Astia 100F
- RAP F
- Fujichrome Astia
The soft slide: low contrast, low saturation and the gentlest skin of any reversal film.
Opens an image model with the prompt in it. The price is on the page before you sign in.
What it is for
Astia 100F was Fujifilm's portrait and fashion reversal film. It sat below Provia on contrast and below it again on saturation, which made it the only slide film a studio would point at a face.
The value is in the highlight. Astia holds the bright side of a cheek and the shoulder of a white shirt for about a stop longer than Provia. On a stock with five stops in total, that stop is the difference between a portrait and a mask.
How it works
Ask for low contrast for a transparency, and for restrained saturation, and name the film. The qualifier matters, because an unqualified low contrast turns into a flat grey picture.
Put the rest of the request on the skin: soft natural skin tone, with smooth transitions from the lit cheek into the shadow. That is what the stock was built to do.
Skin comes out neutral to slightly warm and never ruddy. Sky goes a moderate blue with no push, which looks weak beside Velvia and correct beside a negative. Shadow detail holds a stop longer than the rest of this section, then closes the way any slide closes.
When to use it
Use it for portrait, fashion, wedding and catalogue work that has to read as film and not as an effect.
Leave it alone for landscape. The colour is quiet by design, so an Astia landscape reads as a Provia frame with something missing from it.
Told apart from its neighbours
Provia 100F is the nearest stock and the usual mix up. Provia is neutral and moderate. Astia is one step softer on both counts, and the difference shows on skin before it shows anywhere else.
Cinema publishes Vintage at /techniques/cinema/, and this is not that. Vintage fades the dye and warms the whole frame. Astia keeps the colour honest and only lowers the contrast, so the picture reads as new film rather than as old film.
Where it is used
Fujifilm sold Astia 100F from 2003 as the portrait member of the Fujichrome family, beside Provia 100F and Velvia 50. Studios reached for it when a client wanted a transparency of a person, because Velvia made skin ruddy and Provia ran cool. Fujifilm discontinued the rollfilm and sheet sizes first, and the 135 format followed in 2011. No reversal film has been made for portraits since.
- fashion editorials of the early 2000s
- studio portrait transparencies
- catalogue photography
The prompt
Replace the blanks with your own subject, keep the rest. Then run it on an image model.
<subject> shot on Fujifilm Astia 100F slide film, low contrast for a transparency, restrained saturation, soft natural skin tone with smooth transitions from the lit cheek into shadow, neutral to slightly warm colour, very fine grain, shadows dark but open
What goes wrong
The model reads low contrast as flat and returns a washed grey picture. Say low contrast for a transparency, and keep one clause saying the shadows are still dark.
The second failure is ruddy skin, which is Velvia leaking into the answer. Ban ruddy skin by name and ask for a neutral to slightly warm skin tone.
Leave out
high saturation, ruddy skin, harsh contrast, deep cyan shadows, flat grey washed out colour
Watch for
Astia is low in contrast for a slide film, not for a negative. It still clips, about a stop later than Provia.
Questions
Shoot it
Pay for the one run. No subscription, and the price is on the model page before you sign in.
Next to it in reversal film
