lifeandmylens wrote:
I'm now trying to shoot at box speed and see any differences. The lens I used on this first roll is quite low contrast, and the lens I used on roll 2 is much higher contrast.
For me the sweet spot for Portra 400 is to shoot it at ISO 320; I found 200 resulted in too much overexposure and I'm not as much a fan of those pastel colors as others are. It's fashionable to overexpose Portra 400 but I like the results more when it's closer to box speed. At box speed, though, I find a lot of photos end up looking muddy and heavy; this is one film where you definitely want to avoid underexposure. Ektar I always shoot right at box speed and it looks great; it does need a lot of light but I've learned to use it mainly on overcast days or in the shade otherwise the colors get garish.
bjhurley wrote:
For me the sweet spot for Portra 400 is to shoot it at ISO 320; I found 200 resulted in too much overexposure and I'm not as much a fan of those pastel colors as others are. It's fashionable to overexpose Portra 400 but I like the results more when it's closer to box speed. At box speed, though, I find a lot of photos end up looking muddy and heavy; this is one film where you definitely want to avoid underexposure. Ektar I always shoot right at box speed and it looks great; it does need a lot of light but I've learned to use it mainly on overcast days or in the shade otherwise the colors get garish....Show more →
bjhurley wrote:
For me the sweet spot for Portra 400 is to shoot it at ISO 320; I found 200 resulted in too much overexposure and I'm not as much a fan of those pastel colors as others are. It's fashionable to overexpose Portra 400 but I like the results more when it's closer to box speed. At box speed, though, I find a lot of photos end up looking muddy and heavy; this is one film where you definitely want to avoid underexposure. Ektar I always shoot right at box speed and it looks great; it does need a lot of light but I've learned to use it mainly on overcast days or in the shade otherwise the colors get garish....Show more →
bjhurley wrote:
For me the sweet spot for Portra 400 is to shoot it at ISO 320; I found 200 resulted in too much overexposure and I'm not as much a fan of those pastel colors as others are. It's fashionable to overexpose Portra 400 but I like the results more when it's closer to box speed. At box speed, though, I find a lot of photos end up looking muddy and heavy; this is one film where you definitely want to avoid underexposure. Ektar I always shoot right at box speed and it looks great; it does need a lot of light but I've learned to use it mainly on overcast days or in the shade otherwise the colors get garish....Show more →
I tried and self-developed with C-41 Porta 400 and 160 of which the 160 was IMO the weakest. Porta films are often hyped as great films to shoot with for color, but this wasn't my experience. They are expensive, and for me they did not deliver better results than with Kodak Gold film. I also made the experience that colors looked pastel-like (especially the Porta 160 was difficult in this regard). I didn't try shooting at lower ISO speed. My favorite color negative film is Kodak Ektar. Other than blueish shadows, I really like the colors from this film.
But as mentioned earlier, looking at the outcome of the photos and comparing it to my digital color photos it no longer fits the bill for me. Simply by using saturation and latitude levels, I can well reproduce Ektar coloration. I also find that my M-E 240 camera has a very nice film-like color rendering which I really like (here the camera's sensor is quite different form my Sony sensor in the A7R). Slide film like Fuji Velvia 100 is still a fantastic E-6 slide film which is hard to reproduce with colors in digital.
retrofocus wrote:
But as mentioned earlier, looking at the outcome of the photos and comparing it to my digital color photos it no longer fits the bill for me. Simply by using saturation and latitude levels, I can well reproduce Ektar coloration. I also find that my M-E 240 camera has a very nice film-like color rendering which I really like (here the camera's sensor is quite different form my Sony sensor in the A7R). Slide film like Fuji Velvia 100 is still a fantastic E-6 slide film which is hard to reproduce with colors in digital.
Agreed -- I switched to slide film in the late 1970s and shot it exclusively until I switched to digital around 2000. I never much liked color print film back then and I feel the same way now -- Ektar is very nice but it almost feels digital to me; if I'm going to be shooting film I want it to look different from what I'm getting from my Sony and in some cases I look at my Ektar shots and think it looks close enough to my Sony photos that it's not worth spending money on it. I am trying a few "unique" color films now, like the Wolfen 500 (ISO 400) but overall I think I'm going to use digital for color photos and film for B&W.
bjhurley wrote:
Agreed -- I switched to slide film in the late 1970s and shot it exclusively until I switched to digital around 2000. I never much liked color print film back then and I feel the same way now -- Ektar is very nice but it almost feels digital to me; if I'm going to be shooting film I want it to look different from what I'm getting from my Sony and in some cases I look at my Ektar shots and think it looks close enough to my Sony photos that it's not worth spending money on it. I am trying a few "unique" color films now, like the Wolfen 500 (ISO 400) but overall I think I'm going to use digital for color photos and film for B&W....Show more →
I tried twice the Cinestill 400D but was not thrilled by its results. Yes, sometimes I was able to see the nice red glow surrounding highlights which makes this film special. Is it worth the price regarding the outcome in the photos? Not really for me.
retrofocus wrote:
I tried twice the Cinestill 400D but was not thrilled by its results.
I also shot two rolls of it but 80 percent of the photos were ruined by light leaks. I thought they had that problem solved with the 400D but at least with my two rolls it was a disaster. The halation is cool for things like street lights and some reflections, but it also ruined some photos that otherwise could have been nice. No more Cinestill for me.
The Wolfen 500 is interesting: desaturated almost antique-looking colors and lots of grain; it might make for nice moody images in cloudy somber weather which is what I'm saving it for.
bjhurley wrote:
I also shot two rolls of it but 80 percent of the photos were ruined by light leaks. I thought they had that problem solved with the 400D but at least with my two rolls it was a disaster. The halation is cool for things like street lights and some reflections, but it also ruined some photos that otherwise could have been nice. No more Cinestill for me.
The Wolfen 500 is interesting: desaturated almost antique-looking colors and lots of grain; it might make for nice moody images in cloudy somber weather which is what I'm saving it for.
I hope you’re having fun exploring different films. The results look good and learning what to expect from the different emulsions. I’m trending towards using a single film, Tri-X, while experimenting with different developers. I used Rodinal for a year and currently I have a stock of D76, a small bottle of the Film Photography Project version of HC-110 and all the makings for Cafenol. That should keep me busy for a while.
lifeandmylens wrote:
This first roll and possibly the second roll I shot Portra 400 at 200 ISO based on a recommendation from a friend. I took some test shots at different ISO's but the light leak ruined the rest of them.
I'm now trying to shoot at box speed and see any differences. The lens I used on this first roll is quite low contrast, and the lens I used on roll 2 is much higher contrast.
When I was editing my scans in NLP, I had to increase exposure, brightness by quite a bit on many of these, which also seemed to increase the grain and lower the contrast. Could just be that these weren't in the best lighting conditions, but am curious if scanning with the LED panel for light source next time will make a difference. Also could be that I opened the bottom cover!
Just use NLP for the basic conversion and maybe adjusting the WB using the profiles they have. Do the actual editing in LR, I find it to be a much better tool.
It sounds like some of your pics may have been underexposed. As everyone I'm sure has already told you, much better to veer to over exposure if in doubt with C41 film.
Desmolicious wrote:
Just use NLP for the basic conversion and maybe adjusting the WB using the profiles they have. Do the actual editing in LR, I find it to be a much better tool.
It sounds like some of your pics may have been underexposed. As everyone I'm sure has already told you, much better to veer to over exposure if in doubt with C41 film.
Ah ok thank you. That's very helpful. I'll use Lightroom next time to edit once I export to tiff/jpg. The sliders in NLP are clunky.
I will say do not waste your money on Wolfen NC400. Super expensive and frankly I think it is garbage. Super grainy, unsharp, muddy. And I shot it a ISO 200. After seeing the results of my first roll, I sent the rest back for refund.
Desmolicious wrote:
I will say do not waste your money on Wolfen NC400. Super expensive and frankly I think it is garbage. Super grainy, unsharp, muddy. And I shot it a ISO 200. After seeing the results of my first roll, I sent the rest back for refund.
I've seen lots of uninspiring shots with that film, but what made me decide to try it was Bastian's examples here:
He got those processed in ECN-2, which is not available in any of the labs in my town so I'll have to go with C-41, but we'll see how it turns out. I only bought one roll and am reserving it for particular weather conditions where I think it'll capture a particular mood. But we'll see. :-)
madNbad wrote:
I hope you’re having fun exploring different films. The results look good and learning what to expect from the different emulsions. I’m trending towards using a single film, Tri-X, while experimenting with different developers.
Yes, I'm still in the experimentation phase to find which films I like best and then will stick with those. I grew up shooting Tri-X, that's all we shot and developed in our home darkroom, but oddly enough I haven't tried it yet as an adult. Once I start developing my own B&W that'll be first on my list. From the 1980s until about 2000 I shot either Kodachrome 64 or Agfachrome 100 and developed a skill for getting the best out of those films simply because I only shot those two and kept learning from what worked and what didn't. During all that time I also shot on only one lens (the 50mm that came with my Pentax ME Super) because I couldn't afford to buy any lenses. I liked working within those constraints.
bjhurley wrote:
Yes, I'm still in the experimentation phase to find which films I like best and then will stick with those. I grew up shooting Tri-X, that's all we shot and developed in our home darkroom, but oddly enough I haven't tried it yet as an adult. Once I start developing my own B&W that'll be first on my list. From the 1980s until about 2000 I shot either Kodachrome 64 or Agfachrome 100 and developed a skill for getting the best out of those films simply because I only shot those two and kept learning from what worked and what didn't. During all that time I also shot on only one lens (the 50mm that came with my Pentax ME Super) because I couldn't afford to buy any lenses. I liked working within those constraints....Show more →
From the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, a group of us would go to the various racetracks around SE Pennsylvania and get pit passes for the drag races. Agfachrome was my favorite. When I moved west in the mid 1980, it was a lot of Kodachrome. I liked Ektachrome and even did batches of E6.
Desmolicious wrote:
Just use NLP for the basic conversion and maybe adjusting the WB using the profiles they have. Do the actual editing in LR, I find it to be a much better tool.
It sounds like some of your pics may have been underexposed. As everyone I'm sure has already told you, much better to veer to over exposure if in doubt with C41 film.
My light panel arrived that you recommended. I tried rescanning one of the pictures and it was much brighter. It didn't need any exposure / brightness adjustments. So it looks like my usage of flash to light up the negative with the ES-2 was wrong. The panel seems like it'll work great, and much easier, so thank you!
lifeandmylens wrote:
My light panel arrived that you recommended. I tried rescanning one of the pictures and it was much brighter. It didn't need any exposure / brightness adjustments. So it looks like my usage of flash to light up the negative with the ES-2 was wrong. The panel seems like it'll work great, and much easier, so thank you!
Groovy. All I do is lay it on a table and hold the camera w ES2 etc over it, snap a shot. No need for tripod, copy stands etc.
He got those processed in ECN-2, which is not available in any of the labs in my town so I'll have to go with C-41, but we'll see how it turns out. I only bought one roll and am reserving it for particular weather conditions where I think it'll capture a particular mood. But we'll see. :-)
He used NC500. I used NC400 (c-41). But they both suck IMO.
