# Is this amount of grain normal for Fujifilm Superia 200?



## leinadg

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


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## bhop

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.


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## Josh66

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.


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## bhop

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.


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## gsgary

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


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## michaeljamesphoto

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


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## leinadg

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


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## Josh66

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.


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## Cruzingoose

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.


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## djacobox372

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.


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## leinadg

O|||||||O said:


> 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.
Click to expand...


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


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## Josh66

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.


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## djacobox372

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.


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## leinadg

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


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## MattxMosh

O|||||||O said:


> 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.).
Click to expand...


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.


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## Josh66

MattxMosh said:


> They only make Portra 400.


Has it always been that way, or is that new...?  I can't remember now...lol.


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## leinadg

MattxMosh said:


> O|||||||O said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 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.).
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 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.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 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.
Click to expand...



Kodak still lists Portra 160, 400 and 800 on their website. Dont they still make them all?

I actualy scanned these myself with a Epson V700. It may not be a proffesional scanner, but looking online, I have seen images with much less noise in them. My first thought was therefore that maybe it was the film that was the problem.


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## Sw1tchFX

Superia 200 sucks. Especially shot at 200. It's more like superia 64. If you buy an expensive film like ektar 100 or portra 160, shoot it at ISO 50, you'll have hardly any grain (for 35mm).


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## leinadg

I have ordered a roll of Portra 160 and Fuji Provia 100F  I´ll try to overexpose the portra with 1 stop.


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## ulrichsd

Sw1tchFX said:


> Superia 200 sucks. Especially shot at 200. It's more like superia 64. If you buy an expensive film like ektar 100 or portra 160, shoot it at ISO 50, you'll have hardly any grain (for 35mm).



Sorry, I don't want to hijack this thread, but I have a noob question.  When you say shoot the film at ISO 50 when the film is actually 100 or 160, do you just mean to set the aperture or shutter to overexpose a stop / stop and half?  Won't it then look overexposed?


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## Josh66

Color negative film has a lot of range, so you can overexpose a stop or so and not really blow anything out.  I usually shoot 160 film at 100.


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## Josh66

leinadg said:


> Kodak still lists Portra 160, 400 and 800 on their website. Dont they still make them all?


Yeah, they still make them - but each one used to have a "VC" and "NC" version.


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## Sw1tchFX

ulrichsd said:


> Sw1tchFX said:
> 
> 
> 
> Superia 200 sucks. Especially shot at 200. It's more like superia 64. If you buy an expensive film like ektar 100 or portra 160, shoot it at ISO 50, you'll have hardly any grain (for 35mm).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, I don't want to hijack this thread, but I have a noob question.  When you say shoot the film at ISO 50 when the film is actually 100 or 160, do you just mean to set the aperture or shutter to overexpose a stop / stop and half?  Won't it then look overexposed?
Click to expand...

Color neg is alot different than digital, you don't have to nail the exposure right on. When you overexpose, you don't loose information, you just get more of it. With most color neg films there's enough highlight latitude that you'll have to overexpose 4 or 5 stops to get an image "blown out", and even than..they're generally not, they'll just have funky color.


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## bhop

leinadg said:


> Kodak still lists Portra 160, 400 and 800 on their website. Dont they still make them all?



Yes, it's all still available.  I was at freestyle saturday and a guy in line in front of me bought some of each.  The "new" 160 just came out last year.  Personally, i'm a big fan of it.


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