Tag: fuji

Review: Fujifilm Pro 400H

To see Fujifilm Pro 400H exposure tested alongside 10 other films, follow this link.

I have wanted so badly to like Pro 400H. My father picked up a Pentax Spotmatic back when he was in the service, living in Guam. Much like myself, he experimented with a lot of different film stocks to see what he liked best and eventually he settled on Fuji’s film over Kodak. To this day, he insists that Kodak still cannot mimic the beautiful blues and greens that you get with Fuji’s film. Though he exclusively shoots digital now, I still feel a bond with him over photography and film in particular. It’s because of that that I want to like Fuji’s fim. Being that Pro 400H is their flagship film, I really want to like it.

I do not like it.

  • Innsbruck

Fujifilm Fujicolor Pro 400H was released in 2004. Today, Pro 400H is often compared with Kodak Portra 400, though it has not reached anywhere close to the same hype.

Color

I think that what I dislike most about Pro 400H is the color palette. It’s tough for me to put my thumb on what it is, exactly that I dislike so much. Tones that I know should be somewhat warm or outright warm are often made too cool for my taste and the saturation almost always feels like it’s cranked up too high for my taste. Through the years and attempts of shooting this film, I’ve started to wonder if in fact I’m just not shooting the film the way that it was designed. Every roll I’ve ever shot has been metered at 400 on the dot and again – I really don’t much care for it. Ive been told that it benefits greatly from being overexposed. That, much like each film in the Portra family, over exposure my a stop or so often leaves the film with a much saturated look.

Portraits

Though I’ve not used this film at all in the studio, I’ve taken portraits with it and I dislike all of them. I’m a fair skinned person and most of the friends I’ve photographed with 400H are fair skinned and all of us look ghostly white surrounded by dark and saturated colors around us. It’s not a good look. I shot through a roll of 35mm on a work trip to Orlando where I got a few frames in of a good buddy of mine which far from fair skinned and the shots look okay. Not good. Just okay. One of my favorite portraits I’ve ever taken are of the same person so I can’t help but conclude it’s the film.

Dynamic Range

As you can see from the exposure testing article, Pro 400H has an amazing dynamic range. Truth be told, I think it’s a good deal better than Portra 400. I actually think that it looks better overexposed 1-2 stops. It’s weird.

I don’t have too much experience with this film. To date, I’ve only shot through 6 rolls of it. As such, I haven’t got too much experience with it in extreme circumstances. At least not like I do with Portra 400. Given the fact that it is now a good deal cheaper than Portra in 120, there’s a good chance that I will be giving it more chances for exploration as we move into the summer.

Conclusion

I do not like this film stock. I wish I did – I just don’t. I’ll admit that I haven’t shot enough of it to really feel like I’ve been giving it a fair shot but I will sooner than later. I currently have plans to do an experiment somewhat soon to compare it with Portra 400 in a range of scenarios, shot in duplicate – one for a neutral exposure and one over exposed by 1 stop. Hopefully with some experimentation, I can find where this film would shine in my work.

Innsbruck, AT: New City, New Film – Acros II & Ortho Plus

If you’re wondering why I decide to take my annual trip to the mountains between March and April, the answer is simple. It’s generally still very cold so the summer tourists haven’t shown up yet but the height of skiing and snowboarding is past. As a result, the area is bit less packed out and the trails have started reopening (if they were ever closed). Not to mention that at the times the airfare is a good deal less expensive as are the hotels.

Anyhow – on this particular trip, we left for a couple week trip in Germany and western Austria just as the novel corona virus was troubling northern Italy but before it started being so widespread. On the day we were flying back, we learned there were several documented cases of COVID-19 in Innsbruck and luckily for us we were able to be screened a couple days after being back. With the self quarantine that we are still currently in, I’ve been able to get all the B&W and C-41 developed and scanned. On the trip I was able to try out the new Acros and Ilford Ortho in 120 and 35mm.

Fuji Neopan Acros II

I think this emulsion was the best film stock of all the film I went through on my trip. The rolls in 35mm were quite gorgeous and capable of producing some wonderful prints – I shot all of those in the Friedberg and Frankfurt area. The 120 was shot in Innsbruck and man, are the resulting frames just beautiful. Very low grain and high acutance made for some spectacular photographs that I’m very excited to make prints of.

  • View from Nordkette
  • View from Nordkette
  • Brandon at Nordkette
  • Driving around Austria

As I mentioned above, I shot 2 rolls of 120 and 2 rolls of 35mm. The 2 35mm rolls were not shot in the Alps but I thought they were splendid. I’ll share some of those frames below.

  • Rauchbier is AMAZING
  • Dr H at the Avery’s
  • On a train
  • Friedberg Loves Elvis
  • The Averys

Ilford Ortho Plus

What an interesting film. If I’m being entirely honest, I was very nervous to shoot this stock. I was excited by the build up around it and some of the 4×5 work I had seen but have heard mixed feelings about the 120 and 35mm emulsions. I can see why too. For an 80 ASA film, the grain was quite a good deal aggressive and very weird. I cannot say that I’m in love with the stock nor that I intend to buy it again any time soon. Of the 2 rolls of 35mm that I took, we only shot through one of them and even that one was shot by my buddy Brandon. To start, I’ll go through some of the 120 shots.

  • From a hike in Innsbruck
  • Brandon atop Nordkette
  • View from downtown Innsbruck

I actually prefer the shots from the 35mm. Perhaps it was the focal length (45mm) or Brandon’s eye that caught such nice frames. Either way – the results were intriguing.

  • Me atop Nordkette
  • Dr H on Nordkette

Experiment 1: Exposure Testing 11 Film Stocks

In this experiment, we exposure tested 11 film stocks and Kodak Portra 400 pushed one stop to 800. Among the color films, we tested: Kodak Ektar 100, Kodak Portra 400, Portra 400 Pushed One Stop, Kodak Portra 800, and Fuji Pro 400H. Among the Black and White films, we tested: Ilford PanF, Kodak TMax 100, Kodak TMax 400, Kodak Tri-X, Ilford HP5, Ilford XP2 Super, Ilford Delta 3200.

To ensure consistency throughout the experiment, the film stock was the only experimental condition. The control conditions are as follows:

  • Camera: Hasselblad 501CM
  • Lens: 60mm f/3.5 CB
  • Lighting: 2 Profoto B1X with diffusers
  • Light meter: Sekonic Lightmaster
  • Focusing Aid: Schneider Kreuznach 4x loupe

The loupe was used to set the focus at the start of the exposure test for each film stock. To ensure the exposure value (EV) was correct, the light meter (using an incident setting) was used to identify the neutral exposure as well as each EV in the center of the frame.

All B&W film was developed by the Darkroom Lab and all C-41 film was developed at home using a Jobo CPP2. All scans were done at home using an Epson V600. Each frame was scanned flat and adjusted in PS identically for all frames (‘true black’ was set by the darkest part of the record).

Results

The results did not turn out as I expected. Although, for most of films tested, I had no idea what to expect. While there are some sources out there doing some exposure testing, I have not found a source completely satisfactory. I approached Matt Seal about this idea and told him I wanted to do it. His interest, skillset, and appreciation for the scientific method made the compliment to my own intellectual pursuits and scientific rigor. It seemed like the perfect opportunity for us to learn about how exposure changes an image and how that change differs by film stock.

For those getting into film, with the exception of the famously linear response curve of Acros 100 (R.I.P.), most all film stocks have a logarithmic-type response curve. While every film stock is different, most all of them adhere to this pattern. As such, when you get to a certain point, it becomes more and more difficult to increase exposure by a full stop. In the film world, this is known as reciprocity failure. It generally only affects long exposures and depending on the film stock, can result in some color shifting after a certain point.

Getting back on track – it is because of this behavior in the response curve that allows you to continue to pour in the light without blowing out the highlights. It should be noted that the response curve is what makes film so unique and separates it from digital. Between film stocks, it is not just that colors are rendered different ways but it also interprets light differently. Comparing film with digital, digital has a perfectly linear response curve. This means that it blows out the highlights much faster but conversely, it does not lose details in the shadows near as quickly.

Results – Color Film

Comparing the neutral exposures, the Ektar is good bit more punchy while having a more delicate transition in tones. Portra 800 is noticeably warmer than even the Portra 400 – something I expected as it’s more contrasty but I didn’t expect it to quite the extent that it was.

I think I was most impressed with the Ektar of all the film stocks. I’ve only used it twice and neither time did I like the outcome. Although admittedly, both times I only had the scans from the local film lab in Charleston – and they had a really bad habit of over saturating any and all scans to the Nth degree. After those, I’ve stayed away from it from it until this testing. As soon as I saw these results, I picked up 2 pro packs to take on a trip to Banff.

Between the 2 400 speed films, I think that the Portra 400 held up a bit better than the Pro 400H when it comes to overexposing by more than 2 stops. But if you prefer cooler tones, you would probably conclude the opposite.

Results – Black and White Film

Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the stocks behaved in a similar way except for the Delta 3200 – which didn’t get crushed blacks near as quickly or dramatically. This isn’t particularly unexpected given the difference in emulsion and the fact that it’s actually just a really flexible 1000 asa film.

Probably the most surprising performance was TMax 100. I think that it stood up to underexposure better than any of the other stocks and while I don’t see myself ever accidentally (or purposefully) overexposing by 5 stops, I think it handled the contrasty parts quite well. All in all, I’m going to have to pick some of this up an shoot it immediately.

As for second place in the biggest surprise, Ilford HP5 did a great job in my opinion. Since I tend to find myself in positions of not having enough light more than too much light, I care a lot about the ability to be underexposed. In this area, I think HP5 did really well.

Last specific thing I’ll touch on – I was genuinely surprised to see how similar T-Max 400 and Tri-X were. The Tri-X had a bit more grit but overall they were pretty similar.

Special Thanks

Of course, a huge thanks to Matt for the encouragement and supplying the all the equipment and his technical know-how to make sure the scientific rigor was above reproach. Could not have done it without him.

Thanks to Pete for his input, insight, and participation in the peer review(-ish) process. His input has been extraordinarily helpful in ensuring everything was reported in a clear and reproducible way.

Flagstaff: New city, new film – Ektachrome and Provia

Similar to the story when I went to NYC, I went to Arizona in mid-late 2018 for Brittany’s birthday and we planned to go the Grand Canyon and Flagstaff for two days of hiking – two places I’ve never visited and was very excited to see. To make it even better, the quaking aspens outside of Flagstaff happened to be changing color.  It happens only for about a week a year and there was no way for us to have planned for that when we booked the trip.  As you can imagine, we felt quite lucky and wanted to take full advantage.

I decided to do the best, most well-thought out thing I could do.  I was going to shoot through two stocks I’ve never used before and have little to no idea how they would behave.  I may well never go back to these places again and it is extraordinarily unlikely I’ll be there again at the time of year to experience those same or even similar experiences.  Obviously, if you want to make sure you leave with shots to remember the trip by, you would want to shoot with something reliable.

Instead, I loaded in a roll of Fujichrome Provia 100F into the Mamiya 645.  I let the camera’s auto exposure mode do its thing as I’ve come to learn it’s pretty spot on.  In fact, I would argue it’s more reliable than the meter in my F2.  So there we had it. I put my faith in a new film and went for it.

 

On the same trip, at the same time in fact, I had a roll of Ektachrome E100 loaded in my Nikon F2.  Given that the 645 only goes through 15-16 frames on a roll, I knew I could finish that and load in some Portra and get something from the day.  But for the F2, the camera I shoot with primarily, it was a bit more of a vote of confidence in both myself, the camera, and the film.  As with all slide film, the exposure latitude is narrow but the payoff is great.  I 100% suggest it.  It is without a doubt the most additive thing about film photography.

 

Review: Fuifilm Fujicolor Superia X-TRA 800

One of the primary reasons I started this site was for a lack of a information on the web that provided film reviews from one person – I always found forums and flickr to have to much variety.  On filckr in particular, photos ranged from terrible pictures that makes one wonder if the photographer knew how to use a meter or if the photo was taken by a professional and all of their pictures look amazing.  One site I look to a lot is Alex Burke’s (his work is amazing and I have learned a lot from reading through it) but I sometimes found it frustrating that some film stocks he reviewed were discontinued.

With all that said, let me talk about the film stock that got me back into film photography.  It was cheap, widely availble, and came in rolls of 24exp so I could shoot through them quickly and get them developed the same day.  Was great for someone transitioning back into film after owning a digital camera for years.

I won’t talk to much about it because there isn’t much else to say.  It’s discontinued.  Even when it was sold, it was cheap and didn’t have any of the personality and capabilites of any of the more popular stocks.  I found the colors to be really saturated for my taste and it wasn’t the sharpest film I’ve come to learn.  But that’s okay.  Cheap doesn’t have to mean great.  What is that saying about food? It can be fast, good, or cheap- or  a combination of two but never all three. This film was fast and it was cheap.  But I think calling it good would have been a stretch.