From morgana.mat.uc.pt!news.rccn.net!scsing.switch.ch!swidir.switch.ch!01-newsfeed.univie.ac.at!02-newsfeed.univie.ac.at!newsfeed.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news99.sunet.se!news.lth.se!merkurius.lu.se!jp.orgk2.lth.se!user Sun Jul 28 12:02:12 1996 Path: morgana.mat.uc.pt!news.rccn.net!scsing.switch.ch!swidir.switch.ch!01-newsfeed.univie.ac.at!02-newsfeed.univie.ac.at!newsfeed.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news99.sunet.se!news.lth.se!merkurius.lu.se!jp.orgk2.lth.se!user From: Jonas.Palm@orgk3.lu.se (Jonas Palm) Newsgroups: rec.photo.film+labs Subject: Re: Old Reala vs 'New' Reala - Comments?? Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 17:51:45 +0100 Organization: University of Lund, Sweden Lines: 75 Message-ID: References: <4t10eh$ec8@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <31F51638.4FC8@mail.biddeford.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: jp.orgk2.lth.se > Myers Pete wrote: > > What has your experince been in shooting New Reala vs old Reala - > especially in the areas of grain and contrast. I have only got one test-roll back, and I didn't want to dedicate that to only test images. But I'll share my preliminary impressions. Compared to its' predecessor, Fuji's claims are that the new Reala (which is supposed to use the same grain technology as their recent APS films) should have finer grain, be sharper, retain (or improve) the natural colour rendition of its' predecessor in mixed lightning, and be easier to print. I haven't done any processing of my own, so my opinions on colour rendition is based on what Fuji's lab sent back to me, and should thus be taken with large grains of salt. My first observation is that the pictures I got back felt like the old Reala in terms of colour. Reala was never a film for those who liked strong, bold colour, and the new Reala seems to retain the smooth colours of its' predecessor. My pictures of people came out uniformly superb. I made some test shots of flowers using a polarizer to see how the film would handle highly saturated motifs, and it came through well. Likewise, my two shots in mixed lighting came out very good, better than expected, although I would have had to make shots under identical conditions to make real comparisons between emulsions. And again, I caution that I didn't do my own copying. Furthermore, it handled contrasty subjects well, but I obviously didn't contact copy any grayscales onto the film, and should refrain from making any definite statements. My _impression_ was that it is a fairly low contrast film, which is a good thing for people who let others copy for them since just about all commercial copying is done with the most contrasty paper available, as most people _like_ the highly saturated contrasty prints that result. For those of us who prefer a more refined palette, as well as some detail in shadows and highlights, lower contrast films are a godsend. (As is custom or private processing of course.) I did make resolution tests of the film. I didn't contact copy my resolution pattern, but made in camera/through lens tests instead, using USAF test charts at 200 times focal length. The film resolved 100 lp/mm on the negative, which is very good indeed especially considering that I didn't use my absolute optimum f-stop. (used f8 instead of f6.7) I'd say that there isn't much point in choosing another film in the hope of getting sharper prints. Grain is tricky to evaluate even under a microscope as it is so dependent on exposure and perhaps even colour. I compared the new Reala with Extar 25 (Royal Gold 25 for Americans) both under the microscope and using an 8x loupe on the prints. Sometimes I felt that one film was finer grained, other times I would feel that the other was superior, depending on the colour/exposure of the areas compared. So I guess my conclusion is that the new Reala is roughly equal to Ektar 25 in terms of grain. I didn't do a really good test of this though, but on my second (in camera) roll, I've photographed greyscales so that I can compare areas with half an f-stop exposure accuracy. My gut-feeling is that grain will still come out as 'comparable' however. While I had hoped that the new Reala would outperform Ektar 25 by an obvious margin, (the Ektar 25 emulsion has been around for a long time now) I guess I shouldn't complain given its' 2 f-stop sensitivity advantage. Overall impression: Very favourable. Great film for people, and all subjects that doesn't benefit from strong/garish colours. Colour rendition responds nicely to polarizers. Mixed lighting claims borne out, with all the usual caveats. Sharpness and grain roughly as good as it gets at this point in time. Verdict: Definitely worth shooting a test roll to judge for yourself. Jonas Palm