Latest Film Test Results - Updated 12/31/04

UPDATE 12/31/04:  Results from 60-minute exposures of Fuji Super HQ200 film show it to be quite nice for astrophotography.  See below.  Also, several of the latest astro-photos on the main page were taken with HQ200 and the results were excellent. 

I have recently tested a few "new and improved" print films.  The results are pretty interesting.  When I embarked on this mini-project (click here to compare this page to my huge film-testing project from summer/fall 2001), I expected to find nothing useful.  However, I am somewhat encouraged by the results below.  As you can see, to a film, none were at all good when viewed as "raw" (unprocessed) scans.  However, two films actually turned out reasonably well when adjusted in Photoshop.  I used the Levels and Curves commands on the Konica Centuria Super 400 and the Kodak Max Versatility Plus 800 and the results, as you can see below, are not bad at all. 

That said, I fear that, unless you have access to a film scanner, your mileage will DEFINITELY be lower than this.  The unprocessed scans of the Kodak Max Versatility Plus 800 pretty well matched what I got back from the film lab when the film was developed, so the Photoshop adjustments certainly surprised me with how useable they turned out to be.  On the other hand, the unprocessed scan of the Konica Centuria Super 400 shocked me, since the print I received from the lab wasn't too bad and closely resembles my results after applying Photoshop Levels and Curves adjustments.

So, anyway, here are the latest.  I hope this helps guide you as you seek decent astrophotography results in the near future.

All test exposures below were taken using Olympus OM-1 camera bodies at f/6.5 prime focus on a Meade LX200GPS 12".  All except the Kodak Ultra Color 400 and the Fuji Super HQ 200 were taken at the Cincinnati Astronomy Society's dark-sky site in Adams County, Ohio.  Those most recent two were taken at Chiefland Astronomy Village, in Florida.

Notes
	Fuji Super HQ 200
Object:  M20, the Trifid Nebula.  20-minute exposure.  Taken 10/15/04 at the Chiefland Astronomy Village in Levy County, Florida.  Seeing conditions were 4/5 darkness, 4/5 transparency, and 4/5 steadiness. This print film produced a pretty exciting result!  Red response was very good and blue was pretty respectable too.  This film warrants considerably more experimentation, particularly at longer exposures of, say, 45 or more minutes.
	Kodak Ultra Color 400
Object:  M20, the Trifid Nebula.  20-minute exposure.  Taken 10/15/04 at the Chiefland Astronomy Village in Levy County, Florida.  Seeing conditions were 4/5 darkness, 4/5 transparency, and 4/5 steadiness. This film is obviously not acceptable for astrophotography.  It produced results somewhat similar to Kodak High Definition 400 (below) in the raw scans, although this exposure was adjusted in Photoshop a bit more than the HD400 in order to show the level of detail captured.
	"New" Fuji NPH 400
Object:  M20, the Trifid Nebula.  20-minute exposure.  Taken 6/28/03 at the Cincinnati Astronomy Society's dark-sky site in Adams County, Ohio.  Seeing conditions were 4.5/5 darkness, 4/5 transparency, and 4/5 steadiness. It was not possible (at least not easily, so further attempts were abandoned) to salvage a useful shot from this film. Note:  This is the "new" and "improved" Fuji NPH 400.  The older stuff was very good, but no longer.  Any package that says "New" on it is no good. You will need to find the oldest stuff you can. There was a thread on APML a couple of months back about how to tell the difference. Basically, if the box has an expiration of "2003-8 127103" or older, it should be OK. If it has "2004-7 113104" or newer, or if it says "New" on the box, forget it. Click here to compare this exposure to the older, good version of Fuji NPH 400 print film.
	Kodak High Definition 400
Object:  M20, the Trifid Nebula.  20-minute exposure.  Taken 6/28/03 at the Cincinnati Astronomy Society's dark-sky site in Adams County, Ohio.  Seeing conditions were 4.5/5 darkness, 4/5 transparency, and 4/5 steadiness.  It was not possible (at least not easily, so further attempts were abandoned) to salvage a useful shot from this film.
	Konica Centuria Super 400 - Unprocessed	Konica Centuria Super 400 - After Photoshop "Levels" and "Curves" Adjustments
Object:  M20, the Trifid Nebula.  20-minute exposure.  Taken 6/28/03 at the Cincinnati Astronomy Society's dark-sky site in Adams County, Ohio.  Seeing conditions were 4.5/5 darkness, 4/5 transparency, and 4/5 steadiness.  The adjusted print at far right matches the print received from the film processing lab.  The unprocessed scan at left was a real surprise! Notes regarding adjusted photo:  the blue response was definitely weak in this film, but it did at least record a little.  Red was not too bad.
	Kodak Max Versatility Plus 800 - Unprocessed (12 minute exposure)	Kodak Max Versatility Plus 800 - After Photoshop "Levels" and "Curves" Adjustments (12 minute exposure)
Object:  M20, the Trifid Nebula.  20-minute exposure.  Taken 7/25/03 at the Cincinnati Astronomy Society's dark-sky site in Adams County, Ohio.  Seeing conditions were 4.5/5 darkness, 4/5 transparency, and 4/5 steadiness.  The unprocessed scan at left matches the print received from the film processing lab and had a pronounced green cast.  The blue cast is still a touch overpowering in the adjusted scan, but overall it isn't too bad.  Grain was also acceptable.
	Kodak Max Versatility Plus 800 - Unprocessed (24 minute exposure)	Kodak Max Versatility Plus 800 - After Photoshop "Levels" and "Curves" Adjustments (24 minute exposure)
Object:  M20, the Trifid Nebula.  20-minute exposure.  Taken 7/25/03 at the Cincinnati Astronomy Society's dark-sky site in Adams County, Ohio.  Seeing conditions were 4.5/5 darkness, 4/5 transparency, and 4/5 steadiness.  The unprocessed scan at left matches the print received from the film processing lab and had a pronounced green cast.  The blue cast didn't overpower the red quite as much in this exposure as compared to the 12-minute exposure above.  Grain was also acceptable. This longer exposure was made to test the recording "stamina" of this film.  There had been some conjecture recently on APML that this film might not record much after 15 or 20 minutes.  The comparison to the 12-minute exposures directly above tend to indicate otherwise.

Final Comments:   I would probably recommend the Kodak Max Versatility 800 Plus, but only if you have ready access to photo-processing software like Photoshop, and some way to scan the negatives.  The Konica would be worth a little more investigation, but Konica seems to be pretty difficult to find except via mail-order, and I've never warmed up to that too much.  On the other hand, with the right relationship with your photo processing lab, you might be able to coax them into color-correcting them for you.  Straight out of the box, however, I really cannot recommend any of these print films.  <sigh>,,, 

Update 10/21/04:  I am almost ready to recommend the Fuji Super HQ200, as it proved to do a very nice job on the test object, M20.  I want to do some longer-exposure experiments before I can recommend it unequivocably, however. 

UPDATE 12/31/04:  Several 60-minute exposures on the Super HQ200 show that it is excellent for astrophotography!  See the many photos on the main page that were taken at longer exposures with this film.