To see Fujifilm Pro 400H exposure tested and compared with several other film stocks, follow this link. To see a review of Pro 400H, go here.
While I had previously shot through multiple rolls of Pro 400H as can be noted in my review, I had yet to give it a fair shake metering exclusively at ASA 200. On a recent outing, I decided I would do just that.
As you may recall from my review on this film, I’m not particularly a fan. I don’t think it does a good job with skin tones on lighter-skinned people, I think it’s quick to get muddy shadows, and it’s a bit too contrasty without subtle transitions between the darkest part of the frames and lightest parts.
Shot at ASA 200, however, I must admit that these results of this roll have been very appealing to me. I very much look forward to heading back out again and shooting it again at 200. Perhaps I’ll even shoot it at 100!
I still look at this shot and find myself in love with the color. It’s so light and airy and perfect. This is what I imagined Pro 400H should look like from the beginning.
The 400 ASA films that I’ve tried enough to have an opinion about include: Kodak’s Tri-X and TMax 400 and Ilford’s HP5 and XP2 Super. At this point, TMax has become a pretty clear favorite. It is without a doubt my most used B&W film in 35mm and in 120, though I explore more films more often in 120, it is the film I go to for consistent performance. While I do try to explore more and more films all the time, it is difficult to replace the flexibility and acutance of TMax 400 when it comes to shooting 35mm B&W.
Tone
If I’m being completely honest, this is where I feel TMax 400 disappoints me the most. It’s hard to explain why, though. Over every other film I’ve tried like it, I love the sharpness of this film and lack of pronounced grain. What’s different about this stock that I don’t love is the amount of middle grey and overall lack of contrast that photos have when taken in strong, daylight scenarios. In dimly lit (tastefully lit?) situations, the contrast is upped enough though to really hit the sweet spot for me.
Portraits
I’ve tried this film a bit in the studio but I’ve not loved the results. That is for sure my fault and not the fault of the film. I prefer the lower speed of TMax 100 so that I can have more dependency on the strobes and stop down a couple extra stops where for 400 ASA, I lose some of the control because of the speed of the film. I suspect that with some practice in the studio, I will come to love this film a lot too but when you’re able to completely control the amount of light, why not go for the lower ASA? Using the film in natural light settings, I still don’t care much for the film in strong, daylight settings without some curves adjustment. In natural light when the light is very low, contrast is high and this film finds its stride.
Pushing and Pulling
I can honestly say that I have more experience pushing/pulling this film that any other film stock. I’ll start with saying that I don’t like the results from pulling this film. I can’t even imagine a context when someone would want to do it. Why did I do it then, you ask? Great question – I pulled it because I was in a pinch, wanted some 100 ASA film but only had TMax 400. So I pulled it and found the results to be far too bland.
I do not know how this film retains so much dynamic range when pushed. Though I don’t know if this is true, I wouldn’t be surprised if TMax 400 performs just as well if not better than TMax 3200P at 3200 ASA. It can be pushed more and more without having many if any faults. It is because it can be pushed so much without seemingly any repercussions that it has become my go-to B&W film.
Conclusion
Similar to TMax 100, my first experience with this film stock was on our Banff trip in 2019. I actually only brought it for the 35mm as a back up film and it produced some of my favorite frames from the entire trip. I was pretty skeptical to try it before then but after that trip, I bought a few more rolls in 35mm and when I finally got around to shooting them, I was pretty amazed with the results. I’ve continued to try it more and more and I have found my go-to B&W film.
Last thing I’ll say is that I recently picked up a Tamron lens with vibration control which allows me to shoot as slow as 1/13th of a second and still get tack-sharp photos. This, paired up TMax’s ability to be undersexposed and work out just fine, made for opportunities to shoot well into the evening and late at night. I love it.
If you’re wondering why I decide to take my annual trip to the mountains between March and April, the answer is simple. It’s generally still very cold so the summer tourists haven’t shown up yet but the height of skiing and snowboarding is past. As a result, the area is bit less packed out and the trails have started reopening (if they were ever closed). Not to mention that at the times the airfare is a good deal less expensive as are the hotels.
Anyhow – on this particular trip, we left for a couple week trip in Germany and western Austria just as the novel corona virus was troubling northern Italy but before it started being so widespread. On the day we were flying back, we learned there were several documented cases of COVID-19 in Innsbruck and luckily for us we were able to be screened a couple days after being back. With the self quarantine that we are still currently in, I’ve been able to get all the B&W and C-41 developed and scanned. On the trip I was able to try out the new Acros and Ilford Ortho in 120 and 35mm.
Fuji Neopan Acros II
I think this emulsion was the best film stock of all the film I went through on my trip. The rolls in 35mm were quite gorgeous and capable of producing some wonderful prints – I shot all of those in the Friedberg and Frankfurt area. The 120 was shot in Innsbruck and man, are the resulting frames just beautiful. Very low grain and high acutance made for some spectacular photographs that I’m very excited to make prints of.
View from Nordkette
View from Nordkette
Brandon at Nordkette
Driving around Austria
As I mentioned above, I shot 2 rolls of 120 and 2 rolls of 35mm. The 2 35mm rolls were not shot in the Alps but I thought they were splendid. I’ll share some of those frames below.
Rauchbier is AMAZING
Dr H at the Avery’s
On a train
Friedberg Loves Elvis
The Averys
Ilford Ortho Plus
What an interesting film. If I’m being entirely honest, I was very nervous to shoot this stock. I was excited by the build up around it and some of the 4×5 work I had seen but have heard mixed feelings about the 120 and 35mm emulsions. I can see why too. For an 80 ASA film, the grain was quite a good deal aggressive and very weird. I cannot say that I’m in love with the stock nor that I intend to buy it again any time soon. Of the 2 rolls of 35mm that I took, we only shot through one of them and even that one was shot by my buddy Brandon. To start, I’ll go through some of the 120 shots.
From a hike in Innsbruck
Brandon atop Nordkette
View from downtown Innsbruck
I actually prefer the shots from the 35mm. Perhaps it was the focal length (45mm) or Brandon’s eye that caught such nice frames. Either way – the results were intriguing.
This past trip to Arizona was my third time visiting and every time I go, I grow more and more in love with the environment. Last year when we went, we visited Flagstaff but this year we split our time between Sedona and the Superstitions.
Prior to heading out, I picked up several rolls of Ilford FP4 and at a camera shop in Phoenix, I picked up some Velvia 100. In Sedona I was shooting through a lot of Ektar and Provia and didn’t manage to load up the FP4 or Velvia until we rolled into the Superstitions.
Admittedly, I didn’t particularly love either of these film stocks. Since the trip to AZ, I’ve shot through some 4×5 sheets of FP4 and didn’t much care for them either. That said, I’ve started developing my own B&W at home and have found that for some reason I’ve getting a lot more grain than I’m used to getting from the Darkroom so it may well be my own fault for not liking it.
In general, I expect 100ish (it’s 125) ASA film to have extremely fine grain. While I know that FP4 is a traditional grain structure and not T-grain, I still expected a bit less grain than I felt I was getting. In total, I’ve only gone through 3 rolls and 1 box of 4×5 sheets so I know I still need to give it a bit more practice before making a final judgement.
The Velvia produced my least favorite shots of the whole trip. Perhaps I’ve become accustomed to Provia too much and the difference wasn’t to my liking. It’s also possible that I was just shooting it in the wrong lighting. I started/finished the roll in the afternoon started with high sun and ending during the golden hour. There was a HUGE difference in the saturation and tones between those two situations. Perhaps if I shot the entire roll during the golden hour, I’d be singing a different tune. Either way – I’ve since picked up another roll and intend to give it another go.
This article is going to compare Kodak films Portra 160, Portra 400, and Portra 800. For exposure testing data on Portra 400, Portra 400 shot and developed at 800, Portra 800, and 8 other film stocks, please refer to this article. For an additional reference of Portra 400 shot and developed at 800, please refer to this article.
To ensure consistency throughout the experiment, all of the shots were taken using the exact same camera/lens combo. To accomplish this, 3 different film backs were used, each loaded with a different Kodak Portra film. The control conditions were as follows:
Camera: Mamiya 645 Pro TL
Lenses: 80mm f/2.8 N, 150mm f/3.5 N, 300mm f/5.6 N-ULD
Lighting (Portrait Only): 2 Profoto B1X with diffusers
Light Meter: LUMU Light Meter iPhone app
All films were developed at a local lab here in Columbus, OH and scanned at home using an Epson v600. All provided images were the converted negatives straight from the scanner software included with the v600.
Results
As perhaps could have been expected, I didn’t prefer one film over the rest in all contexts. Overall, I preferred Portra 800 over 160 and 400 in most situations with a strict exception to portraits.
All told, we took 3 different sets of portraits (though only posting one) and in all 3, Portra 800 was far too saturated. To a level that I, personally, looked jaundiced. I honestly expected Portra 160 to shine here but I honestly thought all of the scans turned out equally as pale. So much so that they looked a bit distasteful. I do expect that I could have remedied a good deal of that in settings in the scan or in PS after but again, all of the presented images are straight out of the scanner’s software.
Probably the only example series where I personally preferred Portra 160 over 800 and a little over Portra 400 was in the library. Portra 800 had a tendency to be too saturated in a situation when the color palette was fairly white. Similar to the portraits above, Portra 800 tends to turn whites yellow in a fairly unattractive way. Portra 400 was right in the middle but in a scene I would have preferred to remain bright and airy feeling, I preferred no yellow tint.
As for the other 3 samples, I did strongly prefer Portra 800. In the vines sample, I think 800 blew the other two out of the water. The colors are intense but in a way that accentuates the present colors without changing them into something undesirable. For the tower, all three returned a pretty distinct color palette – so much so that I went back and rescanned each with the expectation of getting more uniformity then but the scans came back virtually the same as the first pass – that all 3 are distinctly different. Finally, for the vertical tunnel at the OSU campus, I really think the saturation of Portra 800 shined. I loved the way those colors turned out.
Conclusion
I’m not sure that my opinion between the three is really going to change. I will continue to shoot more and more 800 in and around Ohio (or at least on trips where I’m not flying) and I will shoot Portra 400 as an old reliable.
Thanks
Special thanks to Matt Seal for being generous with letting us use his studio, Dr. H for being an uncomfortable model, and Nevin Johnson for his help with the scanning.
Soon after our trip to Banff, AB (color and B&W), we went to Montréal, QC for my birthday. I shot through roll Ektar when I arrived and picked up a roll of Cinestill BWXX for myself for my birthday. Unfortunately the weather was not so favorable and you can tell. So much so that a long hike from the city center to the top of Mount Royal resulted in a beautiful view of grey fog. I shot through most of the roll in the poor weather only to see it clear up as I went through my last few shots. Nevertheless, the moody weather felt right for a cinematic film.
Check out that view…
Top of Mount Royal.
Top of Mount Royal, facing away.
Acros and T-Max 400
As mentioned before, I shot through some other film and I honestly liked the results from them a bit more than the Cinestill. Still though… It’s good to try out some new stuff.
This article shows off some of the black and white negative film I tried out on my vacation to Banff, CA in April2019. To see some of the color negative work, please follow this link. Several of this films in this article have exposure tested and compared to other B&W negative films – this article is located here.
The Canadian Rockies were calling and we answered. In a moment of spontaneity and luck finding round-trip tickets for only 18k points, we got our tickets and booked a hotel within a couple hours and I immediately started thinking about what film I was going to take. For ease (and out of pure laziness) I needed to make sure everything was ASA 400 or slower so I didn’t have to have the film hand-checked.
For black and white negative film, I ended up taking a pro pack of T-Max 400 120 and 1 roll of 35mm. A few rolls of T-Max 100 120 and a couple rolls of Acros 120.
Acros
Of all the films I shot on this trip, I would say Acros was hands down the most interesting. I thought the clarity and the distinct transition from the darkest darks to the brightest brights combined to be such an interesting mix. I only ended up going through one of my two rolls I took and I honestly wish I shot more of it. I honestly wish they still made it…
T-Max 100
I liked this film but thought the shadows were not quite dark enough for my taste. I would have liked for a little more contrast. Nevertheless, I got this film in hopes of making some quality darkroom prints and I think they’ll do that splendidly.
T-Max 400
So this film – oddly enough – was only shot on my F100 (35mm format) even though I took an entire pro pack of it in 120. I just never got around to using it. The shots from it were fantastic and produced some of my favorites from the trip. Brittany was handling the F100 for half or so of the roll and despite typically disliking B&W film, I think she really enjoyed using the F100 and liked the results.
This article shows off some of the color negative film I tried out on my vacation to Banff, CA in April2019. To see some of the black and white negative work, please follow this link. Several of this films in this article have exposure tested and compared to other color negative films – this article is located here.
The Canadian Rockies were calling and we answered. In a moment of spontaneity and luck finding round-trip tickets for only 18k points, we got our tickets and booked a hotel within a couple hours and I immediately started thinking about what film I was going to take. For ease (and out of pure laziness) I needed to make sure everything was ASA 400 or slower so I didn’t have to have the film hand-checked.
For color negative film, I ended up taking a pro pack of Portra 400 (per usual), Ektar, and Portra 160. I also ended up taking a few rolls of Fuji Provia and Ektachrome.
Portra 160
I gave this film a shot after Matt Seal suggested it a few times. I had shot through two rolls previously and didn’t much care for either. I found it to not be very flexible for my shooting style and didn’t much care for the way it rendered colors.
That said… This film took some of my favorite photos AND my least favorite photos of the trip. The ones that worked out really killed it. The ones that didn’t work out reminded me a lot of my first attempts in that the colors weren’t really on point and the shadows were pretty muddied.
Below are my two favorite photos from my trip. Both were taken with Portra 160.
Ektar
Prior to this trip, I had actually shot through a couple rolls of Ektar and hated them both. Admittedly, I think my distaste for them came from the scans from the lab- the lab I was using had a knack for boosting up the saturation to a point beyond my tolerance for it. Since then I’ve seen the work of Pete Gotz and David Chan and decided to give it another shot. I doubt I would have made that first attempt on a vacation I’ve looked forward to so much but in all honesty, it was their pictures of Banff with this film that really turned me on to their work pushed me to try this film again.
Anyhow- I shot through a pro pack of it on this trip and I couldn’t have been happier with the results. It was a lot more versatile than I expected and the colors were really intense.
Below is my favorite photo I took with Ektar.
All in all, I was pretty blown away by the results of this film. Nothing was too bold and the colors were gorgeous. I’ve already picked up a few more rolls of this film and loaded it into my F100 when I went to Montreal.
Below are a few more of my other favorites from Ektar.
Portra 400, Provia, & Ektachrome
As you may know, I’ve shot through plenty of Provia and more than my fair share of Portra 400. And since it came back out again, I’ve been working my way through several rolls of Ektachrome. I know they aren’t new films for me but I thought I’d share a few of my shots from these great stocks. I’m posting the Provia first, then Portra 400, and concluding with Ektachrome.
To ensure consistency throughout the experiment, the film stock was the only experimental condition. The control conditions are as follows:
Camera: Hasselblad 501CM
Lens: 60mm f/3.5 CB
Lighting: 2 Profoto B1X with diffusers
Light meter: Sekonic Lightmaster
Focusing Aid: Schneider Kreuznach 4x loupe
The loupe was used to set the focus at the start of the exposure test for each film stock. To ensure the exposure value (EV) was correct, the light meter (using an incident setting) was used to identify the neutral exposure as well as each EV in the center of the frame.
All B&W film was developed by the Darkroom Lab and all C-41 film was developed at home using a Jobo CPP2. All scans were done at home using an Epson V600. Each frame was scanned flat and adjusted in PS identically for all frames (‘true black’ was set by the darkest part of the record).
Results
The results did not turn out as I expected. Although, for most of films tested, I had no idea what to expect. While there are some sources out there doing some exposure testing, I have not found a source completely satisfactory. I approached Matt Seal about this idea and told him I wanted to do it. His interest, skillset, and appreciation for the scientific method made the compliment to my own intellectual pursuits and scientific rigor. It seemed like the perfect opportunity for us to learn about how exposure changes an image and how that change differs by film stock.
For those getting into film, with the exception of the famously linear response curve of Acros 100 (R.I.P.), most all film stocks have a logarithmic-type response curve. While every film stock is different, most all of them adhere to this pattern. As such, when you get to a certain point, it becomes more and more difficult to increase exposure by a full stop. In the film world, this is known as reciprocity failure. It generally only affects long exposures and depending on the film stock, can result in some color shifting after a certain point.
Getting back on track – it is because of this behavior in the response curve that allows you to continue to pour in the light without blowing out the highlights. It should be noted that the response curve is what makes film so unique and separates it from digital. Between film stocks, it is not just that colors are rendered different ways but it also interprets light differently. Comparing film with digital, digital has a perfectly linear response curve. This means that it blows out the highlights much faster but conversely, it does not lose details in the shadows near as quickly.
Results – Color Film
Comparing the neutral exposures, the Ektar is good bit more punchy while having a more delicate transition in tones. Portra 800 is noticeably warmer than even the Portra 400 – something I expected as it’s more contrasty but I didn’t expect it to quite the extent that it was.
I think I was most impressed with the Ektar of all the film stocks. I’ve only used it twice and neither time did I like the outcome. Although admittedly, both times I only had the scans from the local film lab in Charleston – and they had a really bad habit of over saturating any and all scans to the Nth degree. After those, I’ve stayed away from it from it until this testing. As soon as I saw these results, I picked up 2 pro packs to take on a trip to Banff.
Between the 2 400 speed films, I think that the Portra 400 held up a bit better than the Pro 400H when it comes to overexposing by more than 2 stops. But if you prefer cooler tones, you would probably conclude the opposite.
Results – Black and White Film
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the stocks behaved in a similar way except for the Delta 3200 – which didn’t get crushed blacks near as quickly or dramatically. This isn’t particularly unexpected given the difference in emulsion and the fact that it’s actually just a really flexible 1000 asa film.
Probably the most surprising performance was TMax 100. I think that it stood up to underexposure better than any of the other stocks and while I don’t see myself ever accidentally (or purposefully) overexposing by 5 stops, I think it handled the contrasty parts quite well. All in all, I’m going to have to pick some of this up an shoot it immediately.
As for second place in the biggest surprise, Ilford HP5 did a great job in my opinion. Since I tend to find myself in positions of not having enough light more than too much light, I care a lot about the ability to be underexposed. In this area, I think HP5 did really well.
Last specific thing I’ll touch on – I was genuinely surprised to see how similar T-Max 400 and Tri-X were. The Tri-X had a bit more grit but overall they were pretty similar.
Special Thanks
Of course, a huge thanks to Matt for the encouragement and supplying the all the equipment and his technical know-how to make sure the scientific rigor was above reproach. Could not have done it without him.
Thanks to Pete for his input, insight, and participation in the peer review(-ish) process. His input has been extraordinarily helpful in ensuring everything was reported in a clear and reproducible way.
Similar to the story when I went to NYC, I went to Arizona in mid-late 2018 for Brittany’s birthday and we planned to go the Grand Canyon and Flagstaff for two days of hiking – two places I’ve never visited and was very excited to see. To make it even better, the quaking aspens outside of Flagstaff happened to be changing color. It happens only for about a week a year and there was no way for us to have planned for that when we booked the trip. As you can imagine, we felt quite lucky and wanted to take full advantage.
I decided to do the best, most well-thought out thing I could do. I was going to shoot through two stocks I’ve never used before and have little to no idea how they would behave. I may well never go back to these places again and it is extraordinarily unlikely I’ll be there again at the time of year to experience those same or even similar experiences. Obviously, if you want to make sure you leave with shots to remember the trip by, you would want to shoot with something reliable.
Instead, I loaded in a roll of Fujichrome Provia 100F into the Mamiya 645. I let the camera’s auto exposure mode do its thing as I’ve come to learn it’s pretty spot on. In fact, I would argue it’s more reliable than the meter in my F2. So there we had it. I put my faith in a new film and went for it.
On the same trip, at the same time in fact, I had a roll of Ektachrome E100 loaded in my Nikon F2. Given that the 645 only goes through 15-16 frames on a roll, I knew I could finish that and load in some Portra and get something from the day. But for the F2, the camera I shoot with primarily, it was a bit more of a vote of confidence in both myself, the camera, and the film. As with all slide film, the exposure latitude is narrow but the payoff is great. I 100% suggest it. It is without a doubt the most additive thing about film photography.
FILM PHOTOGRAPHY 