I hear ya. Unfortunatley Kodak is losing the price war
with Fuji and has to make up for it with ridiculous
claims of 25% better pictures or something. I now use
Gold 100 or 200 or Portra 160NC since all these films
make very fine pictures to my eyes. I used to use
Kodak 400 speed film (before "max" during and before
high school) because I was duped into thinking the
same things that all film makers want you to think
(Fuji especially included here) that one could use
this film for any occasion. I found out the hard way
while taking pics of a family reunion during the
Winter. Every single picture was horribly overexposed
even wiht my Mother's 2n at 1000 speed and the 50/1.8
stopped down to 16. I avoid the stuff whenever
possible, only using it when i know I have ot take
pictures in low light and faster action. The grain is
horrible on all color negative films above 400 speed
usually muddy or way too obvious. (Agfa seems to suck
universally, however I've never gotten a pic I've
liked from Agfa slow or fast, but its dirt cheap 10
rolls of fresh film for $5.00 a few years back). B&W
grain on fast films like Tmax 1600, on the other hand,
is pleasant to my eyes. I havent used it much though
(I like color shots better) To my eye Gold 100 and 200
are nearly the same picture and Portra has much better
skintones but everything else is on par with 100.
Mark Lloyd
--- "John A. Lind" <jlind@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> At 20:35 12/9/01, you wrote:
> >Stopped in the local 30 minute photo store today
> just to see what they
> >stock. Mostly the Kodak Gold, with the 400, 800,
> and even 1600 speeds. In
> >fact, the 800 speed was labelled "Best for zoom
> cameras", perfectly in line
> >with your logic.
>
> It's the latest and greatest "snake oil" Big Yellow
> is pushing to cure all
> photography ills:
> See the cute "MAX versus lower speed film" link:
>
>
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/films/maxWhy.shtml
>
> I thought one of the photographs was marginally
> improved with selective
> DOF. Fill flash would fix at least one of the
> others; something most P&S's
> *can* do. It parallels their mid-summer television
> advertising campaign
> showing an A/B comparison. One series of hideous
> photographs were made by
> a person using some other manufacturer's "slower"
> film. The matching
> series of *perfect* ones were made by another person
> traveling with her
> using Kodak MAX. All the flaws were blamed on
> "slower film," not the
> "camera holder" errors they really were, but who am
> I to question the
> infinite wisdom of Big Yellow who *knows* what's
> best!
> My thoughts (pick one or more):
> (a) huge batches of MAX are wasting away aging
> toward expiration
> (stockholders don't like large inventory gathering
> dust)
> (b) under-utilized capital equipment for making MAX
> is creating a low
> return on investment (stockholders don't like this
> either)
> (c) cut the consumer film line down to one or two
> "one size fits all"
> films by influencing market demand for a "lowest
> common denominator" and
> run higher volumes of fewer products
> (d) try to reduce claims for processing errors by
> their subsidiary, Qualex
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