ISO 800 film advice

Just looking for some quick advice, as I have very little experience

using 800-speed films.

 

I have a family member playing high school basketball, and want to

take a few rolls' worth of pictures at a few of her games this

winter, for family keepsakes/scrapbooks/whatever.

 

I took my camera to the opening game last weekend, just to check the

light, and found I'll need ISO 800 to get the shutter speeds I want.

(I don't have an 85/1.8, so I'm limited to my 70-210/2.8.)

 

So, what I was wondering is -- which 800 films perform best (grain,

color, etc) when actually exposed at 800? I'm not necessarily

partial to brand, or pro vs consumer.

 

Thanks for any help. :-)

I take a lot of high school sports photos mainly volleyball and basketball. I find that Fuji 800 work best better colors and less grain that Kodak.

Fuji NPZ. It's an 800 speed film that performs like a 400 film from a few years back. Whenever I really need that extra stop I use it without hesitation. I rarely use it nowadays, but when I shot theater productions, I used it exclusively.

 

My second choice would be Ektar 1000 / Royal Gold 1000 / whatever they call it nowadays, if it's still available. Back when I shot hockey for a school paper, it looked pretty good. Then again, I never enlarged much.

 

Ctein tested both in Photo Techniques, and found Fuji NPZ to have far less grain and greater resolution than Kodak's offering. Kodak had a *slightly* more attractive color balance. (nowadays, that isn't much of an issue, scan and balance to your heart's content) But in the end, he would reach for the NPZ, and I would certainly be inclined to do the same!

I too have found Fuji's 800 speed consumer film to be quite good. I buy Superia X-TRA 800 but some claim Fuji Press 800 to be more consistant in quality. I don't have any experience with Fuji Portrait NPZ 800 Professional print film.

In the pro films: NPZ is great for available light stuff.Portra 800,not so great.

Of the consumer films, Fuji Superia/Press 800 is the best of that lot. Fuji NPZ is of course the better film, but that will require a trip to the local pro photo store.

<i>Fuji Superia/Press 800 is the best of that lot</i>

<br><br>

Maybe I'm being a dofus, but is 'Fujicolor Press 800' and 'Fujicolor Superia 800' the same stuff? I notice that they also both have the designation 'CZ', whatever that means. If they are the same stuff, why, according to B&H, is the 'Press' version 70 cents/roll cheaper ($2.99 vs. 3.69)?

If you're getting finer grain from Fuji Press 800 than Portra UC in big enlargements you might want to tell the lab to focus their enlarger.

 

Fuji also contradicts themselves on the Press 800/Superia 800 issue, of which both films are nearly identical save for marketing. Perhaps Bill T can clarify.

 

Occasionally I find Velvia 50 to be faster than NPH, but then I remember to set my film speed correctly.

NPZ is a hair slower than Superia 800...oops, I mean *Press* 800 since I'm trying to be a good sport and play along here, but NPZ beats Press 800 by a smidge in terms of grain and a huge margin in terms of color rendition.

 

Having made many, many high rez drum scans scans of NPZ and UC 400 I can conclude that the much revered Fuji film looks like a television set tuned to a dead channel when it's compared to UC 400 if you want to talk about grain. I do want some of that Press 800 that's delivering better grain than UC 400 though.

 

I otherwise agree than shooting Press 800 or NPZ at EI 800 is a much better option than shooting a 400 speed film and under-exposing.

 

Konica is the darkhorse in the high speed film category rather than Agfa.

CZ is CZ, Les. Fuji packages Press 800 in 36-shot rolls, Superia 800 in 24-shot rolls.Fuji "positions" these otherwise identical products differently.Packaging differs, price differs, expectations differ, too.Kodak did much the same thing with plain old EB2 and E100S E6 materials. Call it the "Kenmore" effect(for anyone raised with Sears).

Superia 800 is cut from the edge of the emulsion batch, Press from

the center, and packaged with rolls from the same batch.

Grain comparisons are tricky because grain varies by color, but Vista

800 is grainier than Supra 800, Press/Superia 800, or NPZ (although

it shares color response with other Vistas). Superia 1600 is not

worth using IMO, because it really should be shot at EI 1000 and the

800 speed films are much better with about 1/2 stop penalty.

Supra 800 is grainier than Press/Superia (CZ-5) when underexposed

because it tries to show shadow detail, whereas CZ gives up.

NPZ and Supra 800 have about 1 stop more shadow speed than CZ.

The several times I used Portra 800 it was always different, so I

can't generalize about it.

 

My recommendations in order of quality are: 1) rent a Canon 10D,

2) shoot NPZ at 1600-2000 and process push2 for 5 minutes, 3) try

Konica 1600 to see if your lab can print it and grain is acceptable,

4-6) shoot NPZ, Supra 800, or CZ as rated. I find CZ-5 to be a 640

speed film with too much contrast for good skin tones. Supra 800

pushed would be recommendation 3a if I had confidence that it was

supported, but Kodak seems to have abandoned the Supra line.

Basketball is fast-paced, hence >= 1600.

Les, if you were shooting planes against blue sky, Portra 400UC doesn't have ultrafine blue grain. Ted Marcus thinks Supra 400 had

finer. It's mostly the warm colors and especially skin tones where

400UC beats other higher-speed films.

<I>I used Kodak 400UC, Fujipress 800 and Superia 800 & 1600 and then using the same lab making 20X30 prints from some well exposed frames, the Fujipress 800 is noticeably cleaner. </i><P>To be honest, ask me if I really care what your lab is delivering to you. I would also suggest finding a lab that knows how to print properly as well as not develop C-41 film in an oil drum.<P>I run into many screwball claims on photo.net which need serious rebuttal before somebody takes it seriously. Among these are it's OK to use amatuer print film for weddings, Fuji Reala has more contrast than Superia 400, and Konica 50 has strong color saturation. Among these I'd like to add your claim of Superia/Press 800 having better grain than UC 400, which is really what you are getting down to. I've shot about 10 rolls of Superia 800 over the past year and several dozen rolls of 120 UC 400. There is *no* comparison in terms of the grain structure of these two films at a 1:1 projection or scan. Press 800 is inferiour to NPZ and NPZ is way inferior to UC 400 in the grain department. <P>I should also add that I've personally printed hundreds of 20x30's from 35mm film and consider *any* from 800 speed film to be absurdly bad in quality, so we have some serious differences in quality standards from the start. Even in 6x7 format I would insist on using 100 speed films (slide or print) to keep them clean enough for sale, so these quality comparisons between 20x30 prints from 800 speed 35mm film is a party I don't want to be invited to in the first place.<P>The only possible way I could see Press/Superia 800 as beating UC 400 in a big enlargement is if you were significantly over-exposing the former while under-exposing the later, which is increasingly sounding like the case.

This thread has become a war zone... :-)

 

Actually, I started it, and my interest was pretty simple and modest. It just got expanded and changed by the responders, as the thread progressed. I was merely looking for which 800 (or 800's) were best for shooting at rated speed, as I remember reading differnt times and places that some (and, I'm assuming, some more than others) need to be slightly overexposed to perform well.

 

I don't need to find ways to shoot at 1600, as one person was directing/helping me.

 

And, I'm doing this for scrapbook/keepsake purposes, so there won't be any poster-size enlargements involved. *Maybe* an 11x14, but definitely nothing past that. Mostly 5x7-ish prints, with maybe an 8x10 or three.

 

I do, though, appreciate all the info and advice. Thanks!

I live in very Sunny Florida. Can I shot 800 speed color film and underexpose on a sunny day then shot at night

at regular exposure? What would happen if I did this on the same roll?

Thanks

Akiva, You should have started a new thread for this question.

 

Underexposing one stop would be the same as setting the ISO to 1600. Why would you want to do that outdoors on a sunny day in Florida?

 

The underexposed frames would be very thin. The printer should be able to handle that but you would lose some shadow detail.

 

The normally exposed frames at night would be okay.