For my 120 Lomography 800 film test I wanted to give the film a fair chance. I chose two well regarded cameras, first the amazing Fuji GF670 (aka Voightländer Bessa III) and next the maybe less known Fujica GS645 camera. Both are Fuji medium format folding cameras. As you can see in this next frame, which I’m going to take a stab in the dark (pun) and say was shot at EI1600, there is every bit of potential for very sharp, low grain images from this film provided a high quality lens is used and its scanned and processed well. These were all metered either Sunny-16, or on a couple of occasions with the help of my iPhone as a light meter. As a result of this, I can be fairly confident in saying that the exposure wouldn’t have been nearly as consistent as my first roll. Despite this, and because by this time my scanning and post-process skills had improved, I still got some really nice scans. The rolls were then developed in Flic Film’s color chemistry kit using the same temperatures and developing times. Then they were dried and scanned using the Essential Film Holder and Negative Lab Pro.

The first few images are from my first roll with Portra 800. I shot it in a Nikon F75 with a fairly basic zoom lens. I can’t remember exactly, but I suspect I might have decided to load a faster film to counteract the effect or also using a slower lens in the winter months. The 28-70 lens was a little lower-contrast and not quite as high resolution as a lot of the lenses I normally shoot. I also found the results out of the Noritsu to be quite impacted by the slight yellowish-orange cast this scanner is quite well known for. I’m happy to see quirky colours or film quirks in general but some photos are just not inspiring. (I’m trying to stay polite). With all of that said I saw a few photos that gave me hope so I was keen to try some Lomo 800 film for myself. 120 Lomography 800 film

Final thoughts

More image comparisons from shooting Lomo 800 and Portra 800 side by side. I personally see very small differences between these negatives. There are no differences that can’t be e xplained by slight variations in temperature, agitation, or the brightness of the film scan between these rolls. Are there any differences between the images after scanning?

But that’s a pretty bold claim. I don’t believe Kodak has ever allowed their professional lineup to be rebranded. However, Kodak Portra 800 is an entirely different film from Portra 400 and 160, which were reformulated to produce better digital scans in 2010. In some cases, I specifically held a look out for intense colors. In other cases, I wondered how Lomography 800 would render rather subtle tones. Could the film enhance colors, depict them more vibrantly? Well, I think it can. In the image with the different colored leaves, it is already too punchy for my taste. As a result, I will handle this film with care. Importantly, at least as far as my workflow goes, I didn’t find myself needing to correct colour-shifts much between frames, which to me was a good sign that Portra 800 could hold up to at least a bit of variance in exposure within my workflow without it causing me a headache in the scan and in post. This is something I really like about Portra 400, but for one reason or another, I didn’t expect I’d get the same consistency from Porta 800, which is an older emulsion.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. Ilford may make Acros II only for Fujifilm, but in turn, Fuji produces Ilford’s chromogenic XP2 emulsion. Both of these manufacturers benefit from the specialization of the other, but Lomography doesn’t produce anything that Kodak couldn’t do themselves.

For the rest of the Lomo 800 120 images I shot scenes as I walked around the city of Cluj. It was raining and almost dark when I took some of the photos yet it looks like daylight in the pictures. I was shooting at ISO 800 but my Sekonic lightmeter died so I was guessing the exposure at one stage. I shot the Fuji GS645 Fujinon lens wide open and f3.5 at 1/30 for some photos to try to get enough light into the cameras. Scanning film – photo of monitor showing preview (*Not true representation) Film scans and thoughts – Romania Prior to shooting Portra 800, my biggest concern or sense of limitation with regard to this film was its higher speed. As an 800 ISO film, I suppose I had pigeon-holed it as a low-light film. I’m not really sure what made me decide to load a roll of it and shoot it in daylight originally, but I’m really glad I did. Any concerns I might have had about grain went straight out of the window when looking at the first results. I think I probably expected it to have a much coarser more visible grain structure, and that I’d find myself in situations where I’d regretted not using a slower film for the sake of less visible grain.Photos taken by Matthieu Quatravaux with the Lomography Color Negative 800 ISO 120, pushed 1 stop. Model: @cheristyle_. I don't think we can go by edge markings for film ID...Lomography obviously has their own custom edge markings on the 800 speed film. We should ask one of the Rons for more info, but I wouldn't be surprised if those numbers/letters were easy to customize in manufacture. The choice of medium format mainly came from the photographers who inspire me in portrait photography. Like I mentioned before, Rosie Matheson's photos pushed me to try this format. And I love the 6/7 aspect which is more harmonious than the standard 24/36. After some time with the Mamiya, from which I love the amazing quality of its lenses, the sharpness, and the render of colors, I started to get tired of carrying 3 to 4 kg of photo material and I started to realize that my compositions looked good in square format. So I looked for options and I was at first interested in a Bronica S2A, then I tried a Hasselblad in a shop, and I was sure, I needed a Hasselblad! Now, I mostly use my Hasselblad 503CX with an 80 mm or 50 mm lens. It's a real pleasure because it's compact and light. It also offers two more images for each 120 roll. Presently my choice is to keep on working in medium format because I'm used to it and because I love the level of details and depth you get in this format. In my experience, the film really likes to be rated at ISO 800. Overexposing the film just makes it even more mute and underexposing it can result in images that are a bit more muddy. The film also has a very nice grain to it overall through the frame. Image Quality