I Still Shoot Film

After my natural portrait test with the new Kodak Portra 160, I decided to see how it performs in a plastic camera. I have an original Holga 120S and a Woca (amongst many other plastic cameras), but I must admit I prefer the Woca’s glass lens. Ironic, no? So I popped a roll of Portra 160 into my Woca and headed out to the Jardin du Palais Royal. The first thing I am noticing about this film is that it basically reproduces the actual conditions you see. When the sun was out and everything was bright, I got this super vibrant result:

This has no adjustment for contrast for the sake of this review and as you can see the color is significantly more intense than the natural portraits I did for the first test (the sky was cloudy). To prove my point, have a look at this shot (also from the Jardin du Palais Royal) taken 10 minutes later when the sun ducked behind a cloud:

This is a lot more muted and flat compared to the first shot. Granted, the color palette is also muted compared to flowers, but this shot doesn’t quite pop like the first one. So far my official opinion of the new Kodak Portra 160 is that you definitely get what you see.

Up Next: I am pushing Kodak Portra to 3200 to see if it lives up to the Portra Push reputation.

*Now, as for comments about my current scanner, I test with what I have. That’s what a real test is. I think there are a lot of people who would like to know how this film performs with the equipment they have, as opposed to how it performs with top-of-the-line inaccessible scanners. That being said, if you would like me to use a higher quality scanner for future film reviews, feel free to buy me one :)

Kodak recently contacted me about testing the new Portra 160 film which was released last month (yes, new types of film are still being manufactured); and because I never say, “No” to free film, I happily accepted. For those of you who are not up-to-date with the Kodak Portra line, Portra 160 will be replacing both Kodak Portra 160NC and Kodak Portra 160VC. I received 5 sample rolls (120) and decided to test it out several different ways.

For the first test, I figured it might be a good idea to try Portra 160 for what it was intended - portraits and natural skin tone. I opted to shoot a roll during my test shoot with the lovely Tamara P. from Trend’s By Metropolitan. This was shot with a Kiev 88 and developed normally, with a combination of natural and artificial light:

First off, one of the claims of the new Kodak Portra 160 is that it has super-fine grain for  scanning. I must confirm that this statement is 100% true and I am scanning with a semi-obsolete CanoScan 8600F so I can only surmise that professional drum scans would give you insanely fine grain. Let’s take a look at a 100% view of a section from the image:

I think we can all agree that this is some seriously fine grain.

Second, let’s talk about skin tones. I have never been big on natural skin tones (I loves me some serious contrast and poppy color) but there have been plenty of times where it has been imperative and essential that I achieve them for a specific client or project. Once again, Kodak Portra 160 delivers on its promise, giving incredibly natural skin tones. In fact, I can honestly say that the color and tone look exactly how they did when I was actually shooting. Now, it is important to keep in mind that your scanner settings will affect your color balance, so if you try the Portra 160 and feel the tone is off, check your scanner.

Here is another more super-soft shot of Tamara:

Up next: How Portra 160 performs in a plastic camera…

Kodak Portra 160 Product Information Page

(Source: istillshootfilm.org)