A Guide To Chrome (Slide) Films
When I was in the Photographic Society during JC 1, I was amazed with the colour saturation of slides. The vibrancy and the sharpness is awesome.
As many of you are not aware of, slides have another name, chrome. Try reading the boxes of the film. You see Fujichrome, Kodak Ektachrome, Kodak Elitechrome and so on. So next time, try them out.
Fuji Chromes (Professional Series)
1. Fuji Velvia (ISO 50) - This is a high saturation film adored by many many people. It has been around for many many years. The film has very fine grain and is good for landscapes.
2. Fuji Velvia 100 - This is the replacement for the classia Velvia 50. However, Velvia 50 is still available. Velvia 100 is printed on the packaging. "ISO 50" is not printed on the packaging of Velvia 50.
3. Fuji Velvia 100F - This one is easily confused with Velvia 100. The 100F is claimed by critics to be not as good as the 2 Velvia films. The saturation is different from the 2 Velvias.
3. Fuji Provia 100F - This film is of medium saturation. It gives colours which are closer to real life as compared to Velvia which is too punchy. It has very fine grain and is a good general purpose film.
4. Fuji Provia 400F - Saturation is the same as that of Provia 100F. Being an ISO 400 film, the grain size is quite large.
5. Fuji Astia 100F - This is one of the finest grained film (RMS 7). The colour saturation is very low. It is a low contrast film used mainly in studios to capture the details of people's faces and clothing.
Fuji Chromes (Consumer Series)
1. Fuji Sensia 100, 200 - I have used this film once. In my opinion, it is similar to Provia but with lower saturation.
Kodak EktaChrome (The professional series is with the "Ekta" word)
1. E100G - It has very fine grain and is of medium-high colour saturation.
2. E100VS - VS stands for Vivid Saturation. As the name says, it has high colour saturation like Velvia. Grain slze is slightly bigger.
3. E100GX - This is similar to the E100G but the film is slightly warmer. Haven't tried the film before as I can't find it.
Kodak EliteChrome (The consumer series is with the "Elite" word)
1. EliteChrome Extracolour - In my opinion, this is like the E100VS in my opnion. I have to yet to try it out and see the differences.
There are other slide films like the Ektachrome 100 Plus (EPP), 160T, EIR and so on. I personally have not tried them. Will be trying them out to see what is it like.
There is also this limited edition film with only 40,000 rolls world wide. It is called the Fuji Fortia (ISO 50). The colour saturation is worse than Velvia, giving Disney-like colours. I've got 1 roll in my fridge. I have yet to try it to see how it really is like.
All the slides you see in Singapore are processed using E-6 chemistry. This is the de facto for many years. There are 2 variations. One is Kodachrome, it has to be processed using the K-14 chemistry which can only be found in certain parts of the world, eg. America. If you happen to have 1 roll, you have to send it to America to get it processed. The Kodachrome existed before the days of all the above slides film.
The other one is Agfa Scala 200x. This is the only B&W slide in the world. It has to be processed in Germany and America. Less than 50 labs in the world do this.