Kodak Portra 400
I loaded some Kodak Portra 400 into my trusty Pentax Z1p and took it with me on a trip into the Cariboo region of British Columbia. I’ve always tried to stay away from using 400 ISO film in daylight but this is touted as being extremely fine-grained so I relented. Technical details can be seen in Kodak Technical Publication e4050 . The film was upgraded in 2010 using technology previously used in the Vision motion picture line of film but I don’t have any samples from the previous formulation to compare, the film in its current state though is incredibly versatile. It costs me about $8 per roll vs $5.50 for Ektar so with Ektar being yet even finer grained it’s not a replacement for that film. compared to Fuji Superia 400, Portra 400 has a much tighter grain and less colour mottling and seems to have a much smoother tonal range.
Here are a couple of 100% crops from the film so you can see for your self. The negatives were scanned at 3200 DPI and would provide 11×14″ prints at 300DPI. From a normal viewing distance the grain would be visible but not unpleasantly so. With a very slight amount of processing in Lightroom this grain could be greatly reduced if that is what you wanted, I don’t.
Here are more images I hope you enjoy. On a side note I refered to Kodak’s Vision film earlier and I’ve purchased 4 rolls of Cine Still Film 800 Tungsten which is motion picture film processed and packaged for still photography I’m really looking forward to trying it out.
