Anyone hoarding high speed color film?

RattyMouse · Nov 28, 2017

Now that Fujifilm has discontinued their Superia 800 and 1600 films, is anyone out there grabbing as much as they can to get one last swing at these films?

I shot my first roll of Superia 1600 and was amazed at how beautiful the colors were and how non obtrusive the grain is. I'm thinking about putting in a large order before these films disappear forever.

What is everyone else doing?

BAC1967 · Nov 28, 2017

I’m shooting my first roll of Superia 1600 right now, hopefully I don’t fall in love with it.

lantau · Nov 28, 2017

I'm in Hong Kong and will buy a few more rolls. I shot one at night, and with the shops putting out a lot of light I've got some beautiful results with Natura 1600. I never tried Venus 800 and will probably get a 3 pack. It's a few €/$/£ cheaper here than the imports at home. About €8 for a roll of the 1600.

Two examples, developed and scanned by a mini lab here. I saw Noritsu behind the curtain. A nice 2h service, currently on sale. Normally about $5.

Not bad. Wonder what they would be like if I ever got started with RA4.

EdSawyer · Nov 28, 2017

kinda too bad if there is no more 1600 color. I remember Kodak Ektapress 1600 and other stuff like that back in the day - very grainy, not so great color. The latest stuff looks better. That said I probably won't hoard any. I have a bunch of Ektachrome P1600 I haven't even gotten around to using (and should probably sell).

dynachrome · Nov 28, 2017

For some time I have thought that I would continue to shoot color film for as long as it was available and processing wasn't too difficult to get. I am lucky that I have excellent local C-41 processing. My thought was that after these two things changed, I would use my film cameras to shoot b&w and color would be done another way. For film users in the U.S. I hope the Fuji changes mean that Alaris/Kodak gets more business and keeps making all of the Portra films. I know there will be the temptation to raise the price on the Portra 800 because of a lack of competition but that would be bad for everyone. The higher price would cause sales to decline and that would mean even higher prices or premature discontinuation. The price jump is what happened to Fuji slide film right when Kodak discontinued Ektachrome. Will we really see a new Ektachrome on the market by the end of this year? I'm not counting on it. If it ever does arrive there will be few if any labs left to process it. Will we ever see new color film from Ferrania? I'm not counting on that either. If Kodak and Fuji can keep making the high quality films they still have left, we will be able to enjoy using our film cameras for a while longer.

jim10219 · Nov 28, 2017

I still have a couple rolls of 1600 and 800 left in the freezer, but I'm probably not going to buy any more. I like the look of Superia 1600 and 800 alright, but I've come to the realization that digital does low light color photography so much better, that I just don't see the point of using those high speed color films. And if I do decide to head back down that road again, I've got no problem pushing Portra 800 or Cinestill 800.

I might have a different opinion of them if they sold them in sheets. I would really like an 800 speed color sheet film for my 4x5 cameras. That would be great for capturing sunsets and sunrises on windy days and waves crashing on beaches.

Richard Man · Nov 28, 2017

Most of my 35mm use is for the XPan. I have my first roll of Natura 1600 in there right now. If it works well, I will probably buy a bunch....

cmacd123 · Nov 28, 2017

it is my experience that the faster the film, the more likely it is to go bad even in the freezer. part of this is attributed to "cosmic Rays". Colour film is also more likely to go bad than B&W.

iandvaag · Nov 29, 2017

RattyMouse said:
I shot my first roll of Superia 1600 and was amazed at how beautiful the colors were and how non obtrusive the grain is

I also had a similar experience. Unfortunately, as Charles mentions above, these high speed films really don't keep that great, even with freezing. It's pretty unfortunate, I guess at least Portra 800 is still available. Hard to do wildlife photography without fast films. I believe I am correct in saying that Superia 1600 had the highest true ISO of any film on the market in 2017 (for instance, Delta 3200 is actually ISO 1000). A real shame to have lost it, along with the 800.

RattyMouse · Nov 29, 2017

BAC1967 said:
I’m shooting my first roll of Superia 1600 right now, hopefully I don’t fall in love with it.

That's a real risk. My first roll of Natura 1600 came out pretty nice.

RattyMouse · Nov 29, 2017

cmacd123 said:
it is my experience that the faster the film, the more likely it is to go bad even in the freezer. part of this is attributed to "cosmic Rays". Colour film is also more likely to go bad than B&W.

I see a lot of images posted from expired color film, some expired by well over a decade that don't look that bad. Of course, it's ISO400 which is a different film but I bet you could stock up on a few years of ISO1600 film at the very least.

RattyMouse · Nov 29, 2017

lantau said:
I'm in Hong Kong and will buy a few more rolls. I shot one at night, and with the shops putting out a lot of light I've got some beautiful results with Natura 1600. I never tried Venus 800 and will probably get a 3 pack. It's a few €/$/£ cheaper here than the imports at home. About €8 for a roll of the 1600.

Not bad. Wonder what they would be like if I ever got started with RA4.

Great Hong Kong shots. I'd love to return there and shoot some ISO1600 Superia. The night lights there are just wonderful.

EdSawyer · Nov 29, 2017

I think if you are really just shooting at 800 speed, Portra 400 pushed to 800 (hardly even needs a push really) is better and cheaper than Portra 800.

Ste_S · Nov 29, 2017

jim10219 said:
I still have a couple rolls of 1600 and 800 left in the freezer, but I'm probably not going to buy any more. I like the look of Superia 1600 and 800 alright, but I've come to the realization that digital does low light color photography so much better, that I just don't see the point of using those high speed color films. And if I do decide to head back down that road again, I've got no problem pushing Portra 800 or Cinestill 800.

I might have a different opinion of them if they sold them in sheets. I would really like an 800 speed color sheet film for my 4x5 cameras. That would be great for capturing sunsets and sunrises on windy days and waves crashing on beaches.

I like grain, so to my mind digital doesn't do high speed/low light better, just different.
Would be nice to have a choice anyway. I'm importing Natura 1600 at the moment, and I'm not sure what I'll do when that goes. Either go B&W, experiment with pushing Portra or Vision3/Cinestill or switch to digital for low light

Jon Buffington · Nov 29, 2017

I've got a freezer full of superia 800 bought over the past 3 years when I thought it was going away then. Haven't shot much of it and though frozen, it is approaching or at/past expiration now. I will probably shoot the heck out of it after this winter. I like it over exposed by at least a half stop.

Lachlan Young · Nov 30, 2017

EdSawyer said:
I think if you are really just shooting at 800 speed, Portra 400 pushed to 800 (hardly even needs a push really) is better and cheaper than Portra 800.

Currently 135 Portra 800 is about the same price as Fuji NPH 400 in 135 over here in the UK & I know which one I'd rather shoot! 800 has a usefully different colour scheme to Portra 400 too.

benjiboy · Nov 30, 2017

I have twenty rolls of 135 Fuji Provia 400X in my freezer and one roll of Fuji Superior 1600.

perkeleellinen · Nov 30, 2017

I'm not hoarding mostly because I don't think fast film lasts long. Also I've already suffered the great loss of Fuji 800Z and nothing compares...

Some thoughts. I think Superia 800 is much better than Superia 1600. I think Superia 1600 is probably overrated and is actually around a 1000ASA film. Because of that I think that Superia 800 underexposed at 1000ASA is better than Superia 1600 overexposed at 1000ASA.

Likewise, Portra 800 is probably a 640 film (same as 800Z was) and Portra 400 underexposed at 640 is better than 800 overexposed at 640 and most certainly cheaper.

I shot some rolls of Superia 1600 at 100ASA in full sun one summer and the results, optically printed, were quite nice. The negatives were nowhere near as dense as I thought they would be and the exposure times were not very much more than normally exposed 400 film, hence my suspicion that is it overrated.

Lachlan Young · Nov 30, 2017

perkeleellinen said:
Likewise, Portra 800 is probably a 640 film (same as 800Z was) and Portra 400 underexposed at 640 is better than 800 overexposed at 640 and most certainly cheaper.

Portra 800 is more like dead on or slightly over 800 speed in my experience, but you can also squeeze a surprising amount out of underexposed Portra 400. NPZ felt perhaps a touch slower than Portra 800 to me. Where you consider your own personal exposure index to land depends a lot more on your own metering technique than on the design spec of a film.

There are also reasons why overexposure doesn't build density on colour neg like on bw neg, but I can't remember what they are at the moment. More to the point, overexposure of C41 film makes the apparent 'grain'/ dye clouds considerably smaller which can lead to misleading opinions about the relative 'speed' of a particular film.

Roger Cole · Dec 1, 2017

Portra 800 is, in my experience, vastly better at 800 than Portra 400 exposed at 800, more than enough so to justify the extra cost.

That said, I routinely overexpose C41 films 1/3 - 1/2 stop when light allows. I haven't found one yet that I don't think looks better with a bit more than box-speed exposure (with meters that are spot on for reversal film.) But the comparison stands - Portra 800 at 640 is vastly better than Portra 400 at 640 too.

I haven't had any experience to speak of with Fuji C41 films in decades.

I love film for black and white and nothing beats a projected transparency. But I question why I even want to keep shooting film for color prints.

1kgcoffee · Dec 1, 2017

Just wondering here, for hoarding film in the freezer, is there anything besides lead that can help to preserve from cosmic ray fogging?

jim10219 · Dec 1, 2017

1kgcoffee said:
Just wondering here, for hoarding film in the freezer, is there anything besides lead that can help to preserve from cosmic ray fogging?

Even lead won't do much. Not at the thicknesses you'd likely be willing to buy and use. Cosmic rays can travel through just about anything unimpeded. They can even travel through the center of the earth as if it wasn't there. So a few inches or even feet of lead wouldn't do much for you.

Liquid hydrogen is a better solution than lead. Though good luck getting that. A strong magnetic field would also be an option. But it wouldn't be a cheap one. Liquid water would probably be a better solution. It's cheap and more easy to manage, but it would be difficult to keep the water in a liquid state and the film frozen. Maybe you could use salt water to lower the freezing point, but I don't know how that would effect the cosmic ray shielding. Or submerge a freezer safely into a large pool?

Bottom line, cosmic rays are pretty much an unsolvable problem. True, there are things you can do to buy yourself some time, but the amount of time you would buy likely wouldn't justify the amount of money you would have to spend.

RattyMouse · Mar 17, 2018

In Japan now and there's no sign of any Natura or Supera 1600. The stores do not have any of this film anymore. A real shame to lose such great emulsions.

lantau · Mar 17, 2018

RattyMouse said:
In Japan now and there's no sign of any Natura or Supera 1600. The stores do not have any of this film anymore. A real shame to lose such great emulsions.

I guess the Japanese market must have been emptied by international film retailers doing direct imports. Some shops from HK are quite active on social media. I saw them push hard the Agfaphoto Vista films after they announced they'd be gone. Apparently they are close to running out. One shop with online sales in US$ shows Natura 1600 sold out. The other ones still have it in their price list, but that doesn't mean much because they sell offline. Their website might not be updated yet.

Even Fotoimpex imported Natura and Venus. Previously I've seen only Macodirect doing that. Fotoimpex still has stock of all Fujis. I bought a brick of Vista 400 at the normal price as a final goodby. It's nice for a consumer film, but not worth more than the €3.70 a roll, which I paid.

I have to admit that I hardly use the 1600 film. I bought a three pack in Hong Kong in 2016. Used one roll right away and the other two are still in my freezer. On my last visit I bought some more, used one roll again and now I have five rolls in the freezer. I don't want to waste it, but always wonder what would be appropriate to use it for. Large Asian cities at night are pretty good. Western cities at night are boring by comparison. But that is where I am. I guess not a big market for such film. Highspeed b/w is better suited here.

What are you doing with Natura1600 when you're not in Asia?

Sirius Glass · Mar 17, 2018

I have a shrinking stash of Kodak UltraColor 400 in 135 and 120 in my freezer.

Anyone hoarding high speed color film?

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