Tales on Film

Next up in the film guide is Kodak Portra 160VC, a medium speed color film at 160 iso. Now since a couple of months this film isn’t made anymore and will be replaced by the Kodak Portra 160. The VC in the film name stands for Vivid Color, according to the specs this film should be more saturated than most films.

As you can see in the above photo, the film is optimized for daylight. Although it’s supposed to be a saturated and contrasty film on a cloudy day, the photos come out a tiny bit cool.

Compared the color temperature with between the above photo and the one before, and you can see that kodak intended this film to be used in sunlight, with very bright colors.

When the film is used inside you get an orange cast, it’s quite hard to get it nicely balanced with artificial light. It’s not the best option to use portra 160VC inside, although with a bit of tweaking afterwards, you could still use it.

Overall I like this film for shooting outside, but I do like nicely saturated and contrasty pictures. The grain on the film is also almost non existing, which is makes it a great film for outdoor portraits at sunrise, sunset or slightly overcast days. Be aware of the limitations of this film, but you can use it to your advantage, is I did in the photo above, by using the film with an external flash in a light tent. The white balance was almost spot on.

I noticed in the search results of this site, that there is a huge interest in the different film types you can find. I’m only reviewing the film I have used till now and keep in mind that these are my personal opinions

At the moment in Aalst, where I happen to live, there is the famous carnival going on. Yesterday during the parade, I got dressed up as a 1920-1930′s photographer, as I have some cameras from that period I took them with me. I went all out and shot 3, almost 4 rolls of film. I shot 2 rolls of 120 and 1 roll of 35mm, the other 35mm is still in the camera. I shot with the Rolleiflex standard 622 and with the Canon AV-1 (I know, this one is not really from the same period, but I needed a 35mm camera too.)

It was a challenge to shoot a moving parade, with people dancing, with a completely manual camera. So I metered a couple of times during the parade, which took about 8 hours to complete the tour, and just set the aperture and shutter time, cocked the shutter and focussed at a certain distance and waited for the subject to hit the spot. I got some hit and miss in between, but I also made some quite good pictures.

During the following days, I will post more photos as they come along.

If you want to see all the photos, go checkout the Flickr-set

by ApplefanBE shot with a Mamiya C330 on Kodak Portra 160VC