Kodak Film Tests

T

Tim Gray

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I ran some film exposure tests on some Kodak pro films that you guys may or may not be interested in. I tested Ektar 100, and all the Portras (160NC, 160VC, 400NC, 400VC, and 800). I did NOT scan them myself. I had them scanned at NCPS, the budget scans. I shot them all in full daylight, with some mixed lighting on the 800.

They all have a remarkable amount of exposure latitude. Most of the films look fine at -1 and are perfectly useable up to +3 or +4 stops. I'm sure if you scanned yourself you could get more out of the over exposed shots, particularly in the highlights.

All the films have very similar looks. Portra 800 looks a bit more yellowish-green to me. Not sure if the scanner operator made some correction or if that's what the film actually looks like.

Here's the link.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tgray1/collections/72157623656649261/
 
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I would like to see this but I can't get your link to work. I'm not good on the computer so maybe I'm doing something wrong, but for me it just doesn't work.

I just clicked on your Flickr and it is at the top of your Photostream.
 
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Did you do adjustments on these in an editing program? Or did the scanning vendor adjust them? Did you tell him/her to turn off his automatic adjustment for exposure? They seem so similar that I can't believe that there wasn't some algorithm adjustment in someones software. But it does show the latitude that these films have either way.
 
Sorry about that. I forgot this place doesn't accept HTML. I fixed it (I think).

I let the scanner operator make adjustments as they saw fit. I don't know exactly what they did. This test wasn't supposed to be a super controlled test. I should be able to improve upon these results with home scanning, but this test was supposed to see how the film and scans reacted with affordable mid-quality scans.
 
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Had to copy and paste a the URL from the link into my browser to get to them, but the results you've posted are pretty astounding! I'd love to see some 35mm tests as well.
 
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