable for individual subjects only. F/16 is really what I need for an aperture, which means I need a film that is rated two stops faster to keep the same shutter speed. That’s where Portra 400 comes in.

The above image was shot on my Mamiya RB67, f/11 and a half, shutter speed somewhere around 1/60 or 1/125. Metz Mecablitz 60 with a shoot through umbrella  to camera right, with a Nikon SB-28 in a Lumiquest SoftBox III for fill, one stop down. I metered the ambient with an incident meter, so that it was two stops down. You can see the shadowed side of the background tree to see what my subject would have looked like without strobe.

These shots, by the way, are of my oldest son. My wife insists that he get school portraits every year, even though they’re a) cheesy and b) I’m a professional photographer for cryin’ out loud! Apparently it’s part of the childhood experience to have really bad photos. This year it was super-bad though. They ended up taking (according to my son) ten shots, because he kept blinking and/or was sensitive to the lights. The resulting image was horrible. When faced with the idea of retakes, he rebelled. I offered to take some portraits, which my wife and son agreed to. So I took him to the park, and got to try out the new Portra 400 as well. Win-win!

So does the film work miracles? I’ll have to wait to see the first professional scans come back from the lab to be sure, but it appears that maybe it does. Long live film!