Kodak Ultra 800 versus Fuji Superia 800

[BetterSense]

CVS has Kodak Ultra (or is it Ultramax?) 800. Walmart has Superia 800. Both are similarly priced. Which makes the best P&S fodder?

 

[Athiril]

For what? Pushing? Sharpness @ 800?

Superia 800 @ 640 is quite nice. Dunno where those negs got too though.

 

[BetterSense]

I'm going to be shooting this in my XA and Stylus cameras. I always use high-speed film in these types of cameras because I get more in-focus shots. I guess I'm interested in which one has more real speed and gives good natural colors.

 

[wblynch]

I like the Kodak Ultra(max?) 800 a lot more than the Fuji 800 (especially the Walgreen's version).

I found the Kodak to be very low grain and great color (but not very saturated), where the Fuji came back very grainy and the color seemed shifted toward the green.

This was my observation from the prints I got back from Costco. I scanned the negatives myself to see what adjustments I could make and the basic scans came out just like the Costco prints. Enhancing the scan results helped the Fuji a lot and I was able to add some saturation to the Kodak.

In the end, I liked Kodak much more than Fuji and went out and bought 8 rolls of Kodak 800. I still have 3 or 4 rolls yet to use.

By the way, I used the Kodak 800 in my XA2 since it has a tendency to underexpose. The pictures from that camera came out very nice.

 

[perkeleellinen]

My experience is that Superia 800 is nicer than Ultramax*. I find that the Fuji handles mixed lighting better, I think it shows less grain than Ultramax which I've found to be quite coarse. So almost the complete opposite of wblynch, above! Which, of course, leads to the inevitable recommendation: you're going to have to try a roll of each yourself.

Both films look nicer when rated at 640, I find, especially in the shadows, but you won't be able to do that with the Stylus.


* optical printing or home scanning.

 

[Jeff Kubach]

In the past I found that Fuji is a little more warmer then Kodak.

Jeff

 

[mikecnichols]

I was very well pleased with the results I've gotten from Fuji.

 

[dynachrome]

Portra 800 and the Fuji 800 are the two best 800 speed color print films and are both much better than the MAX 800. My preference is for the Portra 800 but it sells for nearly $10 a roll in some places. I am sometimes substituting 400 film and using faster lenses or using a DSLR and just setting the ISO to 800.

 

[Tim Gray]

People seem to slam Max 800 a lot, and say that Portra 800 is a lot better. While I do think Portra 800 is great and is my go to high speed color neg, is Max 800 really that different? Ron Andrews doesn't seem to think so, and I think he was part of the group that developed both of them. Kodak's tech pubs seem to back this up. I'll quote him:

It is a moot point now, but I've always been amused by comments that suggest there is a big difference between Max 800 and Portra 800. The first generation of these products was rather sensitive to background radiation. When the film was near its expiration date, it was significantly grainier than when fresh. I suspect comments about the differences between Max and Portra 800 were comparing first generation films of different ages. With the most recent generation, there is a detectable difference in grain as the film ages, but it takes a careful comparison to find it. In any event, these two films share most of their components. With similar age samples kept in similar circumstances, they are indistinguishable.

From this thread.

The thing is, I don't know where you can buy this stuff. I guess in real stores, but I have a hard time tracking down Ultra Max 800 online. Maybe I should get a fresh roll or two and do a comparison of it with Portra 800.

 

[2F/2F]

I love the Fuji Superia 800. I have shot more of it than any other color film. I have been pretty well disappointed by the Kodak in comparison. The Fuji is sharp, fine grained, very neutral and accurate in color, and easy to color balance in the enlarger. (I really wish that it was made in medium format, and large format, for that matter.) The Kodak has seemed only slightly better than dollar store film when I have used it. It gets really grainy with underexposure, and it seems slightly "wonky" in general to me.