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It has taken us a while to get around to Fuji Pro 400H but it might be fair to say that it takes a lot of photographers a while to get around to this film, especially given the one-two punch that its direct competitor is the super popular Kodak Portra 400 and the steep price hikes that Fuji has placed on their films in the last couple of years. But we will offset that observation by stating every time we look back through our libraries and come across Pro 400H images we are constantly reminded of how much we love this film and ask ourselves why aren’t we using it more. Part of the impetus for these Film Fridays is just that: to make us look across the range of films available and encourage us to break out of some of our habits and patterns, to try new films or revisit old favorites. And so here we go with Fuji Pro 400H.

Fuji Pro 400H was introduced to the world in 2004, making it six years younger than Kodak Portra, which was first given to us in its NC/VC forms in 1998. Pro 400H was, and is, billed as a professional color negative film ideal for a wide variety of uses but especially targeted toward wedding, fashion and lifestyle photographers. At the time of its introduction it was part of a family that included three other sibling emulsions: 160S (a slower ISO variant of 400H), 160C (a richly saturated version that was outstanding for landscape work) and 800Z (the high speed, low light member of the quartet). Sadly the passing years have taken away 160C and then 800Z and most recently 160S, leaving us with 400H as the last of this cadre. During their heyday, this was an astounding collection of films and all of these emulsions had die hard fans.

Fuji Pro 400H is possibly most popular within the wedding photographer community, and for great reason. Image made with a Hasselblad 500C.

So what makes Pro 400H so wonderful? In truth, many things. Like its Portra rival, it is a color film engineered to be good at everything. To do this it boasts excellent and neutral color rendition, soft contrast, fine grain, great latitude, reasonable reciprocity failure and that patented fourth color layer technology that made a number of Fuji color films popular. It is quite a list, so let’s take it one item at a time.

Most conversations involving Pro 400H start with its color palette. Pro 400H is often described as having a soft, muted color palette with tendencies toward cooler under tones. We’d actually disagree just a bit with this characterization. In our experience, Pro 400H has surprisingly rich colors. You’ll never compare it to Fuji Velvia or Kodak Ektar but we feel it is a bit richer than Kodak Portra. Pro 400H’s richness is an understated element. The film has lower contrast and this helps keep its rich colors from being immediately obvious, but they are there. It reminds us of the Kodak Ultra Color films, which also had rich colors combined with softer contrast with the final result being vibrant colors but without the hard, punchy edge that heightened contrast brings. Some photographers like to over-expose their 400H as that extra exposure helps bring this film’s contrast up and its rich colors with it.

As far as the blue shift and Pro 400H’s tendency toward cooler color tones, there is merit to this. We have long pushed back against the notion that Kodak color films are “warmer” and Fuji color films are “colder” simply because so many factors can skew this, such as the expertise of the printer or scanner handling the film after processing, or even the development of the film itself. It is relatively easy to scan Kodak film cold and Fuji film warm, for example. But Pro 400H film really does scan/print cold. It’s kind of annoying in fact and makes this film a more difficult film to handle post-processing, especially if a photographer has been spoiled by the ease with which Kodak Portra handles after development. If you don’t bring your A-game to scanning Pro 400H and post-processing it then you will end up with images that have blue or cyan tints to them. Crack the riddle of this tint and the images you are left with really do boast the excellent neutral midtones that Fuji claims and results in images that have warm oranges and reds as well as rich greens and deep blues. We will note that Pro 400H does produce greens with more blue in them, even once midtones are corrected to neutral, as opposed to Kodak Ektar or Portra which produces greens with more yellow. But where does this tint come from? We cannot say for sure but our two guesses would be it is either a difference in the orange mask of the base as compared to Kodak films that throws off printing and scanning machines calibrated more toward that Kodak base mask, or it is the cyan-sensitive fourth color layer that the film employs.

In regard to that fourth color layer, it is one of the overlooked selling points of Pro 400H. Fuji touted this 4th color layer, sandwiched between the green and red sensitive layers in the emulsion, as helping the film render better color accuracy especially when used under artificial lighting. It was a component of their Superia films as well as the Fuji Press 800 and 1600 color negative films. Maybe it is this cyan-sensitive layer that is the “secret ingredient” to Fuji Pro 400H’s unique color palette. Pro 400H really does seem to hold up well under artificial and mixed light conditions.

Got some photography under artificial or mixed lighting coming up? You’d do well to load up with Fuji Pro 400H which performs quite well under such conditions. Image made with a Zero Image 2000 pinhole.

While the conversation does, and should, largely revolve around Pro 400H’s colors, there is yet more to this film than its palette. As noted above, it has a low key amount of contrast to it. This not only contributes to a softer look and helps give the impression of a muted color palette, but it also makes the film quite versatile, even in harsh lighting conditions. That moderate contrast means Pro 400H won’t take the stark contrast of direct sunlight on clear summer days and run away with it. It does mean that if used in already soft light you will get an even more muted look, but it is always easier to add contrast to an image later than it is to remove it. And if you want to give your Pro 400H a bit more punch either rate it at ISO 200 or shoot it normally and have it pushed in developing a stop. Either of those options are great for giving this film a bit more contrast and saturation.

Pro 400H is claimed to have fine grain as well, making use of Fuji’s Sigma grain technology (their counterpart to Kodak T-grain and Ilford delta grain technologies). We have always thought Pro 400H looked a bit coarser in its grain compared to other color films but considering that Fuji measures their film grain on the RMS scale while Kodak uses PGI - Print Grain Index (and Ilford doesn’t publish film grain measurements at all) this becomes hard to compare. It is interesting to note that Pro 400H’s RMI of 4 is the same rating given to Fuji Superia 400, so if you have used that film then you will be familiar with the grain of Pro 400H. We have never found the grain of Pro 400H objectionable and quite honestly we think of grain as the building blocks of the image so its presence in the final picture is not necessarily something to be avoided… but that is just our two cents’ worth on film grain.

The grain of Pro 400H definitely adds noticeable texture to its images, even in medium format, but we aren’t bothered at all by seeing a little grain here or there. Image made with a Hasselblad 500C.

The only other tidbit we’ll throw out there is Fuji Pro 400H performs a bit above average in the long exposure department. Fuji’s data sheet recommends +1 stop of exposure beginning with 16 second exposures, which is better than the +1 stop most color negative films hit at the 10 second mark. We’d extrapolate to guess you will get to +2 stops around the 70 second mark if the film’s curve behaves as expected. We have not done a ton of long exposure work with Pro 400H, but we have done some and under-exposure has never been an issue on those occasions, even when exposures reached a couple of minutes. So despite its higher ISO, why not try throwing an ND filter on the front of your camera and seeing what kind of long exposures you can make with this film?

The longest exposure we have ever made with Fuji Pro 400H was this pinhole image with the camera taped to the dashboard of the car while we ran errands one evening. The total exposure was probably at least an hour or two. Image made with a Zero Im… — The longest exposure we have ever made with Fuji Pro 400H was this pinhole image with the camera taped to the dashboard of the car while we ran errands one evening. The total exposure was probably at least an hour or two. Image made with a Zero Image 2000 pinhole.

So be it a wedding, a hike through a slot canyon in Arizona, family photos, or just weird pinhole experiments you cannot really go wrong with Fuji Pro 400H. It hits a lot of targets. Neutral color rendition? Check. Unique color palette that differs from that of Portra? Check. Soft contrast? Check. Great latitude for under and over exposure? Check. Special fourth color layer for better performance under artificial and mixed lights? Check. Available in both 35mm and 120? Check. Nice color scheme with its packaging? Check. The only caveat we’d repeat is head into using this film knowing it may require a bit of special attention color balancing when it comes time to print or scan it. Pair up with a lab that has experience with this film, or prepare yourself to learn its color characteristics and balance for them and Pro 400H is truly capable of delivering some beautiful results for you. As the last professional color negative film left from Fuji it is also worth getting to know while you still have such an opportunity. Those out there who had the chance to shoot with the Pro 160C, 160S or 800Z will also likely encourage you to enjoy the Pro 400H while you can.

Meanwhile, enjoy a few more sample images from our adventures with Fuji Pro 400H.

A 30 minute exposure made in the slot canyons of Arizona. Take it with a grain of salt when you hear Fuji Pro 400H described as a colder film. It can be when handled certain ways, but it is also capable of producing rich warm colors too. Image ma… — A 30 minute exposure made in the slot canyons of Arizona. Take it with a grain of salt when you hear Fuji Pro 400H described as a colder film. It can be when handled certain ways, but it is also capable of producing rich warm colors too. Image made with a Zero Image 6x9 pinhole.

Fuji Pro 400H gets used to make a lot of portraits, and for good reason. Image made with a Hasselblad 500C.

But we have no qualms about using this as a landscape film either. Image made with a Hasselblad 500C.

Or for cityscapes. Image made with a Hasselblad 500C.

Or interiors. Image made with a Hasselblad 500C.

Film Friday - August 21st, 2020. Fuji Pro 400H