Is this amount of grain normal for Fujifilm Superia 200?

leinadg · Apr 5, 2012

I recently shot my first roll of film (Fuji Superia 200) on my Canon EOS 500 camera. I had my local lab develop it, but I scanned it myself with my Epson V700 at 2400dpi.
Is this amount of grain normal for this type of film? What is your preferred color film for landscape photography?
Here are some samples:

-Daniel

bhop · Apr 5, 2012

It looks pretty common from my experiences. Superia 200 is a consumer grade film. I've shot a bit of it and it seems to go both ways. Sometimes it's grainy like yours, other times it's nice and smooth.

Josh66 · Apr 5, 2012

Depends on exposure... I have seen worse than this, but the film is capable of better.

Honestly, I think Fuji Superia 400 looks better than 200... Superia 400 is probably my favorite cheap film.

I don't do a lot of landscape, but Fuji Pro 160S is my favorite color film. It's been (recently) discontinued though... 160NS is the replacement - haven't shot that yet. Kodak's Portra films are good too, but I prefer Fuji. Fuji seems to handle white balance much better. You can shoot it in mixed lighting and get acceptable results. Kodak picks up all kinds of color casts in anything but straight daylight.

bhop · Apr 5, 2012

O|||||||O said:
Depends on exposure... I have seen worse than this, but the film is capable of better.

Honestly, I think Fuji Superia 400 looks better than 200... Superia 400 is probably my favorite cheap film.

I can agree with this.

gsgary · Apr 6, 2012

O|||||||O said:
Depends on exposure... I have seen worse than this, but the film is capable of better.

Honestly, I think Fuji Superia 400 looks better than 200... Superia 400 is probably my favorite cheap film.

I don't do a lot of landscape, but Fuji Pro 160S is my favorite color film. It's been (recently) discontinued though... 160NS is the replacement - haven't shot that yet. Kodak's Portra films are good too, but I prefer Fuji. Fuji seems to handle white balance much better. You can shoot it in mixed lighting and get acceptable results. Kodak picks up all kinds of color casts in anything but straight daylight.

160ns is very nice, shot my first roll a couple of months ago

White horse is ours

Bow on tail is to show it is their first hunt

michaeljamesphoto · Apr 6, 2012

Depends on the look you're going for. Fuji Pro films and Kodak Portra films have a bit of a muted contrast and softer colors, which can be very nice. Slide films such as Fuji Provia have much more saturation and contrast, but with its smaller exposure latitude it requires more careful exposure
Grain is invisible on provia, it's beautiful

leinadg · Apr 6, 2012

Thanks for the replies and image samples

I´ll try superia 400 instead of 200 the next time Im looking for cheap color film. But I want better quality, so I think I will order some Kodak Portra and Fuji Provia film

Fuji Pro 160ns seems to be harder to find here though.

-Daniel

Josh66 · Apr 6, 2012

leinadg said:
Fuji Pro 160ns seems to be harder to find here though.

It's still new, so it may take a little while to show up everywhere. (You can probably still find in-date 160S & 160C too.)

Last I checked - Freestyle & B&H didn't have it (I usually buy my film from them).

From what I've heard, it's supposed to be somewhere between 160S and 160C. Kodak did the same thing with their 160 Portra films a while ago. There used to be Portra 160VC and Portra 160NC - now there's just "Portra 160". (And that is also supposed to be somewhere between the two it replaced.) I believe there are still NC and VC versions in the Portra 400. (NC = 'Natural Colors', VC = 'Vivid Colors'. That's what I've always been told anyway.)

I think I'll be OK with it judging by Gary's photos.

Cruzingoose · Apr 7, 2012

Now for a monkey wrench......

Unless the negative is printed optically on photographic paper to verify the grain structure, the grain you see could be digital noise.

djacobox372 · Apr 8, 2012

Considering the subject matter, Theres a good chance the photo was slightly underexposed. That said the grain doesn't look that bad for cheap film, film grain is not nearly as unpleasant as digital noise.

leinadg · Apr 8, 2012

O|||||||O said:
leinadg said:

Fuji Pro 160ns seems to be harder to find here though.

Click to expand...

It's still new, so it may take a little while to show up everywhere. (You can probably still find in-date 160S & 160C too.)

Last I checked - Freestyle & B&H didn't have it (I usually buy my film from them).

From what I've heard, it's supposed to be somewhere between 160S and 160C. Kodak did the same thing with their 160 Portra films a while ago. There used to be Portra 160VC and Portra 160NC - now there's just "Portra 160". (And that is also supposed to be somewhere between the two it replaced.) I believe there are still NC and VC versions in the Portra 400. (NC = 'Natural Colors', VC = 'Vivid Colors'. That's what I've always been told anyway.)

I think I'll be OK with it judging by Gary's photos.

As a film noob, learned a lot just from reading that

Its also interesting to compare different film types on your flickr page.

djacobox372 said:
Considering the subject matter, Theres a good chance the photo was slightly underexposed. That said the grain doesn't look that bad for cheap film, film grain is not nearly as unpleasant as digital noise.

I agree that grain from film definitely looks better that noise, but I was looking for less grain in these landscapes. I guess I was exspecting too much from this type of film

Josh66 · Apr 8, 2012

leinadg said:
Its also interesting to compare different film types on your flickr page.

Some of the color sets have a lot of scans with messed up colors - if you saw those, that was not typical of those films. That's from when I was scanning without a calibrated monitor. Trying to do color correction by eye, with no calibration...lol.

djacobox372 · Apr 10, 2012

leinadg said:
As a film noob, learned a lot just from reading that Its also interesting to compare different film types on your flickr page.

I agree that grain from film definitely looks better that noise, but I was looking for less grain in these landscapes. I guess I was exspecting too much from this type of film

I suggest you consider medium format. 35mm always has visible grain at moderate enlargements unless u shoot expensive film, and even then you will see pronounced grain when you go beyond 8x10.

leinadg · Apr 13, 2012

I will definitely buy a medium format camera some day

Maybe a Yashica 124 or something like that. Thats partially why I bought a Epson V700, so that I could scan 135, and maybe 120 and 4X5 in the future.
Its crazy how the film photography bug has bitten me

MattxMosh · Apr 13, 2012

O|||||||O said:
leinadg said:

Fuji Pro 160ns seems to be harder to find here though.

Click to expand...

It's still new, so it may take a little while to show up everywhere. (You can probably still find in-date 160S & 160C too.)

Last I checked - Freestyle & B&H didn't have it (I usually buy my film from them).

From what I've heard, it's supposed to be somewhere between 160S and 160C. Kodak did the same thing with their 160 Portra films a while ago. There used to be Portra 160VC and Portra 160NC - now there's just "Portra 160". (And that is also supposed to be somewhere between the two it replaced.) I believe there are still NC and VC versions in the Portra 400. (NC = 'Natural Colors', VC = 'Vivid Colors'. That's what I've always been told anyway.).

They only make Portra 400.

Cruzingoose said:
Now for a monkey wrench......

Unless the negative is printed optically on photographic paper to verify the grain structure, the grain you see could be digital noise.

And that is exactly what it is, unless you pay for pro scans and proper adjustment, do it yourself, or buy a condenser enlarger and some filters or a color head and same RA4, they just digitally blast up the exposure and ruin it.