Fuji Astia 100F (120 & 35mm, 100 iso) User-Review

4

Fine, natural skin tones, subdued colors… what?? Just cross it, there’s much more in there!

According to Fuji this film has extremely fine grain, natural looking skin-tones and subdued color reproduction. Fuji also promises excellent results with pushing up to +2 stops, with “little photographic variation”.

In my experience, all of these are quite true. I got a few rolls of 120 film and a few of 35mm, and shot them on the Diana, the Diana Mini, the Smena Symbol and a Mamiya. I developed in E-6, with and without pushing, and cross processed in C-41. The first 120 roll, which came out of the Diana, I exposed as a 400 iso film (not intentionally). I developed this roll in E-6, pushing it +2 stops. I was pleased with the results: bright colors (nothing crazy), quite accurately reproduced, with nice contrast but with not too much grain. For a +2 pushed film, the granularity was very fine indeed.

Shot on the Diana F+, developed in E-6 and pushed +2 stops

Another E-6 processed roll went through the Mamiya, and was not pushed. Nothing exciting here, not in the process and also not in the results. Subdued colors, a bit too much for my taste… The overall look of the photos reminded me of the results coming from some negatives – sharp image, fine details, dull colors.

Shot with a Mamyia 645 and developed in E-6

When crossing the Astia, a beast is released… Punchy, bright colors. Amazing dark blues, beautiful purples and orange-tones. This films cross-tendency is towards the funky purple. You can see it many times in the skies, turning a psychedelic shade of purple… In less favorable light conditions, the purple might take over.

Shot with the Smena Symbol, Mamiya 645 & the Diana Mini and cross-processed in C-41

My conclusion is: when not crossed, the Astia likes pushing and plastic lenses (unless you are looking for subdued colors for some reason…), and when crossed, glass lenses take the best out of this shy fella…

So, just buy a few rolls and stick ’em in your camera! If I would read the description of this film first, I am not sure I would have ever bought it… But there more to it the description reads!

written by paramir on 2010-06-03 #gear #review #astia #c-41 #push-process #e-6 #fine-grain #100f #fuji #xpro #x-pro #pushing #2-stops #subdued-colors #natural-skin-tones

4 Comments

  1. emilios
    emilios ·

    Great film and great colors! Another favorite of mine.

  2. nural
    nural ·

    Wow the cross process colors are amazing!!!! But I also loved your shots with E6-no push too :)) sounds like a film to try!

  3. dogma
    dogma ·

    Love this film!

  4. blackcoffeeandtantrum
    blackcoffeeandtantrum ·

    This is so weird. I used a roll of expired astia and I just got the shots back recently and they didn't turn out as purple. They almost look like they were shot with sensia 200,too green. @_@ Granted that I used green filter + colorsplash with some shots, but those I shot with natural light didn't turn purple at all.

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