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Fujicolor Pro160S and Pro160C in comparison with 160NPC and 160NPS
Launching new films when digital is overtaking film? When so many manufacturer are downsizing their portfolio of films, some even discontinuing film production at all? Well, it must be a very interesting film to be a market success - but Fuji have definitely done their homework before even thinking of a new film. And why not - I am certainly one of the still many people who think that film bears many merits over digital - not negating the importance of digital photography and the many applications, where digital is simply better than film, but film has got many particular advantages and will have them still for a long time. Film photographs are somehow different in their appeal from digital ones, which often appear to be too perfect and sometimes even a bit artificial (my personal opinion, which might be wrong, but I am entitled to have an opinion). For me the main problem with film is its grain, especially when making large prints. My main interest is landscapes and rather quiet scenes and grain can sometimes be the disturbing element - it also can be an important part of the image, but overall, I prefer to shoot with film types which have very fine grain. Both new films will replace existing ones -which makes a lot of sense and which is a very logical approach. Their nominal speed of ISO160 (160ASA) is the same as the current films, NPS160 and NPC160 have got and their application is defined as similar as well - with the C type of film offering a higher contrast, higher saturation and more vivid color and the S type offering a smoother contrast, a bit less saturation and a bit less vivid color. Fuji's marketing information tells us that the S type is the perfect film for portrait, weddings and fashion and the C type the first choice film for commercial architecture and even selected portrait work. In addition to the improvements in color, Fuji also states, that the new films reveal finer grain - an RMS granularity of 3 for both films vs. 4 for the older type films. Scanning is supposed to be easier with the new films as well and a wide exposure range of -1 to +3 EV should make life easier and prints better as well. The following photographs have been taken with a Mamiya RZ67 ProII with RZ W and RZ UL-D lenses from 50 to 360mm at 1:5,6 to 1:11 and exposure times between 1/60sec and 1/400sec. All films have been developed at the same machine (Fuji Frontier) and at the same time and scanned in the same manner with the identical settings at an Microtek ArtixScan 1800f and an Epson 4870Photo. Let me start with the color rendition of the films in comparison with the older types. The first shot is one of the taller buildings in downtown Denver. It has got a grayish stone front, tinted windows and the partially covered sun was shining through some high clouds. No image manipulations other than a standard scan at 600dpi with all settings optimized for Fuji NPS160 at the Microtek ArtixScan 1800f.
The first set of three pictures are crops from the shot above, taken in Denver downtown - this one below was taken on the NPS160 and was post-processed in PhotoshopCS2 - all other crops have been treated exactly the same way and no specific color adjustment was made to allow a direct comparison of the color rendition of the three films.
Fujicolor NPS160 The front of the building has got tinted glass windows and the gray stone front is in reality pretty much structured in itself but overall more or less gray. The next crop comes from the same shot (same exposure time, taken with the same camera just a minute later) but this time on the new Fujicolor Pro160C - the film with the visibly higher contrast.
Fujicolor PRO160C Please note that this very visible difference
is the result of using the exactly same settings for exposure and scanning
compared to the one before of the NPS160 film. This means to me that this film
has not only got a higher contrast, which is very noticeable, it also has got a
pretty different color rendition. Both new films have got a much more tinted and
darker film base (much more orange-red) than the old NPS160. And the PRO160C
tends more towards greenish than the other films do - also very visible here. Of
course, and please do not forget this - that color shift can easily be corrected
with an appropriate profile and setting, but I wanted to show how the new films
behave in relation to the existing ones.
Fujicolor PRO160S Very visible - less contrast and the overall color rendition much closer to the NPS160 - overall a rather good starting point - at least to me. I want to show now three more details - the ventilation openings, which are pictured here as black areas only, contain a lot of details, which are visible on the negative if enlarged further and adjusted properly for the correct brightness. Please do note that for these three crops, I have used the level command of Photoshop CS2 in manual mode with the gray setting taken from an eye-drop tool at always the same point of the crop - the remaining color difference is basically how the three films see that grayish front of the building. NPS160
Left image: PRO 160C Right Image: PRO 160S
The overall color rendition of the Fujicolor PRO160S pleases me more, but this is definitely a matter of taste and preferences. The acclaimed finer grain of the new type films, well, I can't see it on these crops...but maybe on other scans - we shall see. What I can see is that having exposed all three films with the same exposure time (electronically controlled), the new films seem to have a bit less sensitivity (maybe 1/3 stop or so?) or better, latitude, compared to the existing NPS film - I just have no other explanation for the visibly darker images on both new films compared to the old one. So far this scene, now a totally different one - the location was the Center of Performing Arts Complex in Denver. The sun was now hiding behind clouds, but some blue sky did still exist.
Fuji NPS 160 The next shot was taken with the PRO160C - noticeable again the greenish tone when scanned with the pre-set values for the NPS160. If you click on that image, the color adjusted scan of the same negative will be superimposed and the greenish tint is gone, which was to be expected.
Pro160C uncorrected And as last example again the same shot with the PRO160S - colors more similar to the NPS 160 but still different and needing additional color correction/adjustment
NPS160S uncorrected It is definitely interesting to see the differences in color rendition and contrast - both new films can of course be optimized but still, the PRO160C's contrast is visibly higher than the PRO160S. But both films will not, when properly exposed, lead to highlights without information, which is still a problem with almost all digital cameras of today - maybe except the 22+Mpx pro backs (In this context it would be certainly interesting to compare these new films with Fuji's S3Pro camera which claims to provide one shooting mode which comes close to film and offers a much wider tonal range... How do dark scenes and scenes with rather little color reproduce with these films - here one, which I shot again downtown Denver, maybe a couple of hours earlier than the ones before - starting again with the "good old" NPS160
Fuji NPS160, Photoshop CS optimized (contrast, color, levels) You can see, that all details are clearly visible and the darkest part around the middle/bottom of the image still contains all relevant details. That is the setting, I have used for all three shots - this darkest part has to still show some details, the vertical and horizontal window separators. For a direct comparison here the result taken with the PRO160S - here you can see that this new type is better than the "good old" NPS - the image is crispier, better defined colors which are clearer as well.
PRO160S, Photoshop CS optimized (contrast, color, levels) The last image shows the result taken on the PRO160C film - much more contrast, a different color rendition but a very pleasing and attractive image - I must say, that for this kind of object, I would prefer this film type over the softer S type - I think this image is more crispy and has more pep than the one before.
PRO160C, Photoshop CS optimized (contrast, color, levels)
The next interesting question for me was to see if Fuji's claim that the new films have a finer grain structure can be made visible not only under lab conditions but also in real life. I took a shot of a downtown Denver building which contained some very nice and fine architectural details - almost monochrome which makes it easier to see the grain structure. Again, all three comparison negatives had been handled the exactly same way to avoid as much as possible artifacts which could distort the result First comes the image and you can see the (almost) entire image, as before, first taken on Fuji NPS160
Here now the detail - you can see where this detail comes from if you look at the upper part, left of the middle - again, NPS160
Fuji NPS160 The next detail comes from the negative taken on the new higher contrast film, PRO160C
FujiPRO160C And finally again the lower contrast film, PRO160S
PRO160S To see the differences in grain size easier - if visible at all, I have taken out the same part of all three crops and mounted them side by side - the film is marked inside the crops
My personal conclusion is that I can see a somehow finer grain in the crop of the PRO160S but not really in the one of the PRO160C - maybe the higher contrast does create the impression that the grain is not much different from the older film type. Please keep in mind - talking about grain size - these crops are tiny little parts of the entire image! The next comparison I was interested in was to shoot a scene which contained lots of bright details as well as dark ones - I went to a local shopping mall, the Park Meadows Mall and shot the interior with the three films, I had available. Exposure time about 1/15sec at 1:5,6. Then I scanned the negs all the same way and set the neutral point at brightness 180 to the second of the metal beams (counted from the front one), which hold the ceiling and which are painted in a neutral gray. The white point at 255 to one of the bright spots which are more or less already at 255 and the black spot at the darkest point in the image. The results are quite interesting and different from each other. Here the first shot, as usual with the NPS 160
NPS 160 Quite nice result - on the screen you can see no black-outs and no burn-outs are existing, contrast is fine, there is no major color shift except the one which comes logically from the wooden ceiling and is reflected in the slightly tainted walls. The next one again with the PRO160C - noticeably different to the previous one - more contrasted and a different overall color impression and this despite the setting neutral of the gray beam.
PRO160C The last shot taken with the PRO160S - again more similar in tone and overall impression to the NPS160, but in my opinion better - more details, finer description of the colors and shades - not much, but visible (at least in the original scan)
PRO160S I personally prefer this shot over the one taken with the PRO160C film because I think that the impression which the mall makes - this inviting warm tone which comes from the wood applications, is rendered better on this film than on the one before - but I guess, this as so many preferences are not a matter of objective measurement but of taste and as the Latin proverb says - degustibus non est disputandum (don't argue over taste). IMATEST RESULTS The last test was to shoot the Gretag Macbeth color chart - and then after scanning, I entered the results into the Imatest program which was originally designed for testing digital cameras. My conclusion was that if I scan all three shots the same way and then without any further manipulation besides cropping enter them as information into Imatest, I should get measurement data which at least in relation to each other should show some differences which also can be seen on the scanned photographs. It is important to note that the scans have
been done with two different scanners - the upper set of two on the Microtek
ArtixScan1800f with Silverfast 6i and the lower set of two on the Nikon ED8000
with Nikon's scan program. For all scans no modifications of any kind have been
made to the color output and both have been scanned with a linear LUT. What one can see here very clearly is, that the results depend a lot on the scanner itself - even if all available settings are as identical as possible - the results differ dramatically. Not unexpectedly, the Nikon ED8000 scan results are (in my opinion) here clearly superior to the Microtek scan results.
The first comparison set is the color (dis)-location (Lab color error) - basically an indication how accurate or not accurate a color is represented by the film compared to the standardized original color checker, first charts for the NPS160
NPS160 on Microtek ArtixScan1800f
Interesting to see that the darker gray tones are tending towards brownish/warmer tones, this makes the film reproduce skin tones better than average, especially darker skin tones benefit from this shift - which corresponds to Fuji's marketing statement that the NPS is optimized for portrait, weddings, etc.
NPS160 on Nikon ED8000
Here, scanned on Nikon, the results are much less deviating from the ideal color - the mean deviation of color error is much smaller and the saturation is less, despite the same level setting operation in Photoshop For both scans valid, the overall color rendition is such that the colors are highly saturated, more than an average film and more than one can usually find with digital cameras - also something is known - Fuji color films are colorful films - with greens and reds being accentuated more than other colors like blue or yellow.
The next set of pairs of results are from the new FujiPRO160C film PRO160C on Microtek ArtixScan1800f
Here one can see what I have described before - the film tends towards colder color rendition, skin tones do not reproduce that excellent as the scale from white to black does not show any reddish-brownish tint but a tendency towards greenish tones. Saturation of colors is similar to the film before, however, if you look closely at the color locations, they are slightly different to the NPS160. PRO160C on Nikon ED8000
Higher color saturation than the NPS160 - as expected, cooler as well - nothing unexpected, just confirming what was seen on the photographic evaluation. Interestingly much less color error in the gray scale - obviously better match between scanner and film
The last of the three sets is for the new PRO160S film PRO160S on Microtek ArtixScan1800f
Again, in the white-gray-black scale tending towards warmer tones - but this film on this scanner is a bit more balanced when the shades of gray get darker - the NPS tends at white to be cold and then swings to brownish but the PRO160S is from the very beginning warm in the white-gray-black tone scale. Also highly saturated and therefore resulting in rich and full colors, probably with this scanner too much accentuating the skin tones.
PRO160S with Nikon ED8000
Much more pleasing result and the deviation in color significantly less compared to before - not really neutral, a bit into the warmer tones, but this combination of film and scanner reproduces very fine results. Almost identical saturation with the PRO160C film - both higher than the current NPS, but only marginal. Looking at the scan results on the Nikon ED8000 with both new films - they scan almost identical with very small deviations, which means that they are more suitable for scanning than the older films, provided a film (transparent target) optimized scanner like the Nikon ED8000 is used. It is necessary to keep in mind that all these color deviations are in absolute values tiny amounts which are barely visible on an average photograph. This is especially true for the color checker chart and the white-gray-black tones, which are grossly exaggerated to show the white balance errors clearly. All these results do not claim to be absolute values but relative comparisons - they include equipment specific parameters and are only valid as relative comparison between films. CONCLUSION I liked what I have seen in and with these two new film types - my evaluation was up to now done with the 120 format films only. A similar comparison with the 35mm films is still in preparation but I presume that those results will be pretty identical with these here. The new Fuji PRO 160 films are to me visibly clearer and better regarding color rendition, produce a very appealing overall flavour in an image and the marketed target applications - for the S type and the C type - are representing the correct optimum applications. Personally, I probably will use more the S type than the C type, but this is my personal preference only because I usually prefer a smoother, tonal very soft image over one which is a bit more accentuated and a bit more hard - but as I have shown as well, there are scenes, which are perfect for the C type as well. Granularity is finer and smoother for the new films and what I liked very much, they are easier to scan into digital files than the older types. Overall a very pleasant experience shooting with these two films.
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