Re: filmscanners: supra 400

[Paul Chefurka <Paul_Chefurka@pmc-sierra.com>]

Provia 400F is my standard film these days.  Great colour, good saturation, 
terrific scannability.  The only problem is that in bright light I need to stop 
down more than I might like (gee, it's too fast - what a shame :-).  For 
shooting available light on slides, there's nothing like it.  It's the Tri-X of 
slide films.

I had high hopes for Supra 400, and I get very nice chemical prints from it.  
But it's hopeless in my LS-4000 due to the grain aliasing.  I shoot a lot of 
available-light stuff, so the toe of the curve is very important to me.  Given 
that it's impossible to overexpose the shadows in some of the stuff I do, the 
only remedy is dragging up the black point in PS and losing a ton of shadow 
detail.

Given how good Provia 400F is, how easily it scans, and the fact that slides 
are self-proofing, I see no reason to shoot high-speed colour neg any more.

Paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Arthur Entlich [mailto:artistic@ampsc.com]
> Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 11:38 AM
> To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
> Subject: Re: filmscanners: Re: filmscanners: supra 400
> 
> 
> Obviously the Provia films are slides and the Superia are 
> negs, just to
> clarify.
> 
> Provia 400 is a miserable film (also sold as Sensia II 400).  It is
> grainy, has poor color, often shifting very cyan, and is too contrasty
> in bright light, which is the only way to get decent color out of it,
> which sort of defeats the purpose.  Provia 400F is a new 
> beast, and has
> received very good reviews.  I have a few rolls waiting for low light
> situations, but haven't used them yet.
> 
> Art