New Portra 400 - 1st scan shows surprising sharpness, fine grain

<p>I've got my first roll of Kodak Portra 400 back from the lab, and scanned a few frames.<br>

Below you can see one of them. It's no work of art, but then it wasn't meant to be anyway ;-)<br>

First, the full frame, resized to 700 pixels wide:</p><div></div>

<p>I originally scanned this at 3600dpi. Here is a 100% crop from the full-resolution scan (sharpened). The sharpness is almost puzzling - you can almost feel the texture of the wood -, while the grain is surprisingly fine for a 400 speed film:</p><div></div>

<p>OK, that's what the highlights and the lighter midtones look like.<br>

The darker midtones should look grainier, right? Right, but I think they're not too bad either:</p><div></div>

<p>Finally, a crop showing shadow detail. Remember, this and the other two crops are from a high-resolution, 3600ppi scan. This film really DOES allow for surprisingly big enlargements, even if shot in 35mm format.</p><div></div>

<p>Zoltan, Which scanner did you use? What size film? 35mm (hinted at) or 120? Encouraging results. Thanks for the lesson. I like 160 NC (old version) so I am encouraged by this 400 ISO demo. Best, LM</p>

<p>The film is even better without the noise added by the scanner (appears to be a flatbed). This is with a coolscan. Link for full size:<br>

http://shutterclick.smugmug.com/Photography/Portra-400-and-TMAX-400-G/15789423_WvenE#1429190919_x8zmj8H-O-LB<br>

Great film!</p><div></div>

<p>Len, it's 35mm. I did shoot a roll of 120 film too, but it's still waiting to be scanned - I haven't the means to scan medium format myself.</p>

<p>Mauro, it's not a flatbed (I'd be surprised if a flatbed could produce this sort of sharpness at 100%, at 3600dpi), but no Coolscan either. This scan was done on a Plustek OpticFilm 7500i. I agree that what you see here is an interplay of actual film grain (dye clouds), grain aliasing and perhaps scanner noise, but it's still encouraging.</p>

<p>That is quite encouraging - I am thinking of buying a Plustek. Maybe not quite 100% of the Coolscan, but probably better value. :-)</p>

<p>I took a crop of Mauro's file and performed selective Gaussian blur in the GIMP, and compared it to the non-filtered version. This is the most primitive form of noise reduction but the results were not bad. I set radius to 2.00 and max. delta to 20. Top version is non-filtered. Notice how most of the fine detail remains in the filtered version.</p>

<p><a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/84/mauroflowerssgb.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/5258/mauroflowerssgb.th.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br>

<a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/84/mauroflowerssgb.jpg/" target="_blank"><br /></a><br>

Some fine tuning could produce better results. And you could do even better with proper NR software (I'm still not sure which to buy!).</p>

<p>You could blur the background but the original is 100% smooth on a 16x20 print from 35mm.</p>

<p>Portra 400 is a breakthrough 400iso color neg. Thanks again to Kodak.</p>

<p>The Plustex is not bad and it is only slightly soft. The only thing is the noise it shows appears to be film grain but it is not, I think it is a combination of digital noise and low DR in the shadows. Like I said, not bad.</p>

<p>If you think the new Kodak Portra 400 is good try the New Portra 160 it's fantastic.</p>

<p>Also the 160 at 100EI allows you to use fill flash in daylight. Both superb.</p>

<p>Thanks for the great post, and particularly to Mauro for the additional info! And to Kodak!!</p>

<p>Mauro, could you elaborate on the improvements that the new Portra 400 has over a film I've loved, and am fairly familiar with, Portra 400 NC? And particularly, do you think the new Portra 400 might be very appropriate for critical nature work? To give some background, I've been using E100g for nature for a long time, and love it. But of course, many times it would be nice to have a 400 speed film.</p>

<p>Ben (and Mauro, of course), could you please elaborate on how the new Portra 160 differs from the old Portra 160 NC, with which I am slightly familiar?</p>

<p>I find Portra 400 to have better colors (more vibrant but not overly saturated), much greater DR, much smaller grain, better contrast and sharpness than 400NC. No comparison.<br>

<br /> I only use Portra for landscapes or cityscapes when I look for and easy on the heart feel - most cases I use Velvia 50 though. Portra does make me feel great, as it where fall time in the 1970's (in my mind).<br>

<br /> I used the new 160 just a little, very similar to 160NC finer grain perhaps.</p>

Jeff, having used both, the new one has less grain and for me comes out quite... not sure what the word ought to be...

smooth, I guess. I find it requires a bit more effort with the color on the scans, it's not like the NC which is almost

foolproof, but once you get it right you're rewarded.

<p>Thanks Mauro! As mentioned, I loved the old 400 NC, so now I'm really excited about this new one! I think I understand what you're saying about the look for landscapes and cityscapes... It might be too much to expect a single film to do everything, but I won't hesitate to use this for some scenic type images :). Maybe it's good that films like Velvia and Ektachrome still have a reason for being, too! Interesting what you find about the 160, also. I didn't even have a problem with the old 400 NC's grain, so I think I'll be perfectly fine with these new emulsions. Thanks again!</p>

<p>Really interesting Andy, thanks! I have some new 400 ready to go, and can't wait to shoot it!</p>

 

<p>Jeff, the new Portra 400 exceeded my expectations (and pretty much everyone else 's). You'll do great with it.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Wow! Unfortunately, it's raining here today, but I will be shooting at the first opportunity!</p>

<p>This is the best 400 speed color film I've ever used....ever. It brought new life to my classic film cameras! Amazing stuff!</p>

<div></div>

<p>It converts to B&W brilliantly. So sharp, so smooth. Thanks Mauro, for the test rolls, I'm a convert.</p><div></div>

<p>I love this stuff, especially in 120. Here's a shot taken of a friend of mine back in May. Rolleiflex 6006 with 800mm lens. Scanned using Silverfast:</p>

<p><img src="http://gallery.leica-users.org/d/270823-2/web_crop.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="583" /></p>

<p>Very nice Vrod take.</p>

<p>So nice Jim!.</p>

<p>Louis, here is the same shot side-by-side with 400iso (portra vs TMAX). Can you please apply the same conversion you did on the Vrod? I would like to see how it does (personally, I cannot recreate b&w from color reliabily- unless I have the b&w shot as well to extract the color mixer and the texture).</p>