I loaded up my recently acquired Minolta Maxxum 700si with a 28-105 Minolta zoom lens and headed out on a slightly overcast Ohio spring day to burn through my first roll. The exposures were made at box speed using aperture priority, and I largely let the camera’s meter do the thinking. I shot handheld, and the shutter speeds were guaranteed fast with the 400-speed film. Obligatory gear shot: Gear! Minolta Maxxum 700si with a 28-105 Minolta zoom + Minolta a-9 with Carl Zeiss 24-70 2.8 zoom My main reason for shooting Portra films is their impressive dynamic range (12+ stops for ISO 400 & 800 , 7 stops for 160 ) and impeccable colour accuracy. Can UltraMax match or at least come close to those results at a lower price and greater availability?

An all-round general purpose, high-performance, high speed color negative film delivering truly fine-grain. Superb for snapshots or action, in low light with flash, outdoors or indoors. Ideal for general use with compact zoom lens cameras. This leaves us with Kodak Portra 400 , the only* remaining freshly-made, non-rebranded colour negative film that isn’t UltraMax or NC 500. However, Portras do not fit in the “general-purpose” category since Kodak markets them as “professional” films. This means higher prices and fewer chances to find some at a local drugstore (though I would argue that the new ORWO film is also relatively rare). What’s exposure latitude? Exposure latitude is essentially how much a picture can be under or overexposed while retaining as much information as possible. Basically, Portra 400 has very good exposure latitude, which means you’ll get more information from the shadows and highlights. I think Fuji Superia 400 could be a great option for projects that might not be completely important. Like, let’s say you want to shoot good portraits or documentary photography or street photography and you want it to be good but you don’t need it to be absolutely perfect, this is where I think Fuji Superia comes into play. The Joey’s Subs photo shows off the bright colors and detail rendered by this film. Compare the 100% crop of the swallow at 1600 EI (roll 2) to the 100% of the Joey’s Subs shot — where the stars on the flag showed good detail at 400 EI. I wished I had a wide-angle lens at times, but now and then, you need a challenge and “work with what you brung” as we tend to say here in Ohio.

Overall, it’s safe to say that Superia’s best feature is its dynamic range. This makes it a forgiving film , suitable for plastic toy cameras , old cameras with less-than-reliable shutters, and for metering using the Sunny 16 rule . It is also an excellent film to shoot in high-contrast scenes such as high noon and night photography . So, will I use this film again? Of course, as I bought two more rolls of it. Joking aside, Fuji Superia gave me pleasing results, so I will probably use it again from time to time. I found the results given by the new “Made in USA” Fujifilm 400 very satisfactory. However, I think my conversion setup and Negative Lab Pro settings may tend to over-saturate the colors a bit. The colors definitely pop, and I can’t quite judge if that’s the film, or my setup. I deliberately lowered NLP’s saturation setting a bit on the EI 1600 push, and Lima rolls (rolls 2 and 3 respectively).

Considering the film speed, grain is not objectionable at all, and the 42-megapixel resolution of my Sony DSLR ‘scanner’ easily showed good film detail, the failings of my hand-held exposures, and the faults of my 80’s vintage zoom lens on the first roll. I would caution making any guesses about the characteristics of the emulsion until a real data sheet with color curves is released by Fujifilm. There are too many digital variables from my camera to your computer screen. If you are unsure how your expired film has been stored, or the quality of the emulsion, over exposing by 1 stop per decade is a good place to start with. But, as with every internet rule of thumb, it is not 100% accurate so always take it with a pinch of salt. This is the combined art and science of shooting expired film! There is a definable warmth to the colours that come out of Superia 400, while it’s a little more noticeable on the roll that isn’t as expired as the first. The reds, oranges, and yellows pop the most make it perfect for fall days at peak colours when you have full sunlight. And while the film does handle blues well, I find at least in my examples they aren’t exactly what I like in my blues. Even the expired film allows some of these same colours to pop, but these were also shot under more overcast conditions. While I wouldn’t call the colours a natural reproduction, they add a bit of rich vibrance even in dull light, but it performs much better under brighter conditions. And this surprises me, as I would expect a film like Superia 400 to perform well in every situation, especially under lower light. On a dare from Em, I decided to push a roll to 1600 (2 stops). This called for bringing out my favorite camera, a Minolta a-9 that can focus the SSM lenses made by Sony for the A-mount digital SLRs. The a-9 also has a 1/12,000 top shutter speed for when you want to play with large apertures and bokeh in broad daylight. Most of the push samples below were made with a Carl Zeiss 24-70 f.2.8 zoom lens.Superia 400 is a classic Fuji 35mm film that faithfully reproduces colours and skin tones in low-light while colour-balanced for flash - this is an excellent general use emulsion. Especially during the winter season I practice a lot of night-time photography. During the day, one photograph might take up 1/125th of a second of your time. However, at night, things change drastically. You should have much more time on your hands as a single exposure can easily consume several minutes.