Mike Brodie "the Polaroid Kidd" - What film?

<p>In the work of Mike Brodie I find an incredibly beautiful color and tone.<br>

I wonder if anyone of you would know or recognize what specific kind of film this is shot on?<br>

And is it ONLY polaroid or also 35mm Neg/Slide?<br>

Thank You!<br>

<a href="http://mikebrodie.net/projects/gallery/">http://mikebrodie.net/projects/gallery/</a></p><div></div>

<p>If it's Polaroid, it looks like the peel-apart color films. Not the look I associate with any of the "integral" films (SX-70, Spectra, etc).</p>

<p>I was also much impressed of the work of Brodie and liked the colours very much. I doubt very much that the example shown are Polaroids. My guess is "Kodak Portra".</p>

<p>According to various recent interviews, including <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Photographer-Mike-Brodie-spent-6-years-riding-the-5219695.php"><strong>this one</strong></a>, he began with an SX-70 but switched to 35mm film after the Polaroid film became unavailable. If you search around you'll find more hints from Brodie himself about the materials he used. It was nothing special or unusual and he says himself that he didn't know much about cameras, film or photography. He simply has an innate knack for the genre.</p>

<p>@ Stefan T. - Would you say 160 or 400 - NC/VC? @ Lex - thank you for your link. And I agree that he has talent! What is your thoughts on what film?</p>

<p>Considering Mike's comments about not paying much attention to camera gear or anything other than capturing the nuances of the moment, I'd be surprised if he used any film back then that wasn't readily available at the local pharmacy or grocery store. So I'd rule out Kodak Portra or Fuji pro films like NPH.</p>

<p>Ten or so years ago there were some pretty decent consumer grade films readily available in every grocery store, pharmacy and even truck stop. The real key was getting good processing, particularly at the printing stage. Fortunately even the local pharmacy or Walmart minilab could do a pretty good job in that era.</p>

<p>Also note that many of the sample photos on his website appear to have been taken under low to moderate contrast lighting. I don't see any examples that appear to have been taken under bright direct sun. That makes a bigger difference in the results than the choice of film.</p>

<p>Here's an offhand list of common films from that era that were readily available in any store:</p>

<ul>

<li>My personal favorite was Fuji Superia X-tra 800, but the 400 version was readily available too.</li>

<li>Kodak Gold 100 and 200 were also very good, with good skin colors and realistic saturation without excessively punchy colors.</li>

<li>Kodak 400UC was punchy with heavily saturated reds, but I tended to avoid that for people pix.</li>

<li>Occasionally I even found Fuji Reala 100 in 35mm in ordinary stores - great stuff.</li>

<li>Almost every pharmacy and grocery chain had its own in-house relabled film that was usually made by Fuji, Agfa or Ferrania. If the box said made in Italy I skipped it - Ferrania was awful stuff. But I used lots of the consumer grade relabeled Fuji (often labeled made in the Netherlands) or Agfa.</li>

</ul>

<p>Again, the most important characteristic is the reproduction from the negatives, not the film itself. A decade ago when he was doing that project while traveling around you could still find competent minilabs everywhere. Nowadays it's almost impossible to find a decent minilab in many areas. If you judge any film based on the typical minilab results now you'd be misled. As an example of how badly minilab processing had deteriorated over a decade, our local corner Walgreens used to turn out excellent work - good enough that I wouldn't hesitate to use them for quick results when I needed prints faster than the pro labs could deliver in two days. But by their final year, 2012, they were doing almost no training or maintenance. The last straw came when an untrained employee scanned the negatives at something like 600x400 pixels and tried to make 4x6 prints from those low resolution scans - the prints had huge, messy checkerboard JPEG artifacts clearly visible, and the prints looked like mud, yet the employee running the machine had no idea what was wrong or how to do it properly.</p>

<p>Also, for Mike's book projects, it's very likely those negatives were rescanned and edited professionally. It's even possible some color grading was done to scans to achieve some uniformity among batches of dissimilar films. But only he would know for certain. Email and ask him whether the website and book reproductions are scans of his original minilab prints, or rescanned by himself or a pro lab.</p>

<p>Any good C41 film will give you results like that. The way the negatives are scanned, processed and printed has much more effect on the final result than the actual emulsion used. With todays limited choice I would use Kodak Portra 400 for just about everything.</p>

<p>Thank you very much for your helpfulness!</p>