Ideas on the next print film I should try?

[manuel_garcia5]

I'm looking for your thoughts on the next color print film I should

try. I'm looking for any and all suggestions.

 

100 speed film (or anywhere close) for landscape shots. A sharp

film wiht deep rich colors.

 

400 (or 200) speed film as a everyday/portrait film.

 

I'm already (happly) using Fuji NPH/Reala Superia but just wanted to

see what else is out there. Thanks!

[cfimages]

If you've found Reala, then stick to it.

[r.t. dowling]

Kodak 400UC is a good general-purpose film.

 

Superia-Reala is the best ISO 100 color print film I've found so far. However, you might want to try a roll of Agfa Ultra 100 and see if you like it for landscapes. It is very contrasty, which makes it a poor choice for portraits, but it can yield some interesting results. Those results, of course, depend greatly on the lab you're using.

[eric friedemann]

Like Craig, I'm a big Reala fan. IMHO, it is the best 100-speed color print film made. I shoot it at 100 in reasonably-contrasty lighting (e.g. direct sunlight) and at E.I. 80 for flat lighting (e.g. overcast days and with direct flash in dark rooms).<div></div>

[gustavo_friggi]

Taste Agfa. Ultra color 100 is sharp film with deep rich colors. Or the cheap Agfapro 200 propack (5 units), very nice for everyday/portrait.

[ted_marcus1]

Portra 400UC or Ultra Color 400 (same film, different names) should fill the bill for "sharp film with deep rich colors" as well as your everyday film (I can't say how good is is for portraits, though). Reala may have slightly finer grain, but I don't think it gains you that much in "real world" use.

[sabrina_h.]

I'd give the Fuji NPS a shot. gives a lot of detail in whites. Its probably similar to your

NPH. I use Reala as my standard color film.

[andrew_limiti]

Reala is my first choice for outdoors on bright days.

[rich815]

Reala 120 and Reala for 35mm are two very different beasts.<p>Another vote for Kodak 400UC. Nice stuff. A bit more punchy colors than NPH but still not garrish.

[markus_ehrenfried]

Lynn, I made the same bad experience with Agfa Ultra -- but I guess, that's the reason

why they named it 'Ultra', isn't it? :) I had a look at your pictures and actually like them, I

think for colourful hot-air balloons Agfa Ultra might even work!! On the other hand: one

can never make a judgement from a scan, as the digitization process and the scanner

settings can do almost everything to a picture.

 

Manuel, I agree with all the others who praised Reala. I think it's the best print film you can

find concerning resolution, grain size and colour accuracy. On the other hand it depends

very much on the lab. Reala printed on a Fuji Frontier gives beautiful results.

 

For quite some time I also searched for the 'best' print film with 'deep, rich colours'. It took

me some time to realize how much this depends on the lab which produces the prints.

Some experience with scanning negs might help you to see, what you can 'get out of a

certain film'. If you have no scanner, take the same negative and give it to five different

labs for printing it. You'll probably be surprised. ;-)

 

I can only recommend you to try slide film: then you see on the light table in real colours

the picture you took. Getting good prints from slides is nowadays no problem any longer

(by scanning them and giving a CD-R to the lab).

[andykowalczyk]

I walked around my garden taking close-ups of flowers and such. First with Kodak 400UC then with Agfa Ultra 100. (within the same half hour midmorning on a bright sunny day) I then had them developed and printed at 6 by 9. (my lab uses a Noritsu)

 

At this size the images were about lifesized. When I got the prints back I returned to the same flowers (2 days after the exposures) and held the prints next to the originals. The 400 UC was just spot on. It captured the colors precisely.

 

The Agfa Ultra however was "interesting". Different colors got punched up. Sometimes the effect was pleasing - the greens stood out more. When I was comparing the prints before I went back to the actual flowers there were several in which I thought the Agfa gave the better rendition - it showed what was in my minds eye. These were because the greens looked too muted on the Kodak - but side by side comparison with the originals showed the Kodak print was closer to the same color.

 

In images of yellow flowers in full sun - the Agfa blocked up and the flower was just a blob of yellow. In the Kodak the detail of the internal petals was preserved.

 

The most surprising result with the Agfa was that if a red had any hint of blue in it the flower wound up looking way more purple than it actually was. It was as if the film really boosts colors at the Red Green Blue peaks. I think you see this in the hot air baloon picture when comparing red panels of the baloon with orange panels - the orange looks very red. And the blues in the sky are overwhelming.

 

Of course there is so much variability in what the lab can do. And Agfa 100 Ultra is a seldom encountered film. But I have given this lab about dozen different films of various manufacture, and have always received credible results.

 

So I think the Agfa Ultra is an interesting tool. Are we trying to reproduce exactly what was seen? or are we trying to create an image of what we remembered? I, too, really like the hot air baloon sequence - the only disappointment I have is that detail is lost in the few sharp shadows around some of the people. Perhaps Kodak 100 NC, with its lower contrast, exposed another stop (meter for the shadows) would have been a better tool if our story was about the fans and the crew members at work. But I think the calendar picture of a dozen balloons drifting over a verdant green valley with a bright blue sky behind - the Agfa would be a great tool in telling that story.

[davidfink_photography]

When these threads come up, I seldom see anyone mentioning Portra 160VC. Recently I tried a roll outdoors in bright sunlight and was very pleased. Good color, and it scanned extremely well (much better than Reala for me) with Vuescan and Minolta 5400.

[davidfink_photography]

Hi Les,

 

How are you doing?

 

Yes....I originally bought 5-packs of 160VC and 160NC for portrait work, but then decided to try a roll of VC outdoors in bright conditions for some landscape shots. I was very pleasantly surprised by the results.

[ilkka_nissila]

Notice that Kodak papers have more saturated colours than Agfa's own papers. So ultra is meant to be printed on Agfa papers, where it gives a more natural result.

[scott_eaton]

<I>Are we trying to reproduce exactly what was seen? or are we trying to create an image of what we remembered?</i><P>

Neither. Considering that most labs don't have channels for Agfa Ultra (no clue how to print it), the popular Fuji Frontier can't scan it correctly in the first place, and it blocks up most strong colors well before saturating them, it's clear you want a random number generator vs a decent film. Any film that I don't know what it's going to do is NOT worth putting in my camera. Ultra 50 was a pretty whacked-out film, but it at least had some interesting abstract/pictorial qualities unlike Ultra 100, which just has obnoxious contrast<P>.

 

Agfa Ultra 100 has lots of contrast - it does not have lots of color saturation. I've made this challenge before and will do so now. I can get *more* color saturation from NPH off a Frontier than Agfa Ultra 100, and Gold 100 on Kodak paper. If I want killer color saturation I'll shoot slide film and have them scanned.<P>

 

 

 

RE: VC160 - I'm not sure if I've beaten this stuff up enough, but maybe I need to do it some more. VC160 actually works pretty good in open sunlight because it was designed to be a studio film from the start, and sunlight/electronic strobes are pretty much the same beast as far as film is concerned. The problem is that VC160 dies under flat lighting and is not a good general purpose film. UC 400 however *can* handle most types of environmental lighting, and has about the same sharpness and MUCH superior color saturation at more than 2x the speed.

[bill_tuthill]

I'll stand up for Agfa Ultra 100. Please don't use it for people,

only for landscapes and wildflowers. It produces deep purples, vibrant greens, and polarized-sky blue without a polarizer.

I agree more with Andrew Kowalczyk (that it emphasizes RGB spikes,

like Fuji's overhyped Fortia slide film) than with Scott Eaton

(that it's simply high contrast). Its shadow contrast actually seems

quite moderate. My scanner and local Frontier lab really can't

deal with slide film acceptably (even by my low standards ;-)

so Ultra is a better alternative for me.

[aquilanebula]

If you live in Europe, try Kodak Royal Supra 200. It has extremely fine grain, good colour reproduction and is kind to skin tones, plus it has an extra stop over Fuji Reala.

[imaginator]

It seems to depend on the use... scanned, printed, different papers, ect. I don't have anything to add on this (others have much more experience), but I would like to hear comments on Richard's statement about Fuji Reala. Is the 35mm version the same as the 120 version? I have read this many times and haven't heard the final verdict. Is the jury still out?

[eric friedemann]

With all due respect to Richard, I have shot hundreds of rolls of Reala 35mm and at least a hundred rolls of Reala 120. If there is a difference between the two films, I haven't seen it. The films expose the same for me and scan the same for me.

[rich815]

Well, I had read it here quite a few times, the difference bing 120 is Reala and 35mm is Reala Superia. And my experience is such that while similar they have some key difference in contrast and saturation. John Morris mentioned this too about a week ago in this thread: <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009HLG">http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009HLG</a>, and I'm fairly sure I remember Scott Eaton mentioning a few times that Reala in 120 is different from Superia Reala in 35mm.

[r.t. dowling]

One key difference between Reala and Superia-Reala, at least according to Fuji literature, is that Superia-Reala has Fuji's 4th Color Layer technology, whereas Reala does not.

[eric friedemann]

And when Reala 35mm became Superia Reala 35mm, I didn't notice a difference either.

[rich815]

A newer thread discussing the supposed differences of Reala and Superia-Reala here: <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009QDg">http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009QDg</a>

[bill_tuthill]

<I>"Superia-Reala has Fuji's 4th Color Layer technology, whereas Reala

does not."</I>

<P>

Not true. I have here datasheets going all the way back to original

Reala, then (now old) New Reala (CS-2), then Superia Reala (CS-6).

All three datasheets show characteristic curve for the cyan layer.

I suspect 120 Reala is similar to CS-5, which wasn't on the market

long, so I don't have a datasheet for it. Original Reala was the

first cyan-layered Fuji print film, I believe.