Kodak Gold 100 vs. Fujifilm Superia 200

bvy · Jan 12, 2012

We had a nice stretch of high pressure and sunny days here in Pittsburgh earlier this week. During one such lunch hour, I shot a roll of Fuji Superia 200 and then a roll of Kodak Gold 100. Same camera -- a simple point-and-shoot with fixed aperture and shutter speed. The resultant shots show the Fuji to be nicely exposed, but the Kodak slightly overexposed. This is, of course, exactly the opposite of what I expected. Both rolls of film were developed at the same lab with no special instructions. Both films were purchased new, kept frozen, and had expiration dates in 2013.

I'm just curious if this is not an unexpected or unheard of result from one or the other of these films, or if I should look elsewhere for the problem. Maybe it's unrealistic to compare film speed between brands. Just looking for thoughts or ideas. Thanks.

CGW · Jan 12, 2012

bvy said:
We had a nice stretch of high pressure and sunny days here in Pittsburgh earlier this week. During one such lunch hour, I shot a roll of Fuji Superia 200 and then a roll of Kodak Gold 100. Same camera -- a simple point-and-shoot with fixed aperture and shutter speed. The resultant shots show the Fuji to be nicely exposed, but the Kodak slightly overexposed. This is, of course, exactly the opposite of what I expected. Both rolls of film were developed at the same lab with no special instructions. Both films were purchased new, kept frozen, and had expiration dates in 2013.

I'm just curious if this is not an unexpected or unheard of result from one or the other of these films, or if I should look elsewhere for the problem. Maybe it's unrealistic to compare film speed between brands. Just looking for thoughts or ideas. Thanks.

Never liked Gold 100. Fond of Superia 200(and 800)--the only consumer Fuji materials I like. Kodak consumer films have been scarce around Toronto--not that I miss 'em--after Kodak.ca folded in 2005. Never got consistent results with Gold 100 on Fuji paper anyway.

David Lyga · Jan 12, 2012

OK, I have several 100' rolls of Fuji Super G + that 'expired' in 1998 and have been kept frozen. Its ISO is 100 and its speed, even NOW, is 200.

I really think that advertised color speeds are somewhat hype. I have NEVER in my life experienced a true '800' with ISO 800 color film. I think that there are two speeds with color: 100 -200 and 400-800. Period. - David Lyga

CGW · Jan 12, 2012

David Lyga said:
OK, I have several 100' rolls of Fuji Super G + that 'expired' in 1998 and have been kept frozen. Its ISO is 100 and its speed, even NOW, is 200.

I really think that advertised color speeds are somewhat hype. I have NEVER in my life experienced a true '800' with ISO 800 color film. I think that there are two speeds with color: 100 -200 and 400-800. Period. - David Lyga

Why would you underexpose an ISO100 print film? Fuji Superia 800 is great at ISO500-640, not at ISO1600.

ntenny · Jan 12, 2012

Are you comparing exposures based on the negatives or the lab prints? The former seems more reliable, albeit kind of hard to eyeball.

I've found I like Superia 200 better at 100-125, but even so I wouldn't expect Gold 100 to be apparently faster. I haven't made an apples-to-apples comparison, but your results surprise me, for what that's worth.

-NT

Ian Grant · Jan 12, 2012

Superia 200 was once my main 35mm colour print film, I always had excellent results at box speed.

Ian

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Jan 12, 2012

I had problems with Portra 400 , They scan darker than the normal , whatever Kodak is doing me , I love its colors. Lab scans with Gretag and Noritsu and colors and sharpness little bit lost but when I applied little bit USM and color , everything turns in heaven. I cant couldnt agree with Fuji anytime. When they marketed over saturated films and saw two pages of magenta filled pictures at Popular Photography, I said Photography is dead in USA. These pictures cut me from photography for a long time.

Photo Engineer · Jan 12, 2012

Can you scan in some negatives so that we can look at them? The results may be more helpful than just a comment on speed.

PE

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Jan 12, 2012

Ron ,

Let me try to find these pictures from scan cds. It would be or not to be in half hour.

Thank you ,

Umut

Photo Engineer · Jan 12, 2012

I would like the OP to post some scans as well.

I have looked at Umut's scans in a PM, but as per APUG rules will not comment on them here.

PE

bvy · Jan 12, 2012

Thanks everyone. PE, I'll try to do a side-by-side scan -- a negative from each roll on the same pass. Won't be before tomorrow.

F/1.4 · Jan 12, 2012

Between Superia and Gold...Gold every time. I can't stand Fuji Superia. In my opinion, it's too contrasty, leans too far towards the blues and greens, and is way oversaturated. Superia Xtra 400 and 800 are pretty much the only two films that I think are truly ugly. Kodak Gold isn't too great either..It's as if you're shooting at a white balance of 7500k.

I've been consistently disappointed by Superia and Gold, and I stopped shooting analog for 4 years because those were the only films i'd buy (i was too cheap) and they would look so terrible every single time.

Fujifilm though isn't bad by any means.. I ADORE 400h and 160s. Those have become my two go-to films for shooting pictures of people. The amateur films, are amateur for a reason.

Just take a look for yourself, these are straight off a Frontier SP2000, both shot on the same day, and processed together on the same day:

sandermarijn · Jan 12, 2012

While they seem to illustrate your point, I feel those scans look great. Says the happily naive amateur

perkeleellinen · Jan 13, 2012

Just to add that I think Superia 200 is much more toned down than Superia 400. In my experience the 400 is very punchy compared to the 200 which is more subtle (as is the 800, I think) and actually closer to Reala than its 400 brother.

bvy · Jan 15, 2012

I won't be posting any scans. Simply requesting that I go through the exercise was enough. Apparently the Noritsu scans I get back from Target have exposure adjustment applied. To confirm, I placed the two similarly exposed negatives side by side on my own scanner, corrected for exposure on one of the Fujifilm (200) frames, and then applied that to the whole viewing area. (I hope that made sense.) The Kodak frames were noticeably darker than the Fujifilm frames. Vice versa when I started with one of the Kodak (100) frames; the Fujifilm frames were brighter.

So I stand corrected. I'm sorry for the trouble, but I'm still glad I posted. I learned something.

Now my challenge is trying to determine which speed film is best suited for sunny (i.e. EV15) conditions. The camera, by the way, is the Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim -- great fun for casual, lo-fi shooting. It has a fixed aperture and shutter speed, but I don't trust the published specs. Not to mention, I'm sure every one is a little bit different due to the cheap nature of the camera. It probably doesn't matter much. But at least I know the film is working now!

Here's and example of what I shoot with this camera. This is Fujifilm Superia 200 on a bright overcast day.

beltzhoover by bvybvy, on Flickr

cjbecker · Jan 15, 2012

I am a big fan of superior 200. All mine is expired but still in the freezer. It is my go to cheep film. I only use it for fun but its good for that.

cjbecker · Jan 15, 2012

I forgot. I did a test with superior 200 and shot it from 1 stop under to 5 stops over. develop and scan my cvs.
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Ian Grant · Jan 16, 2012

Having shot predominantly Fuji colour films since the switch from E4 to E6 and C22 to C41 I settled on Superia 200 because it's exceptinally fine grained, great tonality and not over contrasty.

I'd suggest thouh that F1.4's experiences maybe down to the processing rather than the film itself. I've seen some awful results from films from all the manufacturers and in each case it's been the processing.

Ian

wblynch · Jan 16, 2012

I prefer Kodak Gold to Fuji. Fuji looks cold/dead to me.

It seems an unfair advantage to set a scanner for Fuji and then scan Kodak on those same settings. An experiment guaranteed to favor Fuji.

Soon it won't matter anyway as we will probably have only one to choose.

bvy · Jan 17, 2012

wblynch said:
It seems an unfair advantage to set a scanner for Fuji and then scan Kodak on those same settings. An experiment guaranteed to favor Fuji.

The only thing I "set" was the exposure. That's all I was interested in for this test. In any case, I ran the same test in reverse -- starting with Kodak.

dynachrome · Jan 19, 2012

I have the exact opposite experience with Superia Xtra 400. I am lucky to be in a town where the local camera store does an excellent job with film processing. They do an excellent job with all color print films but an outstanding job with Superia Xtra 400. I do not find it too contrasty. I find it to be just right. The quality of color negative film processing, developing and printing, has always been variable. It still is. I also think that in many cases, people who feel a film should be given extra exposure are not metering correctly to begin with. Having said that, the only 800 speed color rpoint films I used at 800 were Kodak and Fuji. The Konica, Agfa and store brand (Ferrania/3M?) 800 spoeed films looked better when shot at 640 or even 500. Digital printing has given us better control of contrast and that has helped with all films but bad processing can still make any film look bad.

L Gebhardt · Jan 19, 2012

This isn't a comment about scanning, but using a scanner to determine film exposure. A simple test I use is to scan a film frame and include the unprocessed area, but none of the sprocket holes. Make sure you adjust the black point so nothing is clipped in the scanner software (don't use auto exposure). Then open in photoshop and adjust the black point using levels. Hold down the option key (on the Mac, not sure on PC). You will see the clipped areas turn black. If significant area in the image turns black at the same time as the unexposed border, you are under exposing. If you need to go much past where the border clips then you have probably over exposed, or could have exposed less and still captured all the detail.

In color you can adjust each color channel, or just use the RGB. You will see which channel clips first, which can tell you if the color balance was also correct.

Try that out for a few frames on both films and see which works best.

perkeleellinen · Jan 20, 2012

dynachrome said:
I have the exact opposite experience with Superia Xtra 400. I am lucky to be in a town where the local camera store does an excellent job with film processing. They do an excellent job with all color print films but an outstanding job with Superia Xtra 400. I do not find it too contrasty. I find it to be just right.

This is good to know and I think I might give the 400 another stab not least as it's the only colour film still found in the high street round my town. I wonder now if my experience with 400 was due to poor scanning. I now print colour so I ought to give it another go. Most complaints about colour film that I've read online seem to be actually poor scanning complaints - so far by actually printing colour negs I've never found a bad film.

Kodak Gold 100 vs. Fujifilm Superia 200

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