I just processed a roll of Fuji 800 which has both underexposed frames and
overexposed frames. It should give me some idea of the difference in
grain.
Well, this roll of Fuji 800 doesn't seem to demonstrate the same awful grain
I've seen in the past! :-7 Yes, there's quite a lot of grain, but perhaps
because the photos are reasonably appropriately exposed, the results are
much more useable. The photos I had trouble with before were from a Fuji
800 disposible camera taken underwater - so they were mostly very
underexposed. With this film, the underexposed shots are star trails, so by
the time you readjust the contrast and brightness they don't look too bad!
I was momentarily excited when I picked up the roll today because I
thought
I had captured a meteor. Then I realised it was lens flare. :(
I almost got excited again when scanned one frame - a line had appeared
which was not on the print. It turned out to be a scratch. Oh well!
Here's a jpeg showing small parts of two frames from the film at 1:1 from
the 2700ppi scan. One shows the belt of Orion, and the other shows part of
someone's face. The latter was taken with flash and the camera set to +1EV.
I haven't adjusted the contrast properly in either image, so they're flatter
than they should be and the grain is more obvious. In the 6x4 prints of
the overexposed frames, the grain isn't particularly noticeable. The images
are sharp and punchy - it's amazing for an 800 speed film. Clearly the
grain would become much more obvious in larger prints. I can see why a lot
of photographers who don't need big prints love this film.
If anyone is interested I put together another jpeg which shows a similar
sized snippet from a Provia 100F slide next to the overexposed snippet of
Fuji 800.
Rob
PS Trying to figure out the colour balance for the night shots is
difficult - there's trees at the edges lit by the green light of fluorescent
street lights, and the sky is reflecting sodium (? - orange anyhow) street
lights...
attachment: Fuji800grain.jpg
