Fuji Pro 400H - A sunny day with a new film.

Okay I’ll admit it, I’ve been playing it Portra-safe for a good while now with little deviation. Remember that time you shot that roll of Ektar Laurence? That increased saturation… I couldn’t look at a camera for months following that experience. I joke of course, film choice is entirely subjective and whether it’s colour or black and white, everyone has a preference depending on the look they want to achieve.

However it recently dawned on me that other films existed (duh) and maybe..just maybe it was time to try something new. I mean, something ‘new’ ended up being the closest alternative to Portra but hey, it’s a step in the right direction, right?

Fuji Pro 400H is readily available in 120 so a few clicks on eBay had a pack headed to my house just in time for some nice sunny weather. Like all colour negative films the general consensus seems to be that it’s best to overexpose them a little (a discussion for another day) and since the sun had it’s hat on I decided what the heck, and rated it at 200 for that sweet, sweet dreamy look.

The photos below were all shot on mine and Laura’s ‘daily hour of exercise’ (thanks covid-19) which was more of a leisurely meander around the quiet streets of Norwich, seeing some familiar faces along the way. Shot on a Pentax 645N and processed in Silverfast/Negative Lab Pro. Film developing, as always, done by the Norwich analogue legend @jjsfilmndev. There was no particular theme in mind on these but it does seem like I had cars on the brain..

From the images, I shot I must say I’m impressed with the results. Negative Lab Pro did a great job straight off the bat of processing the colours and there wasn’t an obvious colour cast present, which I frequently seem to get with Portra. The images did lack a lot of contrast which I imagine is a result of the overexposure, but this was easy to correct. I’m following this roll up with another shot at box speed so it will be interesting to compare the results.

More soon,

Larry