First time seeing PORTRA 160

Just scanned these images in tonight and I think I have found my fav film for portraits. I genuinely prefer these over all the digital images I have taken over the last 2 years. You just cant beat those skin tones.

Here are just three images that I have scanned tonight - with more to follow.

I really am in a quandry about what portrait lens to buy when the 50 1.7 offers great dynamics like this. What a lens...

(all images with MZ-6 and M 50mm 1.7)



1)




2)




3)

The clue is in the name Portra comes in 'NC' (natural colours) and 'VC' (vivid colours) options. You might also like to try Fujicolor NPS160 (if it's still available).

Picking a portrait lens is as much about deciding how far away from your subject the camera & background are likely to be as anything else.

All three of those are wonderful shots, though I'd say the colour balance is off a bit - a little too magenta in the first one and very cold in the other two. Can I ask how they were scanned?

Your recent portraits and other shots on film are really motivating me to up my game in film. It's great to see other people using the medium, and especially to such good effect and using Pentax gear. I don't have the nerve to approach strangers for portraits though

The Portra films just come in one variety now I'm afraid, and have done for some years. I still have a few rolls of Portra 160NC in 220 though (expired in 2010), I got seven rolls (168 shots!) with the 124G I bought last year. It's beautiful stuff indeed.

I got 15 rolls of cheap Gold 200 this year and have recently found a shop with fairly cheap Fuji 100 (expired and discontinued), so there always seems to be a reason for me to use something other than Portra 160 in 135 format.

50mm is a very good length for portraits, as you show here. On digital, my favourite portrait lens is the DA 35mm limited, which has the same field of view.

Very well done, and keep them coming!

Thanks very much Johnathan - very kind words.

I am really enjoying shooting film at the moment and for my portraits its just fab.

As for the over-powering colours that are warm and cool in others - I just shoot and dont worry anymore about the outcome! For months I was coming home and tinkering with my RAW files for ridiculous amounts of time. The joy of this Portra film is that when the sun is shining the colours just explode. The day these were shot it was very cloudy but thats my fav conditions to be honest - less glare on the face etc

As for the scanning J?

I scan them on an Epson V500 scanner that I find to be terrific. I just set them in and scan at 3200 DPI

All I am doing in Lightroom is cropping the image slightly.

One thing that really IS annoying me though is the dust and hairs that are appearing on my neg uploads. Need to get myself a good rocket blower!

I really appreciate the comments mate.

Strong and engaging head shots Alastair I instantly recognise the Portra tones which I used myself for a few years, and therefore the scanning process must be praised also as its brought out the unique character ... In particular the rendition of the reds (including pink and purple) is very accurate and distinctive , eg the lips, background in 1 and 3, which is totally Portra.

I like the colour balance in 1 and 2, but I suggest shunting green down a bit for No 3.

Wow, I'm surprised to see such sharp scans from a V500 - exactly the same machine I use! Other people frequently manage to get better results out of it than I do though.

As for dust etc - I give my negatives and the inside of the scanner (top and bottom) a few good blasts with my rocket-blower, a few strokes with my lens brush and then use the high quality setting of the scanning software's ICE for good measure. I've never found dust to be a problem with these measures.

Recently I have started playing with fixing the colour balance more in the scanning software and I've found that my V500 consistently over-saturates the green channel, almost always. Sometimes I lower the red too, but I rarely have to touch the blue.

Just seeing this now guys. Thanks for the comments and advice

Amazing pictures. I like Mz-6 because it has full compatible K bayonet It works very well even with M lenses