Maybe we’ve become comfortable with our Fuji Velvia, Sensia and Provia, or our Kodak Ektachrome and Elitechrome. They give us reliability, precision and consistency, they’re tried and tested. Wait a second! That’s the last thing we want a film to give us. (Emphasis mine.) From https://www.lomography.com/magazine/45628-rollei-crossbird-reincarnation NOTE TO READERS: When I wrote this review originally, I was very enthusiastic about this film. After my experiences shifted, I did a revision in August 2019, followed by a more extensive rewrite of this piece in September 2019. I’ve adjusted it again in February 2020. The things about Lomo 800 that I liked, I still like, and still talk about. But I’m also clearly spelling out the challenges I’ve run into that make it tougher to really love this film. What I Like EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. In reality, I can’t think of a single image I’ve taken with this film that I’ve even negatively contemplated the grain in the final image. And because I’m not a massive bokeh-fiend, and don’t find myself with a desire to shoot much in the way of shallow depth of field photos in daylight, but do enjoy the versatility of being able to shoot colour film in low light, this pretty much makes it the ideal choice for me. That said, as I’ve alluded, with a 50mm f/1.2 lens mounted to a camera with a maximum shutter speed of 1/4000th of a second, I pretty much feel like I can shoot what, where and however I like. The results

Kodak Portra 800 is quite possibly my favourite colour negative film. I say that as someone who’s just committed to shooting only P3200 and Ektachrome E100 for at least 6 months in a bid to learn these two returned-to-market films from Kodak properly. But when making that decision, the first concern I had was how I was going to cope without my quite-recently found love for this fast and very versatile colour emulsion. At the end of November, a museum around the corner installed three life-sized dinosaurs on their property. These models promote the museum’s new exhibition – dinosaurs and their representation in movies and TV.The problem for me is that it’s become impossible to overlook the down sides. I could deal with the lousy roll tapes. I could adapt to special handling to prevent the edge fogging issue (that I still believe is a manufacturing tolerance issue). But I can’t deal with rolling the dice on whether the film performs properly across the entire length of the roll.

A part of this is no doubt down to the innate image quality of Portra 800. But another part of it must surly be just be how so perfectly it fits my tastes when shot within my established workflow. As I’ve mentioned a few times throughout this post, it’s also incredibly versatile. Combine this versatility and the aforementioned compatibility with my workflow – and my personal tastes – and what I’ve found in Kodak Portra 800 feels to me like it could well be my perfect colour negative film. You can see the darkness starting at the same point on two separate rolls of film, one short in a Mamiya 645 Super, and one in a Hasselblad 503CW. The Ektar was processed right after — same process, same chemistry — without any issue. This must be the film. Naturally, I tried to guess which was which as best as I could. I even enlisted the help of a few friends to weigh in. I’m happy to say that we were all wrong! I shot the three films – along with a few others – while on trip to Hong Kong between Christmas 2017 and the New Year 2018. Although technically winter time, being in the tropics has its advantages and I was blessed with mostly clear skies and low winter sun for much of my time there.

In the photos above, lighting was coming from a ceiling light, so Kelsey’s skin tones came much redder than the photo below with a lot of sunlight shining in.

Photos taken by Matthieu Quatravaux with the Lomography Color Negative 400 ISO 120. Model: @xiaqua. Hello Matthieu, could you please introduce yourself to our readers? Since when have you been practicing analogue photography? That did mean that some of the scans could have been exposed a bit differently — especially because I wasn’t scanning the same image from each strip at the same time. (that kind of testing may come later, but with my current setup, I’d be much more likely to make mistakes). All photos were shot in available light and from memory overexposed in camera perhaps 1-2 stops. This means I shot Lomo 800 film at ISO 400 or ISO 200. Why? The maximum shutter speed on the GF670 is 1/500 and I didn’t want to shoot all the photos at say f11. I know you can over expose colour film quite easily so I was not afraid to do so. When Cinestill 800T film hit the market a few years ago I used to shoot it at ISO 100-800 happily.It’s shots like this that make me wonder why some people are so obsessed with pushing film these days. Understanding how to expose in lower-light and how to scan properly can reap much better results in my experience… but anyway, that’s a rant for another day. Landscaping with Zeiss Imperfect things attract my attention far more often than impeccable ones. Industrial zones offer exactly this. They were built to earn money, not to appeal to the people. Facilities are being used and maintained. If their profitability decreases, they are often run down, abandoned and finally demolished. Photographing these places means to document transformations, transformations that likely happen faster than in other parts of the city. I guess that’s why I feel so heavily drawn to them.