So I will preface this by saying that I loved the old NC (neutral color) variant of Portra because of the warm and neutral tones it imparted on an image. When I had heard that Kodak was consolidating their NC with VC (vibrant color) films into one flavor I was a little concerned, but in the back of my head I had a feeling that Kodak would not let down the film community. In many ways, I think they far surpassed everyone's expectations.
I had seen numerous reviews of the stuff and all were very positive, but ultimately I needed to decide for myself.
Here are a few images from my first roll:
Yogi/acrobat/contortionist in Washington Square Park collecting money after a show.
That is impressive.
Some cherry blossoms at the Sakura Matsuri festival in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
All in all, great colors and skin tones with an incredibly fine grain. Colors seem to pop where you want them and are subdued elsewhere - somehow a mixture of the aforementioned VC and NC is achieved.
I am also interested in a claim by Mat Marrash from the Film Photography Podcast who says you can shoot the film at an ISO of 3200 after pushing the film only one stop (i.e. shooting at ISO 3200 and developing it as if shot at ISO 800). There is another photographer who shot and developed the new Portra at 3200 with great results. Extraordinary, really.
I want to test the film out some more, but I have a feeling this will be my color negative of choice.
So there it is. I did not put the film through the ringer with overexposure and underexposure tests, but all signs lead to a high performance and flexible film. A bit more punch than NC and not quite as vivid as VC. I like it a lot.
Not to detract from the film, but I want to say that the 50+ year old Voigtlander lens performed quite nicely as well.
flickr photos
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