Portra 400 is probably one of the, if not the, most used color film stock. It shouldn’t be a surprise how well it does with spring…still, this blog post will confirm that once again! 😉

Spring 2022 came uncertain, especially where it’s normally glorious, like mediterranean islands.

Corfu island, April ’22

 I had two film cameras with me back then, alternatively a 35mm Chinon CM4 and my Yashica D. On the latter I had some portra 400 loaded in and I was charmed as I got back scans from that spring trip.

Color palette is pastel and creamy , just as I wished for. I did talk to my lab to tell them how I envisioned them, but you know, it’s a pretty old lady and I do meter casually with my eyes and brain. I’ll leave a couple more for another post talking about that Corfu trip.

Back home spring was finally on its way and before leaving for Greece I took half a day to go explore with my daughter, location scouting. I live in the italian Alps, close to the Dolomites and spring is such a lovely time of the year, starting to feel light and life running through every leaf and tree.

The camera I used for these is a simple Canon Elan 7, wich I don’t like that much…it’s too easy and automatic, lol! When shooting film, I like the fact that it slows me down. With this camera 1/3 of that slowing down vanishes. But that’s probably stupid talk if you’re not a vintage-camera-kind-of-girl, like me.

I try to overexpose Portra 400, one stop usually, like in this case. But the built-in meter is not super precise in harsh conditions and that light was changing constantly, making it hard to be precise while metering.

In May we did a little walk over a lake close to home and I brought the Elan with me, this time paired with a vintage Helios lens.

I anticipated the poppies along our walk and wanted that sweet Helios-bokeh for them

Hope you liked this post, I had fun shooting Portra 400 during last year’s spring and I’m getting excited again this year 🙂