Fuji Superia 800: Another (Very) Non-Technical Review from a Beginner

I recently bought some 800 ISO Fujifilm, and I was more than pleased with the results. Take a look!

I always think, higher ISO, lower quality. Lower ISO, higher quality. But I’ve discovered that this is not necessarily true. Higher and lower grain, yes. Quality? Not necessarily. I shoot a lot of pictures with my Minolta SR-T 101 with a 50mm 1.7 lens. A lot of what I shoot is indoor, which, obviously, means lower light. I’ve discovered that even when I expose properly with the fast lens and everything, using 200 speed film, my shots still come out looking kind of dull. There is also a tendency for them to be blurred because of the need to use a slower shutter speed. But then something happened.

Just kidding, nothing really happened, except that I bought some 800 speed film from Walmart, completely on a whim. But the results have been fantastic. With the higher ISO, I’m able to use a faster shutter speed, which has resulted in much sharper images. We went to Five Guys Burgers And Fries for my brother’s birthday, and I took my camera along. When I got this roll back, I was blown away. The shots were crisp and clear, had a nice, subtle amount of grain, and had vivid, warm colors. Take a look for yourself and see what you think!

I’m no expert, but it seems as tho these indoor shots turned out much, much better than anything I’ve shot with 100 or 200 speed film. And I’m not talking about merely the absence of motion blur. These shots seem to have much more contrast and detail than ones shot on the slower films. I know that with film, it is better to overexpose than it is to underexpose, and in my limited experience, underexposed shots look very drab and lack contrast. So perhaps with this film I’m erring more on the side of overexposing than underexposing, which is resulting in higher contrast. Again, I’m no expert, but it seems to me that having that extra boost of exposure translates to a boost in contrast, which helps my indoor shots out tremendously.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment – constructive criticism is welcome.

written by joefrank on 2012-11-22 #gear #review #minolta #fuji #superia-800