Shooting Portra 400 into the sun
Late summer evenings are the reason I keep buying Portra 400 despite the price. The film forgives almost anything on the bright side, which means you can point it straight into a low sun and still get a usable negative.
Meter for the shadows
Colour negative film has far more room for overexposure than underexposure. When the sun is in the frame, the meter panics and underexposes everything else. I take a reading from the shaded side of the subject and use that, even if it means the sky will be several stops over. Portra holds those highlights without fuss.
Living with flare
The old single-coated Zuiko flares readily, and I have stopped fighting it. Sometimes a veil of warm haze is exactly what the evening felt like. When I do want contrast, I put the sun just behind something in the frame: a lamppost, a branch, the edge of a building.
Results
Of the roll, maybe six frames are good, and two of those are ones I would never have attempted on a digital camera because the screen would have told me not to bother. That is the strange gift of not seeing the result straight away.