Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/02/07

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Subject: Re: [Leica] High speed color films...
From: Rolfe Tessem <rolfe@ldp.com>
Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2003 22:16:21 -0500
References: <3E446DA3.5B069050@mindspring.com>

I have been following the discussion regarding high-speed color negative 
films with interest.

I've used the Fuji high-speed films for quite a while and think they're 
a fabulous improvement over the previous generation (NHGII). The Press 
800 film is a good general purpose film, but it has greater contrast 
than NPZ, which Fuji has positioned as its "premium" 800 speed negative 
film. NPZ has only slightly greater grain than NPH, which itself has 
been praised as an incredibly fine-grained 400 speed film. All things 
being equal, NPZ will retain greater shadow detail than Press 800, and 
more detail is obviously better.

I print my own C prints from color negative, and my observation is that 
when you are trying to filter out gross color imbalances (such as 
shooting any of these daylight films under tungsten light) you need to 
expose at a lower EI because if the blue layer is substantially 
underexposed you will be unable to obtain a good clean black. Or, to put 
it another way, if you expose normally under tungsten light, it will be 
impossible to get a print in which the blacks do not have a blue cast.

An overexposure of 1/2 stop seems to cure this situation almost completely.

If you are scanning, rather than printing directly from the negative, a 
fat negative also seems to help, although Photoshop can work wonders 
even with a thin negative (but it will take a lot of work).

The usualy disclaimers apply, and YMMV :-).

- -- 
Rolfe Tessem      |     Lucky Duck Productions, Inc.
rolfe@ldp.com     |     96 Morton Street
(212) 463-0029    |     New York, Ny 10014

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In reply to: Message from Howard Sanner <flagstad@mindspring.com> (RE: [Leica] High speed color films...)