3 Emulsions: Part 1

Kodak UltraMax400

Since Fuji Superia400X has been discontinued 😦 I’m trying out a couple different ISO400 C-41 film stocks. The political economy of film photography is… well… weird RN… and film pricing is responding to inflation, fashion, private equity capital flows and the market distortions caused by Kodaks 2012 bankruptcy that are still rattling around the global economy. I don’t really obsess about which color film I use. My target is an under $10/36exposure roll of ISO400 C-41 process film for everyday work. When I find one that works for me I buy a brick, stash it in the freezer and use it till it’s gone.

One thing I liked about Superia was it did this when you overexposed it 1 stop… You got increased saturation, contrast and a bump in shadow detail without blowing out highlights. It also shifted a bit warmer without getting weird.:

So I bought some current production film and shot some test rolls: Kodak UltraMax400, the new Fuji400, and Wolfen NC400, to see how they respond to the light. I bracketed 3 exposures of each scene: box speed , 1 stop under, and 1 stop over. Developed normally – not pushed or pulled – we get normal, under, and over exposed images.

For consistency I used the same camera and lens (Nikon F6 w/Nikkor 28-105 f/3.5-5.6), and the cameras internal matrix metering mode with no filters or fill flash. All 3 rolls were processed and scanned by Indie Photo here in Philly.

The light in many of these shots pushes at the limit of the films dynamic range that could be controlled through lots of traditional techniques, but the whole point of this experiment was to test those limits. Here’s the results for Kodak UltraMax400:

My biggest takeaway is that this film stock is consistent with other Kodak consumer films I’ve used. It’s a bit ‘hard’ and not quite as forgiving as the old Fuji SuperiaX or Kodak Portra. Over exposed we do get increased saturation but with less latitude, more contrast, and the highlights tend to blow out. Looking at the sunset we got a dramatic color shift that wasn’t correctable. It also doesn’t like being underexposed, we get a magenta shift in the shadows. Nothing that can’t be handled with more careful and intentional exposures (or some tweaking in Lightroom). It has its strengths – and its weaknesses are all manageable, but I won’t be shooting this emulsion at ISO200 on a routine basis.

Street work with Cinestill400

Some sample frames from work in progress. Shot 2 rolls of 35mm Cinestill400, a motion picture film that’s been repurposed and marketed for still photography and standard C41 lab chemistry. Found a few light leaks, some interesting color shifts and contrast effects but nothing that would make me use it instead of a more traditional emulsion unless that’s all we’ve got after the zombie apocalypse 🙂

Nikon F100 35mm SLR with various lenses

Ink and paper

3-11-23: Been spending some time printing photos to hang. It’s been refreshing to work with paper again after so much screen time these past couple years. I’ve made all the prints with a ‘hybrid’ process: film capture and development in C-41 chemistry by a local lab, then scanned and digitized, with basic ‘darkroom’ work done on the computer in adobe lightroom, then inkjet printed on archival paper. Here’s a teaser of 2 of the pieces from the show that should be up Monday or Tuesday next week 🙂 If you’re in Philly in March, drop by Higher Grounds cafe at 631 N 3rd (3rd and Fairmount) and take a looksie.