Fuji Superia Reala 100 compared to Superia 200

[Tom Kershaw]

Today I printed both Reala and Superia 200 35mm negatives onto Fuji Crystal Archive via an enlarger and was interested to see a noticeable difference in grain between Reala and the Superia 200 film (to the advantage of Reala). The Fujifilm pdf files give both films a r.m.s granularity of 4, which seems rather low, so any more "real world" experiences?

Tom

 

[Tom Kershaw]

bump

 

[steelneck]

Do you not see the difference in your focuscope?

If you want something more obvious to show, you can raise the enlarger as much as you can, expose a small piece of paper, say 10x10 cm and then scan that in 400-600 ppi. Or you could take any compact digicam and take a shot of what you see in the focuscope.

I have not had any 200 film in my darkroom yet, so i cannot tell. I have seen that Reala have slightly finer grain than P160C and that nothing so far has beaten Ektar.

 

[rhmimac]

Do you not see the difference in your focuscope?

Sorry for the rather off topic question: I got such a thing you call focuscope for free along with my enlarger, but didn't know exactly how to use it properly. Can anymone describe how to use in a few words?

Many thanks.

rhmimac

 

[steelneck]

Place it on your easel (with a paper under to get the right height) look into it and focus your enlarger until the grain is sharp. Without using it you wont get maximum sharpness from your enlarger.

 

[thuggins]

As a general rule, a 100 speed film will offer finer grain and more vivd colors than a 200. So your results are to be expected. In the case of Reala, you have an additional component. Fuji claims they developed this film to be as close to the look of slide film as possible.

 

[wclark5179]

I used Reala for people photography & Superia for the rest. I always thought, perhaps in error, that Superia was a consumer film as I used to find it at mass merchant stores and the table one shot cameras.

 

[Athiril]

100 and the Pro 160 class are in a different league to 200 and up.. more interesting comparison is the 200 vs high speed films

 

[Tom Kershaw]

100 and the Pro 160 class are in a different league to 200 and up.. more interesting comparison is the 200 vs high speed films

The "pro" grade high speed films?

Tom

 

[Athiril]

The "pro" grade high speed films?

Tom

Either, according to Fuji's sheets, their is not much of a resolution/grain difference between the films 400 and above iirc.

 

[Ten301]

Data sheets are one thing, but in the real world, I've found there is a larger difference in terms of grain between 400 and and higher speed films (800 and 1600) than between 200 and 400 or 100 and 200. Consumer 100 and 200 speed films are so close in grain and resolution (Kodak Gold 100 and 200, for example) for the point to be practically moot. Had you compared Fuji's "garden variety" consumer 100 speed film with Superia 200, I'm sure it would have been a much closer race. Reala was designed to be an exceptionally fine-grained film, in a class by itself, really a prosumer film. Actually, it was never meant to be part of the Superia family, but only ended-up as "Superia Reala" due to marketing considerations. So the grain/resolution gap would naturally have been wider in your test.

 

[Athiril]

I've found Fuji's "garden variety" 100 much better than 100, just like Reala. Which is also reflected in the data sheets. Which imo makes shooting 200 pointless.. especially the the Pro 160 stuff is better than the 100 stuff anyway.

I've found the indication of the data sheets to be truthful and not lies

 

[Ten301]

I'm not sure I understand your post. Did you mean to say, "100 much better than 200..."? In any event, I don't think any manufacturer is lying in their data sheets, only that when it comes to grain and resolution, I believe they sometimes tend to be a bit "generous". Also, there are a lot of variables that can affect what you finally see in contrast to what the data sheet may say. When it comes to comparing numbers between different manufacturers, things become even more convoluted. Kodak marches to its own drummer, so their films cannot directly be compared to those of other manufacturers. An example of the generous aspect; I believe Ferrania lists the RMS of their Solaris FG Plus 100 equal or extremely close to what Fuji lists Superia Reala's RMS to be. In the real world, I'm sorry, but that's just not the case. Although both are 100 ISO, Reala has much finer grain than the Ferrania film. Like I said, maybe not lying, but...generous

 

[Athiril]

Films from different manufacturers can be directly compared if you make a comparison.

There's a definite gap between 100 and 200, even with Fujicolor 100. And according to Fuji their 160 line is better than any of their 100, which from my experience is also the case, though I have not made any technical comparisons.

 

[Ten301]

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. Yes, film comparisons can often be made from seeing the actual results when you have some control over what that will be, even between different manufacturers, but not always reliably from the data sheets. I have found the data sheets, as far as RMS and granularity are concerned, should be used only as a general guide. As for Kodak films, they cannot be directly compared to films of other manufacturers by data sheets alone, as Kodak uses a completely different ratings system. If you have a proprietary, magical, super-duper, "gee whiz, that's cool" conversion formula, please pass it on As for Fuji's 160 films being better than any of their 100, I have no doubt about that. All of their 160 are professional emulsions, where they would put all of their best technology. All of their 100 speeds are consumer films, even Reala, although some consider that a "prosumer" film. The same would also hold true for Kodak, although with the release of Ektar 100, they may have a 100 speed film that equals or surpasses their 160.

 

[steelneck]

Over at Hybridphoto i believe they sometimes are engaged in what they call "pixel peeping", i guess we could do the same here on apug, but instead call it "grain peeping". I followed my own advice in this thread earlier, i raised the head on my enlarger to what would have made a 63cm wide copy, 17,5 times enlargement. Put a frame containing a solid gray area in the film holder and focused my Componon-S, then took some test strips and exposed. Did this for Superia 1600, Pro 160C, Reala and Ektar. Then i scanned the strips at 400ppi and cropped out a 100% zoomed part from each strip.

Most monitors today have a resolution from 90 to 110 pixels per inch, around 100 in average as a guess (i am at 96). A 400 ppi scan looked at in actual pixel size on a 100 ppi monitor is a 4x enlargement. The original 17.5x enlargement is thus enlarged 4 times more in the crops below, that is 70x enlargement viewed in an average monitor. Reala and P160C is very close..

(edit)
All of them shot at box speed. The gray area is actually a small part of a IT8 target (vary handy to have a frame of when dialing in a base filtration ans exposure).