Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/06/02

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Subject: Re: [Leica] C41 -- The new Supra films versus Royal Gold and Fuji???
From: "Don Dory" <dorysrus@mindspring.com>
Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 15:00:17 -0400
References: <15a.eb129da.2a2b9efd@aol.com>

First, the differences are not major and don't translate well into magazine
reproduction so that when you read a film test, most of the time you look at
the pictures and wonder what the editors are seeing that you don't.

However, the Fuji films all contain an additional dye layer that makes
results in mixed lighting easier to convert into daylight tones.  At the
higher speeds the Fuji's tend to behave like 200 speed film from several
years ago.  For instance, I pretty much use the Fuji 800 press film, CZ 800,
as my normal print film.  Up to 11'' prints the grain is harmless.

What you do lose in the higher emulsion speeds is the ability to record
really fine detail.  Unless you shoot a slower speed film in same conditions
you will never know what was left out though as the results are very good
indeed.  Another example would be using the 50mm 1.5 Sonnar versus the
modern Summicron.  The Sonnar has the outlines and good contrast but won't
show the fine detail of say the small pores of a face that the Summicron
can.

I will say that currently the Fuji 800 is superior to the Kodak higher speed
emulsions in terms of delivering sharp, smooth color and tonality.

Kodak announced when they brought out the Supra line that it was optimized
for scanning and it does scan well.  However, when I use Kodak's algorithms
to scan the Fuji films I get better results than I do with the Supra.

With all that said, I think that the film to use is the one available
consistently in your location at the best price so that you can learn the
film and how it responds to your style.

Don
dorysrus@mindspring.com

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In reply to: Message from ALEXSCIFI@aol.com ([Leica] C41 -- The new Supra films versus Royal Gold and Fuji???)