Hi folks,

I kind of had this question in another thread but I thought I'd make it a topic.

I'm wondering if anyone else has had any experience shooting with Kodak's Portra 400 BW. Specifically, if you rated it at ISO 100 (two stops over exposed) or 800-1600(1-2 stop undeexposed), and had it processed normally at a minilab, what were your results? Is the film recommended if that's my intention?

I know there are those out there who'll say just buy a couple of rolls and try it to see if I like it. I like the film shot at and processed at 400. But at $8 a pop (here in Minnesota) and this close to Christmas, I can't say I'm currently willing to make the experiment. I'm hoping someone else might have tried it out.

Thanks for any comments.

-- victor (danzfotog@yahoo.com), November 29, 2001

Answers

According to Kodak, you can expose Portra 400 from ISO 50 to 1600. But I have not tried it yet...

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), November 29, 2001.

Sorry, screwed up my HTML for the link...

According to Kodak, you can expose Portra 400 from ISO 50 to 1600. But I have not tried it yet...

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), November 29, 2001.

Yeah, I had read what Kodak said the film could do, but I'm really skeptical. I was told that XP2 had the same latitude, but when I tried it at 1600 and processed normally, all I got were really muddy shadows and grainy shots. I'm probably going to try it out with Portra but I'm hoping to hear from others who might have already done so.

-- victor (danzfotog@yahoo.com), November 29, 2001.

if you're interested, I run a photolab and will be testing Portra BW this weekend with my SL, doing various tests and conditions (hopefully). I'll put my opinions and perhaps even a picture here too!

-- Philip Woodcock (phil@pushbar.demon.co.uk), November 29, 2001.

I was told by the owner of my local lab that kodak negative film in general doesn't push / pull well and not to waist my time , colour shift ect . He is a former employer and a real lab guy who has forgotten more about processing and printing then I will ever know .

And to maybe save you some time I have found that the fuji product to be vastly superior in general usage , latitude , colour balance , contrast range, handles multiple colour temp in fill flash exceedingly well and just general consistency of result for me .

I use NPS in 4x5 , and used to shoot it in 35 mm , but have since switched to the 200 / 800 Superia , and if I remember correctly when I started shooting the 800 it was some sort of press like product .

The price point of the Fuji product is lower then the Kodak especially mail order .

In my experience Fuji colour negative is so much easier to work with for the lab , and machine prints look great so I have no head aches or custom print charges .

hope this helps

-- Charles C. Stirk Jr. (ccstirkjr@yahoo.com), November 29, 2001.

Charles, I think Victor is asking about the black & white negative Portra film.

I just got back a developed roll of 135 black&white Portra that I had exposed at EI 640 and pushed in 1 stop in developing. The negatives look very nice so I think EI 640 is a good guess with 1 stop push developing of this film. I will get into the darkroom and print some samples this weekend.

-- Peter Olsson (peter.olsson@lulebo.se), November 30, 2001.

Philip, I'll be very interested in what you find with your experiments.

Peter, the problem is that I don't have a place locally (other than an expensive pro-shop) that can push process C-41 films. So I'm wondering about how Portra 400 BW peforms when shot at a rated ISO of 800 or 1600 but still processed at 400.

Anyway, I'll be watching this forum. Thanks for the comments.

-- victor (danzfotog@yahoo.com), November 30, 2001.

Save a few $, Victor, and buy some Kodak B&W+, the consumer version of Portra. An ISO800 rating is only one stop under.I've had pleasing results at 800 with normal processing, though you might try a 640-800 rating with a one-stop push.Generally, though, these films are far less tolerant of under-exposure than Kodak advertises.

-- Gary Watson (cg.watson@sympatico.ca), November 30, 2001.

One advantage I've been told of Portra BW over the other C-41 BW films is that minilabs can use the Portra channels in their machines, thus producing more consistent results.

Can the consumer version of Portra BW get consistent results from minilabs, or is it prone to the guess work that XP2 and T400CN is subjected to?

Thanks.

-- victor (danzfotog@yahoo.com), November 30, 2001.

Just relised I totaly missunderstood the question thank you for being so polite with my irrelevant post

-- Charles C. Stirk Jr. (ccstirkjr@yahoo.com), November 30, 2001.

Both Portra and B&W+ share the same orange-ish mask common to colour neg stock.Mini-labs with Kodak Gold channels dialed in should be able to cope with this rather small challenge.Though nothing's fool-proof (particularly with most mini-lab staff), B&W+ has survived and produced reasonably neutral prints on colour papers. Just don't expect great results on b&w paper.T400CN is best for that.

-- Gary Watson (cg.watson@sympatico.ca), December 02, 2001.

This weekend I printed the pushed b&W Portra that I mentioned above. The film was rated EI 640 and I used the meter in the M6 for all exposures. All pictures were taken in electric light (at this time of the year we hardly have any daylight up here close to the polar circle). I have seen with traditional black & white film, home developed, that the exposure index is reduced when using electric light compared to natural light and I suppose this is true with Portra as well. Still, a one stop push and a rating of 640 printed very well. I was not able to print all the way to the papers D-max but the difference was small, my guess is 1/3 to 1/2 f-stop. I suspect that the rating of 640 would have been on the spot with natural light.

The print quality with pushed Portra was very good, I was pleasantly surprised! I doubt if one can find another film with smaller grain at this EI (640) that will give this image quality. My spontaneous feeling is that the Portra b&w is an improvement on the 400CN. On the other hand, this was my first b&w film with a Leica + summicron 50 so perhaps it was the lens that blew me away.

The film is so good that I only have two gripes about using it: 1) the high price of developing, 2) the general decline in film washing (!) at places who does C41-processing. What is the cause of this (2)? When a film comes back with a strong smell of fixer something is wrong.

-- Peter Olsson (peter.olsson@lulebo.se), December 03, 2001.

I just ran a film and did some exposure tests at the end. Developed as ISO400. Seems to me that the film won't handle underexposure more than 1 stop but will take up to 3 stops overexposure no problem. The grain is incredibly smooth.

-- Bill (wjfevans@yahoo.com), April 12, 2002.