Portraits with Analog film camera in natural light using Kodak Portra

Posted on May 18th, 2021

A portrait session with the Analog Camera

With this post I want to share the photos I took with Isaac in a portrait photo session in natural light.

This session was conceived and planned to be shot with analog cameras. As for the previous analog photo session, I’ve used a Pentax Mx in 35mm format and a Pentax 67 in 120 formats.

On the Pentax Mx I used the Kodak Portra 160 film while on the Pentax 67 the Portra 400. This was another opportunity to get involved with the development of films at home with the C-41 process.

I must say that once you have learned the whole procedure well, and above all by keeping the temperature under control, the results are really satisfying.

How I managed the Film Scans at home

To scan the films I’ve used the procedure to photograph the negative with the camera. In this case, I used the Fujifilm X-T3 with the Fujinon 60mm f / 2.4 Macro lens to which I added the extension tube in order to be even closer to the negative and not lose resolution.

To keep the negative perfectly flat, I used the “Essential Film Holder”, a tool that I found quite good even if it presents some operational difficulties (I’ll talk about it in a future post).

All the part of color inversion and optimization, a really critical aspect to restore that analog “look” to the shots, was managed with Negative Lab Pro. It is a paid plug-in for Lightroom Classic CC that allows not only to do the inversion of the negative film but also to manage the color well and calibrate the final photo in the best possible way.

Team

Model: Isaac / Casting Agency

Styling: Maria Ferrari

Location: Spazio Zeta