Gold 200, Colorplus 200, Agfaphoto 200 and Fuji C200 side by side

Berri said:

I know you used the same camera/lens system. As for same light condition I mean controlled light, like studio strobes. It is of the utmost importance to include a grey card because EVERY colour film available fresh on the market is capable of producing a neutral grey; the colour palette of the film comes out when the grey is neutral.

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If the results may vary that much due to lighting and all, isn't it pointless for me to make a comparison? Shouldn't I go for whichever is cheaper and save money for better films for serious stuff?

M-88 said:

If the results may vary that much due to lighting and all, isn't it pointless for me to make a comparison? Shouldn't I go for whichever is cheaper and save money for better films for serious stuff?

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Berri's suggestions are directed toward increasing the usefulness of your test. If you have a common reference - the grey card - and the printing adjustments are made to give you a result which renders the grey card similarly for all the films then the differences in rendering for the other parts of the scene will tell you a lot about how each film renders different tones and shadows and contrast.
Unless you have some sort of "control" reference, it is hard to glean much from a comparison.
I still applaud your efforts.

MattKing said:

Berri's suggestions are directed toward increasing the usefulness of your test. If you have a common reference - the grey card - and the printing adjustments are made to give you a result which renders the grey card similarly for all the films then the differences in rendering for the other parts of the scene will tell you a lot about how each film renders different tones and shadows and contrast.
Unless you have some sort of "control" reference, it is hard to glean much from a comparison.
I still applaud your efforts.

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exactly.

M-88 said:

If the results may vary that much due to lighting and all, isn't it pointless for me to make a comparison? Shouldn't I go for whichever is cheaper and save money for better films for serious stuff?

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You put a lot of effort in this test, and if it is useful to you it'll surely be useful to sombody else as well. My suggestions are only intended to give an even more accurate result. By the way, with some PS tecniques you could easily overcome the issue of not being able to print the film directly. Also yes, light conditions are crucial to reproduction of colours.

MattKing said:

Berri's suggestions are directed toward increasing the usefulness of your test. If you have a common reference - the grey card - and the printing adjustments are made to give you a result which renders the grey card similarly for all the films then the differences in rendering for the other parts of the scene will tell you a lot about how each film renders different tones and shadows and contrast.
Unless you have some sort of "control" reference, it is hard to glean much from a comparison.
I still applaud your efforts.

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Or a color card, such as MacBeth would give a color by color comparison. Then one could determine the need for a warming filter.

Firstly the test is not useless....in that I see features in the Gold shots that I have seen regularly with the Gold line of films over the last 20+ years. Yes, the lighting isn't 100% the same but one can instinctively tell what's happening. And having used colour negative film for around 40 years, I know what Gold, Kodacolor (Color Plus) and Superia tend to look like. The test does a good job of representing that.

Is it a scientifically conducted test which would be published in a journal? No. Is it useful? Yes.

I shot another roll of Colorplus 10 days ago including very long exposures for "light painting". I was surprised the Colorplus shots came out better than a roll of UltraMax that I also shot that weekend....though daylight shots in a small forest were lovely on the Ultramax.