Color film

I am B&W photographer, and do not remeber I ever used color film. I am also oil painter, and sometimes I need to enrich my primer with new photos in color. In past I did it with some sort of digital-camera and found it not very good way. I would like in future to use my F3 photo-camera and color neg.

What will be good color negativ film for it, if they are still around. Good saturation would be welcome. Clouds, flowers, old objects, still life, landscape details, city, ...

daniel OB
www.Leica-R.com

Depends on a few variables. What result do you expect. Do you want high color saturation or do you prefer something a bit more muted? Will you be using a custom photo finisher or a local 1 hour mini-lab? Custom photo finishers are more likely to get you good results from the higher end Kodak and Fuji films. The local mini-lab may not have the best trained operators around, and you'll probably get best results from something like the more common Kodak Gold films.

For high color saturation Kodak offers the Portra VC line of films. For a more muted color pallette, choose the Portra NC line. Fuji makes equivalent color print films with a slightly different pallette. You'll probably want to try a few and settle on the one that suits your vision best. All of these films are top quality materials, so you won't go wrong with any of them. There is of course, the option of using transparency films. Having prints made from transparencies today is technologically less difficult than in the pre-digital age, but finding a place that offers the service at a reasonable cost may be daunting. The advantage, of course, is that you can tell if the colors of the print match the colors recorded by the medium with a simple eyeball comparison. Other than that, transparency films offer very limited latitude compared to negative films, making it often difficult to capture both highlight and shadow details in the same frame.

Why only colour negative? Provia 400X for everything and Astia for still lifes are excellent nowadays, excellent colours and they hold them even in weird lighting..
If you insist on colour negatives I'd look at Fuji's Superia Reala and Fujipro 160S. 160C is a bit too saturated for my taste, Reala looks better IMHO.

Portra, I find it good only for skin tones. You don't mention portraits, so I don't include it. Not to say it is a bad film or you shouldn't try it.
I wouldn't bother with over-the-counter or supermarket shelf films, they are usually near expired and quality is so-so anyway. Still, they have their uses and some folks like the effects and old-style look. Some of the Kodak UCs can be very surprising indeed.

In fact, I'd recommend you get a roll of each of the above and go out shooting them: worth a ton of advice from others and you'll be able to gauge your preferences a lot better. There are still a lot of film varieties out there even though some claim it's not the case. The ones I picked are definitely at the top of the list, although of course any film can produce nice results if exposed and processed with care.

One thing : find a lab to do the processing and stick to it. Changing labs between films is the best way to end up with no conclusions. It's still a very important component of the equation with colour.

For a general purpose colour neg film I like Fuji Superior Reala, I use Fuji Pro.160S for portraits.

Thanks guys, I just bought Kodakchrome 64, and today I will get one Kodak ExtraGold... (or someting like that is the name). I think we do not have here Kodak Portra.
Daniel OB
www.Leica-R.com