I just received a very pretty Super Program body from KEH. (It has a problem with the lock on the exposure knob, but I'll deal with that later). I ran it through an exposure comparison with my recently CLA'd bodies, and took it out for a spin. It happened that what I had handy was a roll of Ektar I had just bought to try. Though it is probably not usually a great idea to try a new body with a new film, that's what I did.
A few observations:
1. I may be becoming an EK guy, because I seem to like the calmer, cooler color rendition in Kodak's films. I find myself dialing back more of the yellow and green in Fuji film than I add in Kodak's films. For ISO 100, this latest version of Ektar is preferable to the lush, green world of Reala for my palette.
2. Shooting Ektar is like shooting digital or slides to me. I exposed at ISO 100. Based on the one morning of shooting, I don't quite get the advice to shoot it at ISO 80, because when scanned, this film seems more sensitive to blown highlights than other print films. Many of the highlights on the shots below are not recoverable in the scanned files, though there is plenty of room in the shadows. It could also be the metering of the Super Program. Perhaps I'll need to use it in another body.
3. The Super Program does make DA lenses quite useful for film. The shot of three women at the soap table was taken with the DA40 Ltd. The dog people and the little girl were both taken with the DA 55-300. Only the colorful "jumper" was taken with a true "full frame" lens--the M20mm/4. The dog people shot was the only one that required correction for vignetting. The way the Super Program works, it is not possible to shoot a DA lens in AV mode, so I believe the aperture on the dog person shot went larger than F8. However, the correction was within the capabilities of PS for a full frame, or could be easily cropped if shot for "ideal" format wet prints.
My favorite color film for scanning is still Fuji 160s, Fuji pretty much nailed the interaction between the two techologies with 160s IMHO. Ektar may be a close second with Porta NC third. If I could get control of my highlights, Ektar might become my favorite. I like the super-fine grain which allows a scan to be sharpened up nicely.
Last edited by GeneV; 06-28-2010 at 04:36 PM.