Sunset on Long Bien bridge, Hanoi - July 2009.
Appeared on the film market in town about 4 months ago, this film type really caught my eyes with its uniquely designed box, at the photolab downtown where I always stop by for film rolls and batteries.
It is called Efiniti UXi Super, comes with ISO 100 and 200, as I know. A pretty funny facts about this film type, you can hardly find any info about it online, except this link.
Some people said it's the replacement for the Konica Minolta film, which has disappeared for quite a long time from the film market in town.
I decided to buy one roll and used it for an walk-around-shooting day with my friend, Jake Catlett, an American landscape photographer based in Vietnam.
Jake Catlett - Saigon, June 2009.
The result really satisfied me, so badly. After 1 year of shooting in 35mm format, I finally find out my favorite film type, which started to change every single frame I shoot from that moment.
The more I shoot, the more I enjoy the medium-saturated colors, the high contrast and the very good sharpness of this film type.
I'm not a film-expert nor a master photographer, so I can't say too much about this, but the truth is, this is the best film type that I've ever used. And there is nothing that I want to complain about a film type that just costs me 20.000 VND/roll (about $1.2 US) .
Some of my best photos with Efiniti UXi Super ISO 100.
The first few photos are about to show the very well-saturated colors in general.
Bedroom - Saigon, July 2009.
My girlfriend - Sapa, July 2009.
House - Sapa, July 2009.
My girlfriend - Sapa, July 2009.
Park - Beijing, July 2009.
Dancing - Beijing, July 2009.
Bus - Beijing, July 2009.
About some very remarkable details of this film type.
My dad - Beijing, July 2009.
At f/1.4 with my Minolta X-700 and Minolta Rokkor MD 50mm f/1.4 lens, you can check the amazing sharpness of this picture by viewing it in full-sized.
Plastic fruit - Saigon, June 2009.
At f/1.7 with my Minolta X-700 and Minolta Rokkor MD 50mm f/1.7 lens. Check the sharpness here.
My girlfriend - Hanoi, July 2009.
100% crop from this picture, you can see the blue sky and the sun-set deep inside her eye. Amazing?
Actually, the quality of the lens also affects the picture quite a lot, but well, as long as you have a good-condition lens, it's the film we're talking about.
So, I guess that quite enough to show why I love this film type so much like that. But please remember this, since it is film, the developing and scanning affect a lot to the colors and the quality of the pictures. So make sure you have a good place for those work, or else, I'm not sure whether you'll get what you want.
For example, I have the same film roll scanned in 2 different photolabs in town:
At one of the best and most expensive lab:
At another lab which is twice cheaper to have a film roll developed and scanned:
Yep, the picture was totally screwed-up.
For more pictures from this film type, you can check out my flickr page, I have created a set of Efiniti UXi Super.
Yeah, I already spent days to find some more information about these films, also tried to find the online store to buy them but there is no clue (Except your link and you Flickr :) ) I really like their colors. I am living in the US. Do you have any suggestion where I can buy them?
ReplyDeleteThank you!