Kodak Professional Portra 400BW - Expired

I exposed another expired 35mm roll of Kodak Portra 400 BW.

I'm unsure why or how it happened, but I exposed almost an entire cartridge of expired Kodak Professional Portra 400BW with pictures of my orange tabby, Alphonso Mango. I had written "snow day" in my notes, but when I looked at the scans, I realised that I had also written the same thing on the notes for the expired Ilford HP5 400 I had exposed the previous day. I intended to expose both cartridges from the box of expired 35mm film during the snow. But ... I didn't.

Kodak Professional Portra 400BW was a multi-purpose chromogenic black and white negative film designed to be processed in standard C-41 chemistry alongside rolls of colour negative film and printed on traditional colour paper. It was developed like a colour-negative film in the C-41 process and delivered monochrome images like a black-and-white film. The film was intended for exposure with daylight, electronic flash, and artificial illumination. Kodak Professional Portra 400BWW was a versatile film for 35mm and medium format cameras. It was made with a Kodak T-Grain emulsion and had a wide exposure latitude. Production of the Kodak Portra 400BW was discontinued and replaced with Kodak Professional BW400CN, which was also discontinued. This film incorporated Kodak T-GRAIN® emulsions, which provided wonderful grain and sharpness at a relatively high speed. This film was used for portrait and wedding applications and many commercial applications.

The first time I used Kodak Porta 400BW, I exposed it at box speed. I realised then that I needed to overexpose the expired film. I exposed this 35mm roll of Kodak Professional Portra 400BW at ISO 100. The results are much better. But I think ISO 160 may have produced better results.

The film cartridge was developed at Boutique Photo Lab and scanned on my Epson Perfection V600 with VueScan 9. I processed the negative scans using Negatvibe Lab Pro, adjusted the exposure by -1/3 EV in Adobe Lightroom and cropped out the film borders.

Name Kodak Professional Portra 400BW
Price FREE
Native ISO 400
Format 35mm
Features chromogenic black and white negative
Exposed ISO 100
Lab Boutique Film Lab
Process C41
Scanner Epson Perfection V600
Software VueScan 9, Negative Lab Pro, Adobe Lightroom
Alphonso Mango · Tuesday 7 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 400
Tuesday 7 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 400
Tuesday 7 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 400
Tuesday 7 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 400
Tuesday 7 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 400
Alphonso Mango · Tuesday 7 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 400
Alphonso Mango · Tuesday 7 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 400
Alphonso Mango · Tuesday 7 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 400
Alphonso Mango · Tuesday 7 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 400
Alphonso Mango · Tuesday 7 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 400

Author: Khürt Williams

A human who works in information security and enjoys photography, Formula 1 and craft ale. #nobridge

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