Best portrait film

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Could someone give their opinion as to the best film to use for portraits. These would include 35mm prints, slides, color & b&w. Thanks in advance for your help.

-- Jim D. (jdesphoto@excite.com), February 12, 2000

Answers

Don't know about b&w or slides, but for color negative film, I've been satisfied with the results from Fuji NPH rated at 250.

-- John Kuraoka (kuraoka@home.com), February 12, 2000.

K. Portra. F. Astia. Any 'regular' BW emulsion (and the 'irregular' K. Technical Pan); normal or C41 process. K. Verichrome (still avail.?). K. Ektachrome (lotsa flavours to choose from...).

Grab a couple of rolls of each, and then make a personal decision. Most of the time, for negative film I'd reccommend you knock about 1/3 of a stop from the Rated ISO, but don't say anything to your lab (i.e., have them develop it normally). If you have the time, develop your normal-process BW films yourself.

-- shawn gibson (SeeInsideForever@yahoo.com), February 12, 2000.


I've used the very common Tri-X and HC110 combination quite a bit. In good diffuse light, skin tones can look quite "luminous." There is grain, of course, but it seems to work well with skin texture. I am beginning to experiment with HP5+/Xtol and Pan F with Rodinal (prickly sharp grain!). After some work, you will have some good options for overall texture. Some people like Plus-X or even Tmax400CN (very smooth) For me the 400CN is a little bland. You'll just have to see what you like.

-- Paul Harris (pharris@neosoft.com), February 13, 2000.

Don't know about best. I guess best is whatever suits you and your style of images. I have seen wonderful portraits on all sorts of emulsions, including some cross-processed images with lurid colours.

But, for your reference, the following is a (probably incolplete) list of films that the manufacturers thinks are especially good for portraits:

NEGATIVE FILMS
Agfa
Portait 160 ProPortraiture
Fuji
NGH IIISO 800 portraiture
160 NPLArtificial light portraiture
160 NPSPortraiture
400 NPHPortraiture
Kodak
Ektacolor Pro Gold 1000ISO 1000 ambient light portraiture, very high saturation
Portra 160 NCNatural colours
Portra 160 VCVivid colours
Portra 400 NCNatural colours
Portra 400 VCVivid colours
COLOUR REVERSAL FILMS
Fuji
Astia (RAP)Fashion photography, very high colour fidelity
Kodak
Ektachrome 100-Pro (EPN)very accurate colours

My aplologies to all the manufacturers if I have omitted somebody. In the colour reversal market, only Astia seems to be marketed specifically as a portrait film. However, for formal, face only portraits, I prefer Fujichrome Provia 100F (RDPIII). I guess in the reversal market you are expected to know your film and have enough time to apply all those colour correcting filters. No point in recommending anything in particular: you'll know what you are doing. In print film there seems to be a much more visisble tradeoff between high saturation general purpose film and the more subltle colours and ability to record fine tones that are expected of e.g. a wedding portrait. So in this market is does make sense to talk about portrait film.

Hope this all makes sense.

-- Allan Engelhardt (allane@cybaea.com), February 13, 2000.


Questions like this make me cringe. Why?

1) There is no "best" film for anything. It depends on what you want your photographs to look like. Just as a simple example, some people despise grain, but others love it.

2) Choosing a film won't choose your final result. It's a combination of factors, including developer (for b&w) and paper. In color, choice of paper is just as important as in b&w.

Try a bunch of films in similar environments and see what you like. Pick one (well maybe one b&w and one color) and shoot it until you can tell at the time that you shoot what every photograph will look like when it's hanging on the wall.

It's been my observation that most people shoot way too many different films without ever understanding even one of them. It takes time and experience, and changing films usually means starting over. (And this ignores that most people seem to evaluate film based on low cost machine prints.)

-- Jeff Spirer (jeffs@hyperreal.org), February 13, 2000.



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