Reala love

<p>I was recently shooting a wedding and for the outdoor and formals was using Fuji Reala, with NPZ for indoor shots without flash (not allowed during the service). I have used and always love Reala for its fine grain and strong, contrasty but natural pallate. Everything looks real (or is that Reala) in the prints, just lovely for people pics. Anyway, during the shooting a was using several cameras and at some point when reloading one from NPZ to Reala I forgot to alter the ISO setting. DOH!!! Schoolboy error. Never done it before, but still, it happened. So now I had shot a 100 speed film at 800 ISO! I decided that the shots would probably be unusable, but chose to develop them anyway and push the processing 3 stops (I do all my own processing). When I took out the developed negs and hung them up to dry I was amazed - they looked absolutely fine. Well, how much can you tell from a neg of 35mm without using a loup? I have since both wet printed and scanned them and they are fine. The coulours are all there, just as I would have expected from the film at 100. There is slightly more grain evident, but you can not see it in a 10x8 print unless yu are really looking hard. Even scanned at 3600dpi, it is easily as good as Fuji Superier 400, but with the nicer colours and contrast of Reala. This has left me in awe of this film. I have always chosen it as a favourite 100 speed colour film, but now I must question my choice of 400 speed as well.<br />Anyone else have similar experiences with this or other films? Have I just been amazing fortunate or does Reala react to pushing like this every time?</p>

<p>I will try and get some scans and crops uploaded in the next day or so along with examples taken with Reala rated at 100 and taken at the same time, same scene etc for comparisons.</p>

<p>the same happend to me. i shot the first 5 images on the roll at 800 ISO and then, as soon as i noticed, switched back to 100 ISO. i had them developed normal and scanned them at home. the 800 ISO shots actually look nicer and have a very special look. here's an example of my little brother.</p>

<p>sorry, forgot the image-file.</p><div></div>

<p>Glad I'm not the only one. I will have comparioson shots tomorrow.</p>

<p>nice shot by the way</p>

<p>Very nice. I haven't done exactly that, but I have shot the begining of a couple of rolls of reala at ISO400 by mistake because I forgot to change the ISO dial when I switched from some Superia 400. I caught it (both times shooting flowers). No push processing because it was only the first 3 or 4 pictures of the entire roll. With no push processing the Reala deffinitely shows some grain, quite a bit, but beyond some graininess (overall) none of the shadows really seemed to be lost compared to the do over shots done at the proper ISO setting.<br>

The grain isn't any worse then when I shot Ilford XP2 super at ISO800 (maybe more like when I shoot XP2 at ISO640), its just a lot more then the 'nearly' non-existant grain that I normally get with Reala at ISO100.</p>

<p>I still remember the day I had to use Reala for an indoor-sports-event (handball in a poorly lit gym). I've used to use Fujis 800 pushed one stop for this location but all I could find in my pockets were some rolls of Reala. I shot it at about ISO 800 and developed it with 2-push-stops and the highest +setting in the Jobo Autolab and the results were looking fine - except for a slightly higher contrast compared to the one-stop-pushed Fuji 800.<br>

This happened late 1999 or early 2000 and I still remember the relief watching the first preview-scan coming up on the monitor.<br>

I rarely shoot 35mm-film these days but a roll or two Reala is always in my camera-bag.</p>

<p>Ususally I'm very fussy about exposure - however, one day I forgot my incident meter and the battery in Minota SRT was dead , and just got lazy - didn't even try that hard - exposures off in both directions - using Porta 160NC, the results were surprising, compared to 1970s Kodacolor.<br>

(It was in the 70s when I did most of my learnig about exposure details.)</p>

<p>Helps me understand how the disposables can be meterless.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>As promised a few images. The first is Reala shot at 100. I have not done anything to these images. I just scanned them at 3600dpi and then complressed them for web page.<br />the crops show images of the flowers. I chose something that appears in all three film exposed on the day under the same lighting conditions. The first is a crop of the reala at 100, then reala at 800 and last is Pro800Z at 800. these are all 100% crops of the original image. I was surprisd myself when looking at the crops how small the grain is on Reala at 800, especially compared with the other two examples.</p><div></div>

<p>Reala at 100 100%crop</p>

<p>sorry here</p><div></div>

<p>now at 800</p><div></div>

<p>and the 800 crop</p><div></div>

<p>and finally a crop of the flowers from pro800z</p><div></div>

<p>To my mind/eye the 800z has the lowest contrast and largest grain, though still very good for an 800 speed film. The Reala shot at 100 has the finest grain and a smooth contrast. The Reala at 800 has slightly larger grain than at 100, but not by a huge degree, but it also shows a lot more contrast. Not as much as say a high contrast film, but more than reala at 100. There is still a surprising degree of tonal range in the 800 reala and there is detail clearly visible in both the dress and suit (even more visible in the neg and wet prints than the scans). Overall I am very impressed with this result (and more importanty so is the bride).</p>

<p>Wow, that is good and new information about my favorite film. I have been known to over-expose it by a couple of stops, usually because I am messing around with my flash. I find that it still performs, and if anything, gives me an interesting color saturation. But I have never really considered how it performed underexposed. That's good to know. </p>

<p>Reala is good stuff! Somehow I doubt that Ektar 100 shot at 800 would perform as admirably.</p>

<p>Yes. I think what amazed me most is that it seems to show less grain at 800 than a professional 800 speed film at the same speed.</p>