FujifilmProvia 400X

Fujifilm Provia 400X (Fujichrome Provia 400X Professional, code RXP) was an ISO 400 daylight color slide film for E-6 processing, sold in 135 and 120 [1]. Fujifilm presented it as combining a very fine grain for its speed with the color saturation and gray balance of its ISO 100 films [1]. It replaced Provia 400F (RHP III) and was discontinued in 2013 [2].

Look and color

• Saturated, but realistic. Fujifilm describes “brilliant ISO 100-level color reproduction”, built with the couplers of Velvia 100, Velvia 100F and Astia 100F and a multi-color correction layer, aimed at both landscape saturation and portrait skin tones [1]. Analog.cafe calls it “tastefully saturated”, both realistic and exaggerated, with greens a little dark next to the reds and blues, and advises shooting in golden-hour light [3].
• Between realistic and deep. Jim Grey finds it “a sweet spot” between the two, richer than memory but more restrained than Velvia [4].
• Tungsten. Indoors, his roll picked up a green cast from the incandescent light, which he corrected afterward [4]. Fujifilm’s answer is a Wratten 80A filter for 3200 K lamps, at ISO 125 [1].
• Skin. Fujifilm claims skin tones suited to portraits [1]. Reviews we could open do not say much about skin, so we treat this as the manufacturer’s claim.

Tonality

• Curve. On the datasheet, the red, green and blue curves nearly coincide, which points to a balanced gray. D-min is about 0.1 and D-max about 3.2 (red) to 3.5 (green); the mean slope is about 1.4 between densities 0.5 and 2.5 [1]. These figures are our visual reading of a printed graph, not a measurement.
• Fujifilm’s wording: “smooth tone reproduction from the highlights to the shadows” and “subtly differentiated gray gradation” [1].
• Contrast: the sources disagree. Analog.cafe calls it high, sometimes “unnatural” for a slide film, and puts the usable range at about 4 stops, so scenes must be chosen with care [3]. A review summary we saw only in search results calls it medium-low for a slide. The datasheet does not rate contrast.
• Processing. Fujifilm rates −1/2 to +2 stops (EI 280 to 1600) with minimal color and gradation change, and up to +3 stops depending on the subject [1]. Long exposures need no correction up to 1 minute; 2.5R and +1/2 stop at 2 minutes, 5R and +1 stop at 4 to 8 minutes [1].

Grain and sharpness

• Conditions. All are read with a 48 µm aperture, but Fujifilm’s sheets measure at 1.0 above D-min or a sample density of +1.0, while Kodak uses a gross density of 1.0: close, not identical [1] [5] [6] [7].
• What Fujifilm claims. Its epitaxial sigma crystal technology gives an ISO 400 film with a granularity “approaching” that of ISO 100 reversal film [1]. On paper, it is still coarser than the ISO 100 films above.
• Reviews. Analog.cafe finds it finer-grained than Provia 400F [3]. Analog.cafe also quotes RMS 8 for this film, which is the Provia 100F figure and contradicts the datasheet’s 11; we follow the datasheet.

Spectral sensitivity

Blue peaks near 445 nm, green near 545 nm with a shoulder around 565 to 575 nm, and red near 640 nm, each layer topping out at a different height (log 1.96, 1.73 and 1.43) [1]. Measured from the green peak, the blue–green and green–red crossings sit about 1.12 and 0.90 log lower, against about 0.95 and 0.75 on Provia 100F and 1.15 and 0.9 on Velvia 50, so the layers overlap little, closer to Velvia than to Provia 100F [1] [5] [6] (our reading of the datasheets). The Grain Archive style is not computed from these curves.

Names, status and history

• Successor to Provia 400F (RHP III). Fujifilm states that Provia 400X improves color image permanence and fade resistance over RHP III, thanks to new couplers [1]. Wikipedia lists it as the replacement for Provia 400F [2].
• Discontinued in 2013. Wikipedia gives 2013 for the end of Provia 400X [2]. We could not open the contemporary press report, so the exact date and the stated reason are unconfirmed.
• Not Sensia or Fortia. Those are separate Fujifilm films, not names of this one [2].
• Expired stock. Analog.cafe found no significant degradation on the expired roll it tested [3]; Jim Grey’s roll “performed as new” [4]. Storage history varies from roll to roll.