Kodak Portra 800

Kodak Portra 800 is a fast 35mm colour negative film made for portraits, low light and situations where you need more flexibility without giving up natural colour.

Its ISO 800 speed makes it particularly useful as the light starts to disappear, whether you're shooting indoors, late in the afternoon, at events or out on the street after dark. It gives you more room to work with faster shutter speeds while maintaining the natural skin tones and softer colour palette the Portra range is known for.

Portra 800 also has plenty of exposure latitude, making it forgiving when lighting conditions are changing quickly. It can be pushed further when you need even more speed, making it a useful option for available-light photography.

If you like the Portra look but regularly find ISO 160 or 400 too slow, this is the one to reach for.

Best for

• Portraits and people
• Low-light photography
• Indoor photography
• Evening and night shooting
• Weddings and events
• Street photography
• Travel
• Available-light photography
• Moving subjects
• Changing light conditions

What to expect

Expect natural skin tones, balanced colour and relatively fine grain for an ISO 800 film, with considerably more flexibility in lower light than Portra 160 or 400.

The higher speed gives the film a little more visible grain and character than the slower Portra stocks, while still keeping the smooth tonal reproduction associated with the range.

Its wide exposure latitude also makes it forgiving when you're moving between different lighting conditions or photographing people without complete control over the light.

Developing

C-41 colour processing.

Portra 800 uses standard C-41 colour negative processing.

It can also be pushed when more speed is needed. Kodak's processing documentation specifically provides push-processing guidance for EI 1600 and EI 3200, although increased contrast and changes to the negative should be expected when pushing.