I honestly can't justify shooting Portra 400 with the results that I've been getting with Gold. I actually bought a few rolls of 160 yesterday but only because I managed to find a small film shop that it still selling them at their old price. Other than that, Gold is my go-to film stock for portrait shoots. This was a really nice comparison, straight to the point. Well done mate!
Thank you sir. Just moved all my portra from the fridge to the bin tbh. Nice find, might be worth investing on some second hand rolls to keep the price down also 🙂
Your portraiture is effortless man, incredible work. I’ve honestly been loving Gold. Just can’t justify the cost of portra for what it renders these days. Loved this video and thanks for such a versatile comparison.
This is the first time I came across this channel, and man, what a start. I really like your style of portraiture, there are some bangers to be seen here. Also, great work by the model, beautiful expression in her face, knows how to handle herself very well. And the video is so well made aswell, really like the camera placement, and those tones... Subbed ofc.
I decided that my go to film is Portra 800 because it costs just ~10$ more than 400 (~20$ more than Gold) and I can shoot it at both 400 and 200 and it gives really beautiful colors.
Thank you! I did a few livestreams on editing a while back (can be viewed on patreon now if you're interested). But yeah, might consider putting something together for the channel also 🙂
I sold my leftover film when covid started because I thought it would be worthless after that and I wouldn't get to shoot it before expiring. Maybe that wasn't one of my better decisions. Oh well at least it got used (presumably)
Just watched this video and WOW! I picked a Mamiya because of you. Your portraits /colors are amazing. You need to do a workshop Id totally do that. Great stuff and video can't wait to take some portraits!
Portra has its place, but I think that Kodak are taking the mickey with current price increases. Ektar is a viable alternative and have found it is very flattering for certain skin tones & hair colour types an can really pop. Don't be put off by the Wes Anderson over saturation look as that can be dealt with in post.
Back in the day I was a Fuji Ambassador - my job was to travelling around the country from time to time to give lectures on Wedding Photography to up and coming wedding photographers whilst extolling the virtues of Fujifilm NPS160 and NHG400 all the while knowing that I actually used Portra because it was better and still is than anything Fuji has ever produced!!!! Addendum Gold really is gold - the skin tones so warm and yet beautifully natural they leap at you.
@@radicaleyemag Late 90's - I was am still am a Wedding Photographer - Mark Cleghorn - excellent wedding and portrait photographer was an ambassador too - I had won the Fujifilm Wedding Photographer of the year 3 years in a row - back then it was all in the printing and since I had my own darkroom my staff used to not only of course print my work but some other wedding photographers too - Mark could not enter the competition because he was a Fuji Ambassador - he recommended me to Fujifilm to become an ambassador and since we were already a Fuji Approved lab (also a Kodak Q Lab) I said yes - I think it was about 4 lectures a year that I did - anyway he left the ambassadorship as I joined - he brought a neg in for me to hand print - I think they did about ten versions of it - burned dodged etc - and then he entered it and won!!!!! Sneaky fellow!!!!!
Call me crazy - I just did a nice film haul myself. I saw 120 Portra 400 for over $300 USD. IN-SANE. So I decided to get a 5-pack of Fuji Pro 400H 120 for $44 USD. We'll see how THAT goes! When it comes to Gold, the GREEN is definitely a characteristic of the FILM. I shoot Ultra Max 400 all the time (it's Gold 400, basically) and I get green tones there, too. And although film is pricey, having someone else develop film is worse for me, I think. Last time I had labs to my dev and scans, it was over $50 USD for (3) 35mm rolls! And you gotta WAIT! I said, "screw that" and do it all myself now. OMG, the SAVINGS....to BUY MORE FILM! XD Cheers.
Beautifully filmed and interesting topic for the video. I'm from Germany and it makes more sense to buy a roll of Portra 400 for 14.50€ instead of Gold cause Gold is literally nowhere available for me.
Definitely Kodak Gold is the new go to film, the prices, the result that you expose in this video, everything is made to use it as an everyday film With a golden light the Kodak Gold is simply amazing, more than the Portra in my opinion. I think every photographer need to reconsiderate if Portra in term of the price is worth enough. Amazing photos & video as always ! Much love & support
Thanks for this great video! Have been back and forth about which stock to stick with since the prices increased and was about to buy portra. However, I’m curious if they are also this similar in some other conditions.
Gold, when metered right, can hang with the best of them, honestly Get a nice flat scan and then do some minimal edits to really bring out the warm character in the film It will definitely replace Portra 400 for me temporarily I'll still invest in Portra 800 though
Beautiful work as always, what f-stop are you using here on the 110? Do you set and forget after reading the light or adapt depending on the composition?
afraid I can't 100% remember the exact settings - wasn't wide open though as I had a little bit of extra light to play with. For each roll i metered the first shot and then went with it, bar a few which seemed like I needed to re-meter.
Great comparison video, I’d definitely urge people to try gold. The one thing that I wasn’t keen on (and this is just me) was how flimsy the gold negative felt when printing it in the darkroom. Im definitely going to continue to find a use for it when not using portra but that was my one critique, other than that, it’s a nice film stock.
@@radicaleyemag awesome! I love your look. I’m trying to separate myself from the lab and learn how to edit myself. I could learn a lot from photographers like you and others I admire
The way that you edit gives it a ra4 print film look, I really dig it. Are you tweaking shadows with curves or bringing down the blacks slider in lightroom? It would be cool to see a video on how you edit. Thanks!
Thank you, yeah I use photoshop, but try to bring the blacks down and make them feel richer. Had a lot of requests for an edit video, will consider that for sure once I figure out the best way of doing it.
"How my lab scans Gold 200 vs Portra400" Honestly, I don't understand why no one in film community on yt talks about it? The colours of the film are mainly determined by your lab. You will see much greater differences with the same stock, but different labs, than with two different stocks in the same lab. More over there are sometimes a huge difference between different scanner operators in the lab, since the scans are edited in a lab by operators' taste. And it was always the case, since the start of digital scanning. If you are not doing direct printing yourself, this colours talks are pointless. The greatest difference you'd see is in details, but you did not say anything about it. Not a single 100% crop in the video shown. And probably there's a substantial difference in dd - but then again, you are not scanning your film on Imacon to talk about it. Tbh, if the end goal of the photos is instagram/youtube, the only big noticeable and objective difference is the hashtag you'd use under them.
Your right on a point that it's about the lab guy who "choose" the colors but what ever the film process you still gonna see the difference between one film & another one what ever the lab, if that was not the case why kodak are making different kind of film & about the other brands (fuji film, cinestill...) so that argument is not really valid.
@@theobibard of course you will. But you can't talk about it objectively, since your are further in the image pipeline and have no idea what was done to your negative to look the way it looks. (also Cinestill is Kodak)
Good point. Partly. I dont think you can say that all Kodak film has the same colours natively. Also the scanner doesn’t determine everything since the adjustments made in scanner are limited. Color balance in the scanner is one thing, behaviour of color performance throughout the different luminance levels in your scene and exposure levels is another.
I sold all my Portra back in 2020 to invest in NFTs and ETH. Gold looks great here. Between this and Kyle McDougall's comparison, I can assure you that I won't be picking any up because they don't make it in 4x5. But if they did, I would probably still buy Portra because I refuse to change. Anyways, cheers.
Hmmm 🤔 ... Buy outrageously priced film, or save up and buy that Leica Q2 that I thought I couldn't afford. Decisions decisions 🤔 Ok ... I'll admit that I don't have any ambition to burn money, burn through film, invest in gold or even buy a camera with a red dot on it. I've gone over to the dark side, and it's digital all the way for me.
Is it Butter or is IT Margarine - Ok the truth that you cannot compare the difference of Gold to Portra, to Lomocolor AKA Repackage Kodak Film, to Fuji Film or the new euro color & B/W films, and also the main important thing that you did not look at this, Your using a Mamiya camera, I using a Plaubel, and Zeiss cameras, She is using a Hasselblad, and he is using a Pentax 6X7, Different cameras, and lenses will give you a DIFFERENT LOOK, Optics, and Camera Machinery as well - Remember That - Video get a C-
