Kodak Portra 400 is renowned for it’s subdued colour rendition and pleasing skin tones. For me personally, I’m not a huge fan but will often buy a few rolls and are usually never disappointed in the results. As with all film and cameras and lenses, a lot depends on the lighting and I really don’t think buying any expensive film is going to make a huge difference. Some of my favourite shots are with cheaper films and for 99% of the people who shot film, I don’t think they’re going to be able to tell the difference between most of the films, with the exception of something like Velvia which is easy to identify.
Living in Hong Kong, where more often that not it’s overcast, or if it’s sunny, there’s so much haze and pollution that it just makes all the colours disappear, so I choose to shot black and white a lot of the time. When I travel, especially to somewhere that has clear skies, I’ll usually be taking Fuji’s Provia 400X Slide film and the cheaper Fuji Industrial 400. For the extra price that Kodak Portra 400 is, I don’t se any reason to buy it when the results aren’t that much different.
To prove that fact, there’s an image in here shot with Fuji Industrial 400. If you can tell me which one it is, I’ll run through Times Square naked, which, let me tell you, will not be a pretty sight. Although it’s sure to get a few laughs. Looking through all my photos I think I’ve only shot about 5-10 rolls of the stuff so will have to buy some more and see what I can do with it knowing a bit more about photography than when I shot these.
Here’s a few more sample images of Kodak Portra 400 shot with a Leica M6 and 35 Summicron V3.
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