FujifilmPro 400H

Fujifilm Pro 400H (Fujicolor Pro 400H Professional) was an ISO 400 professional color negative film for C-41 processing, made for portrait, wedding and fashion work, with a fourth, cyan-sensitive color layer [1]. Fujifilm discontinued it in January 2021, citing the difficulty of procuring the raw materials for that fourth layer [2]. No Fujifilm film has replaced it.

Look and color

• What Fujifilm promised. Colors reproduced “as they are perceived by the human eye”, natural even under fluorescent or mixed light; “clearer colors in the highlights” and controlled saturation in the shadows; “superb skin tones” [1].
• Neutral to cool. Casual Photophile finds the balance “remarkably neutral across the board with an added depth to blue and green” [6]. The Darkroom describes a “cooler look with beautiful magenta and green tones” [10], Parallax “soft, neutral colours that veered towards the blues and greens” [12]. A photo lab contrasts 400H’s “more neutral cool base” with Kodak’s warmer one [14].
• Greens are its signature: “deep, cool greens” [7], “fresh and vibrant” with “no yellow or muddy tint” [8], “minty greens” with “cyan undertones” for Mastin Labs, which sells presets imitating it [13].
• Skin: colder than Portra. Casual Photophile writes that 400H “elects for a colder skin tone” than Kodak films, which can look “smooth and natural or devoid of all blood” depending on the subject [6]. Analog.cafe finds skin tones accurate [7].
• Saturation: the sources disagree. “Very low” for The Darkroom [10], “low” for Mastin Labs [13], but “more vibrant than the Portras” for a 35mmc author [11].
• Overexposure changes the palette. Three to five stops over, the film “shifts more towards pastel” [6]; Mastin Labs associates it with “pastel shades” [13]. At box speed, Shoot It With Film finds it “more toned down and muted”, and “slightly muddy” in low light [8].

Tonality

• Curve. On the datasheet, the three curves run almost parallel: a short toe, then a straight line to the edge of the chart, with no visible shoulder over about 2.6 log units, almost 9 stops. The slope reads at about 0.5 to 0.6, in the same range as Portra 400 [1] (our reading of the graph).
• Fujifilm promises gradation “smoothly continuous from the highlights to the shadows” and neutral grays from under- to overexposure [1].
• Contrast: the sources disagree. “Mild” for The Darkroom [10], “a subtler, more nuanced look” for Casual Photophile [6], and “a little lower” at box speed for Shoot It With Film [9]. Analog.cafe finds it “more contrasty” than Portra 400 [7].
• Latitude: overexposure is the safe side.
  • Casual Photophile got usable images from two stops under to “beyond even four or five stops over” [6].
  • The Darkroom says it can often be overexposed by up to 3 stops without blowing the highlights [10].
  • Shoot It With Film rates it at ISO 200: “Overexposing this film is really where those beautiful colors come out” [8].
• Long exposures: no correction from 1/4000 to 1 s; +1/2 stop at 4 s and +1 stop at 16 s; Fujifilm does not recommend longer exposures [1].

Grain and sharpness

Fujifilm’s RMS granularity and Kodak’s Print Grain Index are different scales. Fujifilm adds that the RMS of this negative film cannot be compared with that of its slide films either [1].

• Fujifilm credits its “Fine Σ” technology, thin and flat grains, for speed and smoother skin texture [1].
• Reviews: “extraordinarily fine grain” and sharpness “normally reserved for slower films” [6]; “very fine grain” [12]. Analog.cafe disagrees and found it “chunky in 35mm under certain light” [7].

Spectral sensitivity

Four layers are plotted. Blue has a plateau from about 420 nm and peaks near 469 nm, green peaks near 554 nm, red is flat-topped between about 605 and 635 nm, and the dashed fourth, cyan-sensitive layer peaks near 519 nm, between blue and green, about 0.9 log below the green peak [1]. Fujifilm pairs it with an “optimized interlayer effect” to render colors as the eye sees them, including under fluorescent and mixed light [1].

Names, status and history

• 2002: NPH 400. The emulsion was launched as Fujicolor NPH 400 and renamed Pro 400H in 2004, with new packaging, when Fujifilm introduced its Pro line. Wikipedia says the emulsion did not change; we found no Fujifilm statement on this [5].
• The Pro line started with Pro 160S, 160C, 400H and 800Z. By 2021, only Pro 400H and Pro 160NS remained [5].
• 2013. The 220 format was discontinued, with 24-exposure 35 mm rolls and 35 mm multipacks [5].
• January 2021: discontinued. Fujifilm North America wrote that the fourth layer requires “specialized raw materials and chemicals” that had become increasingly difficult to procure. Production and sales of 135 ceased on January 14, 2021; 120 stock was expected to last through the end of 2021 [2]. Wikipedia adds that it was not a matter of low sales [5].
• June 2025. Pro 400H reappeared on Fujifilm’s US website; Fujifilm North America called it an error and confirmed the film remains discontinued [3].
• September 29, 2026. Fujifilm’s US product page still lists Pro 400H, marked “Discontinued”, with a link to the discontinuation notice [4].