{"id":111,"date":"2010-12-10T20:19:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T20:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/?p=111"},"modified":"2026-06-15T01:34:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T01:34:00","slug":"the-new-kodak-portra-400-wasnt-what-i-was-expecting-a-short-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/?p=111","title":{"rendered":"The New Kodak Portra 400 &#8211; Wasn&#8217;t What I Was Expecting &#8211; A Short Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<table align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;text-align: center\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5244\/5249817408_d1b8244a31_o.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto\" title=\"Playing Sunset Hoops by Metrix X, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Playing Sunset Hoops\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5244\/5249817408_d1b8244a31_o.jpg\" height=\"840\" width=\"825\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center\">From My First Roll Of The New Kodak Portra 400 Shoot With My <a class=\"zem_slink\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mamiya_C220\" rel=\"wikipedia\" title=\"Mamiya C220\">Mamiya C220<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>\nIt&#8217;s not often these days of digital that a new colour film is released by a major manufacturer.<\/p>\n<p>Last month Kodak released a new Portra film to replace both the Portra 400 NC and Portra 400 VC with just straight <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kodak.com\/global\/en\/professional\/products\/films\/portra\/400main.jhtm\">Portra 400<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>What was I expecting? Maybe a ISO 400 film with the best characteristics of Portra 160 VC and NC with maybe some of the pizazz of the new Kodak Ektar 100.<\/p>\n<p>What I got was a perfectly tame film. Good skin tones better then the old VC version of the film with slightly more saturated colours then the old NC version. <\/p>\n<p>Scanning is extremely easy, usually I have to play around with the scanner black and white points for each colour to extract the whole dynamic range of a negative. Not so with this Portra even under difficult sun back-lighting it&#8217;s one touch scanning. The problem with the scans is that they lack contrast basically dull with all the information packed nicely into a smooth histogram,unusable without further digital processing. Once processed the results are rather good.<\/p>\n<p>Portra 400 is definitely not a replacement for Portra 400 vc or nc it is a entirely new film designed for the digital age. This film fits the needs of a professional photographer that needs a film that works consistently well with their digital workflow. It&#8217;s not for those that want to develop and go directly to print. Yet with a bit of post both the new Portra and Ektar can make large prints that blow the DSLR out of the water in both colour and resolution.<\/p>\n<p><b>Pros :<\/b> Accurate skin tones, Sharp, Medium Saturation, Easy to scan<br \/>\n<b>Cons :<\/b> <strike>Needs post processing to bring out contrast <\/strike><a href=\"http:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/2012\/08\/new-kodak-portra-400-beautiful-when.html\" target=\"_blank\">update<\/a><br \/>\n<b>Best Uses :<\/b> Difficult Lighting, Batch Workflow<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5242\/5271315838_d672115fa7_o.jpg\" title=\"Fall Is Dead Long Live Winter by Metrix X, on Flickr\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Fall Is Dead Long Live Winter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5242\/5271315838_d672115fa7_o.jpg\" width=\"825\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From My First Roll Of The New Kodak Portra 400 Shoot With My Mamiya C220 It&#8217;s not often these days of digital that a new colour film is released by a major manufacturer. Last month Kodak released a new Portra film to replace both the Portra 400 NC and Portra 400 VC with just straight [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,27,2,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eastman-kodak","category-kodak-portra-400","category-photo","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112,"href":"https:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions\/112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metrix-x.rraz.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}