Film for indoor natural light portraits

I use a lot of Kodak 400NC and Fuji 400H. I think Fuji 400 H may have an edge on handling the yellows of incandesent lighting.
 
In B&W my choice would be Tri X, but you can get great results from HP5+ and Neopan 400 as well. Moreover, if you are after a certain more "sunny" look, you might also consider Tmax 400.
Look through the photos of this guy:
http://www.heylloyd.com/
There are often technical references next to the photos. He only used available light.
 
In colour, Portra 400 NC will give you gorgeous colour rendition but in my experience pretty well any of the Fuji colour variants will handle mixed light better. BUt even 400 ASA colour might not be quite fast enough. Pushed BW might be a safer bet and give you more latitude. I did a fair bit of indoor candid photography a couple of years back on a project and used quite a lot of Fuji Press 800/Superia 800 with very satisfactory results, but have come to like Portra's more subtle and less contrasty look.
 
This might sound strange but to me the format is much more important then the brand/type of film. Example pretty much any Medium Format B&W IS0 400 film will give you very good results when shoot at 400-800 and many including HP5+ and Tri-X work well up to ISO 1600-3200.
So my choice for in door natural light portraits would be a MF rangefinder or TLR load with your favorite ISO 400 B&W film.
 
I've pushed both Neopan 400 and Tri-X and found the Neopan doesn't push well. At the most 1600 and at that it's to contrasty and grainy,though you may like that effect. 800 will give you the best results. Tri-X pushes real good at 1600 and with smoother tones. I may try it at 3200 and see how things come out.I use Parodinal home brew BTW. HOpe this helps.
 
If you really are after great tonality, you should rather pull the film... Either way, I would suggest again Tri X or TMX 400 at EI 200-250, OR pushed to EI 800 in DD-X.
 
Pull it if your light source is strong and direct (light beam) and you have no ambient light: in that case meter Tri-X at 200 with a short development.

But the common thing for available light indoor portraits in houses with white walls, is having soft ambient light and low contrast scenes, so a bit of contrast is perfect... Then Tri-X at 800 with longer development works very well...

Cheers,

Juan
 
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