Lomography Color Negative 800 Film Review

Lomography Color Negative 800 film is a high-speed medium-high saturation film sold in triple packs of 35mm and 120 rolls. It features accurate colour reproduction and fine grain.

Though Lomography does not reveal the exact origins of this film, it’s most likely manufactured by Kodak — but it’s not the same as Portra 800 — as the controlled experiments suggest.

In this review, I will compare this film to other ISO 800 colour-negative films as well as the Lomochrome emulsions. But first, let me introduce its strengths, of which there are many, and a few drawbacks — starting with colour reproduction.

In this review: Lomography Color Negative 800 colours. Grain, resolution, sharpness. Dynamic range. Developing and scanning experience. How much does Lomography Color Negative 800 cost, and where to buy it. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

Lomography Color Negative 800 colours.

CN800 renders natural skin tones and an overall colour scheme, which is why it’s often compared to Kodak Portra 800. However, there are some differences between those two films, particularly when it comes to minute colour rendering details.

Earlier this year, I ran an experiment with Daren and Yvonne in which we compared all the modern ISO 800 daylight-balanced colour-negative films. We excluded CineStill 800T and the like as they belong to a different family of Kodak cinema stocks.

Our assumption was to find all those ISO 800 colour-negative films to be identical. The theory was that they’re all Kodak Portra 800 sold under different brands. Making colour film is exceptionally difficult, especially on the level all those emulsions present — Lomography’s designer new Color’92 film and Metropolis formulae are illustrative of how hard it is to control grain and colour accuracy (both are much grainier and less colour-accurate than any of the above ‘800 stocks)… This is why we assumed that there’s just one place in the world that can make this type of film.

We ran the experiment by loading all the films into Hasselblad film backs to get identical light, lens, and camera positions between the shots. Having scanned the films using several methods, some differences came through:

While the CN800 film showed excellent colour reproduction throughout, it appeared more sensitive to the reds, which made skin tones appear to have a pink hue under certain light. It also showed a little more contrast than the Portra 800. Those differences were visible in our home scanning setups (Nikon CoolScan 5000ED with manual inversion and Sony A7III with NLP) but appeared less obvious in lab scans (lab scans were comparatively lacking in resolution and colour fidelity).

I think it’s safe to say that if you are not planning to scan your Lomography Color Negative 800 film with a high-quality digital camera or dedicated scanner rig, you might not find it any different from Portra 800. Given that CN800 is sometimes a little cheaper when bought in sets of three, it can be considered an affordable alternative.

You may even prefer Color Negative 800 to Portra 800 because of its higher contrast and increased red-colour sensitivity. While retaining an overall accurate colour reproduction, CN800 adds a pop of “blush” to the portraits that may look flattering in the right contexts. (See the portrait of Lauren below, particularly the palm of her hand, which Kodak Portra 800 would render in more natural tones… for a more direct comparison, see this article.)

Note that while CN800’s increased red-colour sensitivity may be concealed in low-quality scans, it can not be fully corrected on HQ reproductions. Countering it by adding green to the mids and shadows will also make the rest of the scene look more green thus (somewhat) defeating the overall accuracy.

Grain, resolution, sharpness.

The grain on Lomography Color Negative is identical in size, shape, and sharpness to Kodak Portra 800 (based on the above experiment data). Here’s what I had to say about it in the Portra film review:

Dynamic range.

Like Kodak Portra 800, which has perhaps the widest dynamic range of all colour-negative films currently on the market (12.5 stops), Lomography Color Negative 800 is very receptive to high-contrast scenes.

This film can handle over- and underexposures quite well. The image above shows extreme contrast (perhaps more than 10 stops between shadows and highlights) as a ray of bright sun finds its way into my pitch-black room on a sunny day. CN800 manages to preserve the highlights and retain decent details in the shadows — most films would not be able to do this.

I don’t have any scientific measurements of the CN800’s dynamic range. Though I am impressed with it and find it comparable to that of the Portra 800, I suspect that its true dynamic range is less than 12 stops. The reason for that is the higher contrast I notice in the scans compared to Portra (contrast on film is often inversely related to its dynamic range).

Developing and scanning experience.

Lomography Color Negative 800 is an excellent film. It’s one of the few options we have when it comes to high-speed emulsions; it’s occasionally cheaper and is almost as accurate as the Kodak Portra 800. The only reason I would advise anyone unconcerned with the fine differences in colour and dynamic range not to buy it is if you develop your film at home:

Whereas Portra 800 curls slightly and is easy to load onto Paterson reels, CN800 is exceptionally thin — which makes it hard to maneuver in the dark bag, requires weights when drying, and may cause some slight issues while scanning.

How much does Lomography Color Negative 800 cost, and where to buy it.

This year, Kodak colour film prices have generally lowered or remained on average, although Portra 800 still went up slightly. Though previously, 35mm Lomography Color Negative 800 sold for significantly less in the pack of three, it is roughly on par or only slightly cheaper than Portra today. However, you may still find a great deal on three-packs of medium format CN800 that are much cheaper than Portra.

❤ By the way: Please consider making your Lomography Color Negative 800 using this link  so that this website may get a small percentage of that sale — at no extra charge for you — thanks!