rating Kodak's Portra 400 BW at ISO 100/800-1600

Hi folks,

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

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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?

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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.

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Thanks for any comments.

According to <a

href"http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/films/portra

BW/qAndA.jhtml;jsessionid=LIBHPYU3VBL2NQHIO2SXWKI">Kodak</a>, you can

expose Portra 400 from ISO 50 to 1600. But I have not tried it yet...

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

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According to <a

href="http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/films/portr

aBW/qAndA.jhtml;jsessionid=LIBHPYU3VBL2NQHIO2SXWKI">Kodak</a>, you

can expose Portra 400 from ISO 50 to 1600. But I have not tried it

yet...

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.

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!

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 .

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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 .

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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 .

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The price point of the Fuji product is lower then the Kodak

especially mail order .

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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 .

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hope this helps

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

Portra film.

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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.

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

experiments.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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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?

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Thanks.

Just relised I totaly missunderstood the question thank you for

being so polite with my irrelevant post

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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.