Bingo. You have not in fact described any specific methodolgy behind your conclusion. And just how much actual printing have you done with these fllms that does not involve some kind of intervening scan and software complication, which might be erroneous confused with film performance itself? I apologize if I mis-read your distinction between grain and perceived acutance (itself debatable, since it would have to be compared at equal contrast levels, which these films are not). But you in turn have confused my statement that Ektachrome is cooler than Provia with Astia instead, which has roughly the same color temp balance as Provia, around 5200K.
But NO, Astia was never tweaked or extra warmed for skintones per se, like most color neg films, but was less contrasty and had the best overall color balance of any chrome film ever, so was MARKETED for various critical studio applications relative to that fact, including portraiture. In fact, it's the same product line which they sold as their critical CDU duplicating film when tungsten-balanced. I used the final version of daylight Astia 100F itself to attain the highest quality Dupes ever in my experience, and simply rebalanced it with a very precise RGB additive colorhead. Astia had the same engineered Daylight color balance as the Provia and Velvia lines. Dinstinctly tungsten-balanced Fujichromes were made, but not to my knowledge ever a warmed daylight chrome, like the Kodak X version of Ektachrome.
I have shot and darkroom printed all of these films, every generation of Provia, Astia, CDU, in 8x10 film format (except for duplicating films, which were of course used in the lab only), along with their Kodak equivalents, including each generation of Ektachrome all the way from classic old Ektachrome 64 up to E100, either in 4X5 or 8x10. The current E100 I shot for analytic purposes only, and then repeated that a year later to get an idea of batch consistenty - all spot on (it was correct 5500K color temp exactly, true box speed, and had precisely matching hues batch to batch). Every step of this was precisely monitored : color temp meters, true 18% neutral gray reference (industrial spectrophometer confirmed - accurate gray cards and discs are surprisingly uncommon), pristine MacBeth Color Checker Chart, transmission densitometer readings, true 5000K CRI 98 pro light box (also something rare), etc etc.
Personal taste is a different kind of variable. I don't shoot chromes at all any more, having moved along to mainly Ektar color neg film in all formats, 35mm clear up to 8X10.
My apologies if anything has been misunderstood due to issues with English. I can only respond to what seems to have been said. Nor do I want to make a mountain out of a molehill, for those who have already found ways to make predictable exposures with their favorite films.
But the thread itself might not have wandered as far as some claim. I point these things out not for sake of an academic debate over discontinued films, but due to the fact of variability in both color response and latitude of all present choices of color film, and why one style of alleged metering does not in fact fit every foot, even within the relatively limited scope of chrome films themselves. If the moderator himself finds this excessively off topic, he is perfectly welcome to put on his itchy horsehair wig and condemn it to a different jail compartment.
