Kodak Portra 160

Portra 160 is the daylight studio stock that portrait photographers load when the sun is cooperating and they do not want grain to compete with texture in skin. Kodak reformulated the entire Portra line in 2011, and the 160 came out of that reformulation with noticeably finer grain than the old 160NC and 160VC versions it replaced. Those two stocks were separated by their contrast characteristics; the current emulsion lands between them and gives you one choice instead of two.

The color signature follows the family character: warm magentas, lifted yellows, controlled blues. In shade the stock tends to read slightly cooler than Portra 400, which some photographers prefer for natural outdoor light. In tungsten without correction it goes quite warm; this is not a mixed-light stock. Shoot it in daylight or flash and it behaves predictably. Shoot it at a location with overhead fluorescents and you will need to sort out the color cast in post.

The latitude is extraordinary for an ISO 100 stock. You can overexpose Portra 160 by two stops and the highlights compress rather than blow. Rate it at 100 for open shade, at 80 for direct afternoon sun if you want denser shadows. Most large-format portrait photographers shoot it at box speed and slightly overexpose through the lens.

Available in 35mm, 120, and sheet film from 4x5 through 8x10. The 8x10 version is what keeps it alive in commercial portrait studios that never switched to digital.

Zone Light Meter uses a reciprocity exponent of 1.10 past one second. For a slow-speed portrait stock used in controlled light, long reciprocity corrections rarely come up. But when you take a studio stock outside and close a lens down to f/32 for depth of field, the math matters, and Zone Light Meter handles it automatically.