Alas, the fourth layer was dropped in 2007. Superia X-Tra 400 was discontinued in Japan in 2019 in favour of a local flavour of the same film: Superia Premium 400 . The Premium has no fourth layer, costs more, and is apparently “optimized for the reproduction of Japanese skin tones.” I remember shooting the new XP – not “2” – many years ago. Did you know that Agfa briefly made one, too? And Ilford used to have a C-41 developing kit designed for home use; lower temperatures OK. And Kodak made one until very recently. By mid 2019 the Superia product line had been consolidated into two films; Superia X-tra 400 (distributed outside Japan) and Superia Premium 400 (officially distributed in Japan only).

You’ll also find that in the scoring sheet I provided, if you expand the hidden column, column B, this will also reveal the names of the films for easier reference, going forward. And now that we know which film is which, we can look at the final three factors to consider on the scoring sheet. I’ve included some defaults here, but these may require some adjustment based on where you live and some of your own observations or research regarding these films. I don’t claim that my scoring is perfect here. If you live in the US and it’s still 2019, these are the current price of the film per frame. This doesn’t include the price of development or scanning: A – Fujifilm C200 I’d like to mention that Fuji’s films are regionalised. Their US-made Fujifilm 400 consumer colour negative film is not the same as their current consumer ISO 400 colour offerings in other regions. For example, Fujifilm 400 replaced the legacy Fujicolor Superia X-tra400 in the US market (and likely other countries in the Americas), but this specific product is still produced and marketed for areas like Oceania – where the new Fujifilm 400 does not exist as an official offering.These days I shoot C-41 color, still some Kodak 400 HD in my lead bag in my freezer. That was a consumer film that was better in definition than any other Kodak offerings other that the Ektars. I also process my own film; this is especially important in this new era of no one hour photos or drug store minilabs. For the trip, I brought my Leicaflex SL2 in combination with not one but two 35mm lenses (the f/2 Summicron as well as the PC Curtagon shift lens). As I had wisely loaded the film in complete darkness , I was able to obtain 40 frames from the single roll. An impressive number to be reduced to a not-so-much impressive count of 37 useful frames by camera operator error. By the way, my point-and-shoot cameras often get one more frame out of a Fuji than of a Kodak film. To have a little more room for exposure errors, I rated the Fuji Superia at EI 200. The Images – Day-Time Shots

Olympus OM-1 with F-Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.8 and Fujifilm Superia 400. Over-exposed by about 1 stop. Inverted by hand with no adjustments. Where to buy Fujifilm Superia X-Tra and how much does it cost. Meanwhile, Fujifilm’s existing 400-ISO film, Superia X-Tra 400, has been listed as “discontinued” by leading US film retailers B&H. This has fuelled speculation on social media that the film may have replaced with Kodak UltraMax 400 labelled as Fujifilm in the US, at least temporarily. As per usual, Portra 400 is probably better in this department because of its dynamic range and finer grain, it’s tones are probably a bit better. Dynamic RangeBut one thing is for sure, if you want great general use film, Fujifilm Superia is a fantastic option. Competing directly with Fuji’s c200, Kodak’s Color Plus 200 is Kodak’s cheapest color option. For a Kodak film, its tones are a bit cooler than what I remember seeing in reality. But the tones stay surprisingly true in indoor situations with less than ideal light. The highlights seem to have a red hue. The skin tones seem true to life, if not a bit more contrasty than some of Kodak’s other films. Color Plus is not a sharp film and, as expected for a budget film, very grainy. It’s latitude is wide, but maybe slightly less so than Kodak Gold 200. Since it’s extremely cheap, Color Plus is also a common film to see among street photographers. This mirrors last year’s rebranding of Fujicolor C200 as Fujicolor 200 in the US. This film was also made in the US and analysis of its datasheet showed it was exactly the same as Kodak Gold 200 – including Kodak’s terms for colours, rather than Fujifilm’s.

I really, really wish that Superia were still available in 120 format. It’s beautiful, accurate, and just has a gorgeous look to it that digital can’t totally replicate. With that said though, the look isn’t far off. Still, judging from the way these photos look and considering that this film was over 10 years expired I’m still amazed at how great it looks. With Fuji c200 skin tones seem to be brighter or have more luminosity than other films. The magentas are quite saturated, and in the highlights and midtones the pallet leans magenta in general. This film is also very punchy or contrasty. As I mentioned, the shadows have a lot of green in them and, to my eye, they don’t look particularly good when underexposed or when you try to recover in post. This film seems to do best when exposed for the shadows and maybe even shot at 100 rather than 200. As far as grain goes, to me it’s surprisingly noisy for a 200 speed film. And as far as sharpness, it feels a bit muddy, not really a particularly crisp film. But the strength of c200 is in its latitude, which is very wide. It is able to be overexposed up to three stops and underexposed one stop before you’ll start to see problems. Fuji Superia 400 and Kodak Portra 400 are relatively similar in terms of stats, with the main difference being that Portra has an acetate film base while Superia has a cellulose triacetate film base. Portra has a finer grain than Superia, resulting in sharper images. Fujifilm first produced Superia film in 1998, when film photography was still pretty standard. It was a line of film prioritizing color reproduction and image sharpness. These rolls use Super Fine-∑ (Sigma) Grain Technology, producing a finer grain and resulting in bright, crisp photos.Fujifilm will help you achieve vibrant greens and strong and beautiful blues, and a lot of people love that look. The film is ISO 400 you can take it outside, shoot it indoors, use lighting- take it all over the place! And across a roll you will notice the lovely sharpness and Fuji's famous cool tones. Perhaps you can see in the bottom right-hand corner, there is some browny/yellow brush which seems more saturated in the Superia image than in the Portra image. I’m not usually a technical reviewer (otherwise I’d never stop!) so I’ll be discussing my process for shooting, developing, and printing my images from a standard roll of XP2. I use this film in either my Leica CL, or my Hasselblad XPan – mostly the XPan! 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!

I self-developed the film with Kodak’s Flexicolor C41 process at standard temps and times with a Jobo system, and converted the files to digital with a Sony a99ii and Minolta 50mm macro lens using a Cinestill light pad. Fujifilm is set to release a new colour film in the US, called Fujfilm 400 – while its current Superia X-Tra 400 film is listed as “discontinued” by at least one American retailer.

In Summary

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. caption width=1024 align=aligncenter] Nikon FE – AI-S Nikkor 35mm 1:2.8 – Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia X-Tra 400 @ ASA-400 – Processing By: Burlington Camera Nikon FE – AI-S Nikkor 35mm 1:2.8 – Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia X-Tra 400 @ ASA-400 – Processing By: Burlington Camera Nikon FE – AI-S Nikkor 35mm 1:2.8 – Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia X-Tra 400 @ ASA-400 – Processing By: Burlington Camera Nikon FE – AI-S Nikkor 35mm 1:2.8 – Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia X-Tra 400 @ ASA-400 – Processing By: Burlington Camera Next you’ll do the same with contrast straight off a scan. For me, I actually prefer not very much contrast as I only scan, never enlarge, so I like fine tuning contrast in LR after I’ve scanned. Every time I do these comparisons I get traditionalists who are upset that I focus so much attention on scanning. To you folks, I would remind you that the same things that make a negative good for printmaking are also good things for scanning and just because I don’t go through the full enlarging process here doesn’t make this study less valid, even for folks who do. It was the first time a true comparison could be done with equal parameters. Comparing a crop-camera with a film camera means that by using the same lens it has a different angles of view, thus one cannot really compare sharpness or grain vs noise. Using lenses with equal angle of view, e.g. a 135mm apc and 200mm fullframe, it is actually testing lenses as well, thus the playing field is even more unequal.