FujifilmSuperia X-TRA 400

Fujifilm Superia X-TRA 400 (sold as Fujicolor Superia X-TRA 400) was Fujifilm’s consumer ISO 400 color negative film for C-41 processing, with a fourth, cyan-sensitive layer [1] [5]. Reviews describe cool colors with strong greens and blues [6] [7] [8]. Fujifilm announced the end of its sales in April 2024 and replaced it with Fujifilm 400, a different film that the press reports is made in the US by Kodak [2]. Fujifilm confirmed in June 2025 that it remains discontinued [3].

Look and color

• What Fujifilm promised. “Vibrant and dynamic” reds, blues and yellows, violets and greens rendered more faithfully thanks to the fourth layer, natural skin tones, neutral grays from the highlights to the shadows, and accurate color under fluorescent light [1].
• Cool, per the reviews. The Darkroom describes the “typical FujiFilm look – cool magenta / greenish tones” [6], and Digital Camera World “generally cooler tones than Kodak, with more of a focus on blue highlights” [7].
• Greens and blues are the film’s strength: they “render beautifully” for Casual Photophile [8], and Jim Grey singles out the blue of the sky [10].
• Magenta, depending on the scan. Digital Camera World found “strong magenta color casts in a lot of otherwise properly exposed shots” [7]. Analog.cafe reports a purple tint in some scans [9].
• Saturation: the sources disagree. “Saturated without looking garish” for Casual Photophile [8], “medium” for The Darkroom [6], but “quite muted when scanned” for Digital Camera World [7]. A 35mmc reviewer found Superia “punchier” than Portra 400, without naming the exact Superia version [11].
• Skin. Fujifilm promised natural skin tones [1]. Casual Photophile warns that lighter skin can turn pinkish [8].
• Shadows: three different descriptions. Green when underexposed [8]; grays that mix with the teal of the sky [9]; cooler and more magenta than Fujifilm 400 in a side-by-side [12].
• Highlights. The datasheet warns that some printers may show a slight blue cast in overexposed areas [1].

Tonality

• Curve. On the datasheet, the three curves run parallel with a slope of about 0.65 (red) to 0.73 (blue). The toe is short, about 2.5 to 3 stops below middle gray, and there is no shoulder up to the end of the chart, about 6 stops above it. We placed middle gray from the datasheet’s gray-card check, a red density of 0.75 to 0.95 [1] (our reading of the graph).
• Contrast is “medium” for The Darkroom and Digital Camera World [6] [7].
• Latitude: generous on the overexposure side, but the sources vary.
  • Casual Photophile got good images at “three, or even four stops” over, while Fujifilm itself spoke of two; underexposure turns shadows and lowlights green [8].
  • Digital Camera World calls the dynamic range “impressive” [7], The Darkroom only “average” [6].
  • In snow, Jim Grey found the highlights blown and would have given half a stop less [10].
• Long exposures: no correction from 1/4000 to 2 s, then +1/3 stop at 4 s up to +1 stop at 64 s [1].

Grain and sharpness

Fujifilm publishes a diffuse RMS granularity; Kodak publishes a Print Grain Index for its consumer films. The two scales cannot be compared, and Fujifilm itself warns that the RMS of its negative films cannot be compared with that of its slide films [14].

• The 2003 version introduced “Super Fine-Σ” grain, with crystals about half as thick as before, which Fujifilm credits for both higher speed and smoother grain [1].
• Reviews: “very fine” when well exposed [6] [7], “remarkably fine grain for such a high-speed film” [8]. But the grain turns “chunky” and coarse in the shadows [9], and a sky scanned at full size looked “mighty noisy with grain” [10].

Spectral sensitivity

Four layers are plotted: blue peaks near 471 nm, green near 558 nm, red is flat-topped with its maximum near 627 nm, and the fourth, cyan-sensitive layer peaks near 515 nm, about 0.9 log below the green peak [1]. Fujifilm credits this fourth layer for more faithful violets and greens and for accurate color under fluorescent light [1]. These curves describe the 2003 emulsion; later versions reportedly dropped the fourth layer (see below) [5] [9].

Names, status and history

• Around 1998. Fujifilm launched the Superia range, with the cyan fourth layer as a key feature [5].
• 2003 and 2006. A 2003 revision brought the “Super Fine-Σ” grain described in the datasheet we cite [1] [5]; a 2006 update improved shelf life [5].
• Fourth layer dropped? Reportedly. Wikipedia cites a Japanese datasheet revision of August 2007 that no longer shows it, and Analog.cafe dates the change to 2007 [5] [9]. We have not seen that datasheet.
• Press 400. According to a Fujifilm guide cited by Wikipedia, Fujicolor Press 400 shared Superia X-TRA 400’s product code (CH), with refrigerated handling [5].
• Formats. 120 ended in 2013; 24-exposure rolls and most multipacks in 2017, leaving 36-exposure 35 mm rolls [5].
• April 2024: end of sales. Fujifilm Japan announced that sales would end once stock ran out and brought in Fujifilm 400 [2]. Kosmo Foto reported that the film was by then sold only in Japan; Wikipedia gives a partly different history of its markets [2] [5].
• June 2025. The film reappeared on Fujifilm’s US website; Fujifilm North America called it an error and confirmed that it remains discontinued [3].
• September 29, 2026. Fujifilm’s US consumer film page listed only Fujifilm 200 and Fujifilm 400 [4]. In its processing section, the replacement’s datasheet calls its “photographic and processing characteristics” “almost the same” as Superia X-TRA 400’s [13]. Superia Premium 400, a Japan-market variant, is still made according to Fujifilm, in limited quantities [16].