Fuji Superia 100

Let’s have a look at the Fuji Superia 100 color negative film. It was in manufacturing by Fujifilm. The company described it like medium-speed, daylight type, fine grain film, incorporating 4th layer technology. With enhanced color realism and great vividness this film delivers natural skin tones, refined sharpness, wide exposure latitude and accurate reproduction of difficult colors, such as certain violets and green, even under fluorescent light.

The company discontinued Fuji Superia 100 around 2009. I put my hands on it in early 2013 and used it to capture some of my time. One of the first frames I shot on it was this one:

Available formats were 135 and 120. Further below you may find some 6×6 and 6×7 examples I shot with Pentacon Six and Mamiya RB67.

Developing process for this film is C-41. The film has a mark CN. If you look at the perforation there is S-100 sign.

Here is a leaflet from Fujifilm on spectral sensitivity and characteristic curves:

Fuji is saying that this film has a great exposure latitude and I can only confirm this from my experience with it. In a number of examples below I overexposed the film by +2 or even +3 stops to deliberately get faint colors, low contrast, greenish images. I especially like this type of results when I attempt to load the picture with summer-light emotions, creating the feeling of a memory where not all details are crispy, but you still keep the perceptions.

People tend to describe this film like very fine grain — well, in most cases this was my observation as well. Though you may find examples where the grain is quite visible. This could be a result of very old rolls (some of mine expired in 2001) or scanner issues. Most of the frames with grain outlook are with 120 format of the film.

Here are few examples where I underexposed the film:

I used this film mainly outdoors. However, when shot under tungsten light, it returns quite accurate colors, with slight magenta tint.

In 135 format, my film kept its qualities even a decade after its expiration date.

I used this film for very long exposures and intentional camera movements experiments. Its reciprocity characteristics are shown below (together with some other films from Fuji):

Basically, if you are shooting up to 1 minute, no major adjustment is required.

Below examples will give you an idea how this film behaves when shot in a red-scale mode.

These shots I exposed as ISO 50 and 25. If you go further below, the images are more color balanced and you will find more green and blue appear on the frames.

Like its Kodak equivalents, Gold and Ultramax, Fuji Superia was cheap, wide-available film. And compared to some of the other films from its time, it is still available on the market at reasonable price.

Few years ago I was trying to reproduce good images under old photographic processes, like ORWO C-5168 (color negative process for films like ORWO NC-19) or ORWO C-9165 (reversal process for slides, like ORWO UT-18). If you are curious about these, check the links above.

Let see some examples of Fuji Superia in ORWO C-5168 process:

Color developer of ORWO C-5168 is using different color developing agent than the one in C-41. Process temperature is 24° C. Thus color development dynamics are different and the results have shifted, muted colors.

I shot these frames as ISO 100 and did not adjust development times and temperatures of C-5168 process.

The examples above I did not correct, even for levels.

As I was cross-processing other color negative films in the old ORWO C-9165 process, Fuji Superia 100 also had its chance. Here are two examples, but if you are interested in further details — please check the link above.