Portra 400

Portra 400 is the stock a portrait photographer names first, and the reason is latitude. A face stays a face at two stops over and at one stop under. Nothing in the picture has to be measured exactly, so the photographer can work fast and still get usable skin.

It is also the reference point for the words film look. Name Portra 400 and a model gives you low saturation, a warm cast, fine grain and gentle contrast in one go. Every other colour stock in this file is easier to describe as a move away from it.

Name the stock, then name the saturation and the contrast. Ask for a low saturation, low contrast colour negative with a soft highlight roll-off.

Overexpose it. Portra is built to be shot at one or two stops over, and that is where the pale, airy version of the look comes from. Say exposed one stop over in the prompt.

Steer the three things that carry the bias. Skin comes back creamy and neutral, not tanned. Green foliage goes muted and slightly yellow. The sky goes pale and desaturated rather than deep blue.

Use it for people: portraits, weddings, editorial, and any picture where a face carries the frame.

Leave it alone when the picture needs strong colour. A red rock landscape or a bold product on a coloured ground goes flat on Portra. Ektar 100 does that job.

Portra 800 is the same family one stop faster. It carries more grain, a little more contrast, and it holds skin better under tungsten light. Pro 400H is the opposite bias at the same speed: cool, with green in the shadows.

Cinema publishes Film Grain as its own entry at /techniques/cinema/, and that entry is the grain alone, at any strength you ask for. This entry is a whole stock, and the fine grain is one part of it beside the warm cast and the low contrast.

Kodak launched the Portra family in 1998 as four films: 160NC, 160VC, 400NC and 400VC. In 2010 Kodak replaced the NC and VC pair with a single Portra 400 and cut the grain, and Portra 160 followed in 2011. It is still the stock most wedding and editorial photographers buy, and Kodak has raised the price several times since 2019 without losing them.

The model returns a saturated, contrasty digital photograph with grain sprinkled over it. Say low saturation and low contrast, and ask for a soft highlight roll-off rather than bright highlights.

The skin comes back orange. The warm cast belongs in the highlights and the light, not in the face. Say the skin is creamy and neutral, and name the overexposure instead of the warmth.