Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/11/07
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 07:08 AM 11/7/00 -0800, you wrote: >Has there been developed a color neg film that is reasonably fast [ASA 400 >or so] that does not have grain that looks like large, pastel snowflakes? Fuji's 400 (NPS? -- I always get their absurd taxonomy confused) is nice; a bit soft and pastelly, like the 160 -- although not pastel in the snowflake sense; the grain is only marginally worse than 160 -- gorgeous for skin tones, less so for scenes that require punchy contrast. The 800 NHGII is perhaps the most exciting negative film on the market (after Reala, which is perfection): at 800, the grain is probably about the same as the last generation of 400s, perhaps even better; at 1600 it's still tolerable. And the color balance is superb. Both the 400 and the 800 lack Fuji's fourth layer technology, an innovation which supposedly makes it easier to shoot daylight film under tungsten, if you're going to compensate in the darkroom. I haven't found this to be all that useful; my tungsten shots looked pretty dreadful when balanced out. I'm less familiar with the yellow boxes, but I'm going to get experience soon, as Fuji doesn't offer some of my favorite flavors in 4x5. It would be nice if someone could weigh in concerning the Portras, and the older Kodak formulae. cheers, DC