My sole criteria in deciding what film to use is how the image will look when printed, and for that reason I almost always choose transparency film for it's much tighter grain and higher resolution. I can achieve totally grainless 44x60" prints from transparency film, but if I shoot neg's the grain is visible in the print and I have to do all kinds of noise-reduction shennanigans to achieve the smoothness that is built into transparency films such as Astia and Provia 100F. I'm really looking forward to the time when LF digital scanning backs become less expensive and easier to use, so I can finally dispense with film and the scanning process altogether.
And, by the way, for some strange reason Fuji came out with Astia 100f and then made it impossible for anyone to get it. I bought 20 boxes of it as soon as it was available, and found it to be by far the best color film I have ever used. It has the full tonal range of negative film, soft and natural color, no color cast, amazing shadow and highlight detail, and it is significantly sharper and less grainy than any other color film ever made, even including Provia 100f. I don't know why the heck Fuji is still shipping 8x10 Provia and Velvia in mass quantities while not making any Astia 100f, considering that Astia 100f just blows both of those films right out of the water.
~cj
www.chrisjordan.com
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