Fast color film, Fuji NPZ or Press

[Ronald_H]

Can someone give me clues on the differences between these films in practice?

In the pre-digital days I shot more rolls of Superia 800 than I would care to remember, and that film was great for the purpose. I also used up a fair amount of Agfa Vista 800 and that was great film too.

Alas, Superia 800 is not in stock at my supplier (is it still being made?) and Agfa is dead.

 

[btgc]

Ronald, NPZ (or 800Z how it's called now) works well for skin tones and artificial lightning, especially fluorescent lamps. Of course, if you aren't after green cast. I have sample of 800Z in my Color folder here.
Superia 800 isn't bad (colors are somehow kind of harsh compared to NPZ/800Z), though I prefer 800Z for subtle tones if can get it for good price.

upd: ooops, I compared NPZ to Superia 800...from what I know, Superia and matching Press films have same codes (seen on filmstrip), Press is told be cut from mid of roll to be more consistent than Superia-for-anyone. Press also is/can be refrigerated in shops while Superia is not. So basically they are same.

 

[infrequent]

fuji press 800 is the same emulsion as superia 800. NPZ afaik is a different beast. its one of the "pro series" films from fuji which basically means that its temp controlled during shipping and in prime age for consistency. NPZ is very popular with wedding photogs for indoor and available light shooting. really the colours and smoothness is divine.

 

[Ronald_H]

Thanks guys. I always considered Superia 800 very smooth, especially for a 800 speed film. It scanned very well on my old Minolta Scan Dual II, I still have wonderful digital prints up that testify to this. For my concert shooting it was great stuff, not the environment where subtlety is especially important.

Switched to digital because of the workload mostly. Now I take things a lot easier, so I would like to shoot some color film again (I'm already back into B/W bigtime). Think I'm gonna order me a brick of 800 press.