Captured by Sam

Hey guys, this is Sam. Welcome back to another episode of “Did Sam bring a tripod today?” The answer is nooooooo… And today we are testing the Fuji Pro H400.

As we all know, this film is no longer in production, sadly. When Fuji announced the news, there were a lot of tears in the film community. As of today, there are still leftovers in the market you can purchase. Before it’s gone forever, I thought I must give it a try. Then I can write on my tombstone, “This photographer died in peace.”

I had pretty high expectations for this film stock. We’ve all seen those beautiful bright, soft, pastel color tones from this film. This film is extremely popular in the wedding photography industry. So many beautiful images are shot on this film.

So when I finally got a chance to actually test this film, I was quite excited, but… let’s see some Portra 400 first!!

I wasn’t planning on comparing these two films, I just happened to load up a roll of Portra 400 the day before and didn’t end up using it. The only downfall with the Pentax 645 camera is I can’t change the film back. So, if you want to see the Fuji Pro 400, just find the timestamp and jump ahead!! But if you are still here, let’s look at some photos.

We started around 3 pm in the afternoon. The weather was… very cloudy! It’s funny how when I shoot with a digital camera, I love shooting on cloudy days and am afraid of bright sunlight. But now, shooting with film, I feel like shooting on a cloudy day is much more challenging.

Because the Fuji is known for its green undertone, I picked this location with a lot of green, and with this green dress.

You can see the overcast made the sky into a gigantic softbox, the light is really soft and even. These were shot at box speed, the overall color tone is a bit warmer. Especially if you compare it with the video footage, which was filmed with a much cooler color temperature.

On a cloudy day, you want to at least shoot with 400-speed film, or even consider pushing it to 800. Later, I tried to overexpose it a little bit to make the skin look less yellow. Handheld is no longer doable. But I do like the skin tone more when it’s slightly overexposed.

I should have brought a tripod! Any tripod brand want to sponsor my videos? Just saying, I say the word “tripod” a lot in my videos… Alright, the first roll is done! The Fuji 400 you have been waiting for!

Some of these shots turned out quite grainy. The highlight is fine, but when you look at the mid-tone and the shadow, the grain doesn’t feel natural. It almost feels like the film is expired, which it is not, and I have been keeping them in the fridge. So, I don’t know…

I guess I always assumed this film is on the same level as Portra 400, maybe because I was shooting at box speed and I’ve heard a lot of people suggest shooting this film at 200 speed. So maybe I underexposed it? But at the same time, you can also see, I kind of lost some highlight on her nose. So… It might be my exposure wasn’t quite accurate, or this film has less latitude than the Portra 400, or it might be just a bad batch of film, or it could also be the developing… I’m not sure. I like these couple of photos, I just wasn’t expecting this much grain.

Look at this one, I think I definitely underexposed this one, see how grainy it is. Then later, I slowed down the aperture, which overexposed it a little, it looks much better. I guess this film should be used at 200 speed, and definitely need a tripod on a cloudy day.

That being said, I really like how this film renders green though. Whether it’s the bright vibrant grass green, or the silky dark green, it looks really nice!! So I think it’s me. I just haven’t figured out how to properly use this film yet.

Before it got too late and too cold, and before it all of a sudden started to rain, I quickly grabbed a couple more shots, and see if I could get the signature pastel skin tone. Some look nice, some have color shift.

At this point, I’ve done a lot of color adjustment to the raw scan, it’s hard to judge the original color of this film. What I can say is, this film does look much better overexposed.

Sadly I didn’t know that yet when I did the second shoot. Because the film process got delayed, I didn’t see the result before I went out to shoot it again.

There I continued to shoot it at 400 speed. And guess what, just with some nice bright sunlight, this film already looks much better!! Well, at least when I’m not losing focus… Even with straight-on backlight, it doesn’t look bad.

I really like the vibe of these photos, I just wish I had added more light to her face. Because the water bounced too much light from underneath, the lighting just doesn’t look as good as in my human eyes.

And at this point, I remembered to test this film at 200 speed. With one stop overexposed, I think we are getting there. The skin tone looks nice, the grain looks soft and even. I still feel like Portra 400 is slightly cleaner though!

By the end of the day, the sun is setting, I took a couple more shots with this light pink dress, the grass field, the tree in the background, she standing in this warm bright sunlight, I think I’m finally getting the beauty of this film. The soft creamy pastel skin tone, the deep and vivid green. It does make me want to test this film more, to overexpose it even more, to push or pull it? Even though this film will no longer be available at some point…

Anyway, if you never tried this film, I can’t tell you to try it. If you happen to love this film, you’d be as sad as me right now. Alright, let’s end it here so I can go stock up a little more of this film. This is Sam, I will see you next time. Bye~