4x5 color

Three or four years ago I recieved my grandfather's Speed Graphic when he moved out of his house of 55 years to a retirement community. I got a box of film, and blundering along, taught myself how to shoot large format. It started with a few sheets now and then, but as my exposures got better and better, and the camera became my best friend, I started shooting more and more 4x5. 200+ sheets and a few later, while I would hardly say I've mastered anything, I think I'm ready to experiment with color. So What I'm looking for is a color negative film that has good colors, good reciprocity, scans well, and good grain.

I'm looking for a negative film that, like Kodachrome and Velvia, can make the world look better than it is.

Fuji NPS, or is it NSP (?) A great compagnion to Velvia slide .
160 ASA, have used it a lot, great film, good for hybrid aswell.

Peter

Fuji negative film generally makes the world look more colorful, since it heavy(er) on the saturation. the Kodak 160 VC (vivid color) as opposed to 160 NC (neutral or natural color) is a very close match. If you want really over the top color you will have to shoot transparency film.
Take care,
Tom

Either the Kodak Portra line, or the Fujicolor professional films. They are, respectively:

Portra VC: "Vivid Color" (160 and 400 ISO available): good skin tones, more vivid color than...
Portra NC: "Natural Color" (160 and 400): good skin tones, more subdued color palette but a distinct "look"
Fujicolor 160S (formerly NPS): S for "skin"; natural skin tone rendition, roughly comparable to Portra NC, but I find this film to be intermediate in look between the Portra NC and VC and a more "neutral" film. It is one of my standard go-to color negative films.
Fujicolor 160C (formerly NPC): roughly comparable to Portra 160VC; I've used very little of this.
Fujicolor 400H: only one 400 ISO offering from Fuji vs 2 for Kodak Portras; again, a more neutral or balanced film than the portras. Also one of my standard everyday films.
Both fuji and kodak also make an 800 ISO color neg film, but my experience with these is quite limited.

Both companies' films are exceptional, and great for hybrid use. I find the Kodak films to have a bit richer color, and the fuji to be maybe a bit sharper and less grainy (yes, I know that's somewhat contradictory), but this is largely a matter of opinion.

I keep the Fuji 160S, 400H, and both speeds of Portra VC on hand. You can hardly go wrong with any of these very good products.

And all these films (including the ISO 800) are available in 4x5? Which is what the OP was interested in.

The 4x5 C-41 supply is more limited: Fuji 160S (new name for NPS, same film); and Kodak Portra 160NC, 160VC, and 400NC. You can't go wrong with any of them. They are all designed to scan well, at this point all C-41 films are so designed, since that is the dominant technology for printing. (The only currently manufactured color film not optimized for scanning is Kodachrome 64.)

Oh, if you order direct from Japan via Japan Exposures, you can also get Fuji 160C.

If you haven't started printing color yet, I would shoot slide film. If you're not printing yourself optically, you're going to be scanning.

You might get shot for saying that kodachrome "makes the world look better than it is." It's primary characteristic is natural colors with good skin tones. Velvia, the real "better than it was" film does not have any of that nonsense.

For optical prints I like Fuji 160S. It's a fantastic all around film and available in 4x5, as well as smaller sizes. I also like that it prints well on both Kodak and Fuji papers. I have not been so happy with Kodak film on Fuji papers. See if you can get 4x5 color enlarger. Printing really is not that hard and it's much more fun than sitting in front of the scanner.

For scanning I get better results with slide film, if the contrast range isn't to large. But negative film can be scanned ok, but it takes more tweaking. I'm sure you can find more on the scanning part over at http://www.hybridphoto.com/.

I'm thinking of going Portra VC ASA 160, but can you explain this "look" of Porta NC? I want a film with a "look".

I can't describe the look of a film and do it justice. Your best bet would be to get a 10 sheet box of each and shoot a sheet of each of the same scene. Try this in multiple types of light and with different subject types. It's a bit expensive that way, but think of what you can learn. That's what I have done and I settled on the Fuji 160S for most subjects I shoot with the 4x5. But I will frequently take a second shot on Velvia or Provia if the contrast will not be a problem.

The look of a print film, in terms of colour rendition, is going to depend somewhat on how you rate it. Pro S suits me fine at 160 when people are in the frame, whereas for landscape I tend to rate it at 125. My recommendation is to feed a roll to your 35mm camera, bracket it and print it. Then all the possibilities will be clear.

If you want more exotic colouration then consider cross processing.

I also have some old 5" EIR but I haven't done anything with it as yet and it may well be toast by now.

One film that I recently started playing with is the Rollei digibase cn 200, so named because it is maskless. Very interesting film- I like the look, but I don't think it's available in 4x5 (yet).

If look is what you're after, consider also the 4x5 instant films, though now I guess we're pretty much down to fuji fp100c. Anyway, you can get 'interesting' results from that... straight or via image or emulsion transfer.