FujifilmProvia 100F

Fujifilm Provia 100F (Fujichrome Provia 100F Professional, code RDP III) is an ISO 100 daylight color slide film for E-6 processing, and Fujifilm’s neutral, general-purpose slide film next to the more saturated Velvia [1] [3]. It has been made since 2000 and is still sold in 35 mm, 120 and sheet film [2] [5].

Look and color

• What Fujifilm promises. “Vivid and faithful color reproduction”, with “the most brilliant primaries without sacrificing the delicate pastels” [1]. Fujifilm’s 2006 chart of its slide films rates Provia 100F “Natural color”, with “High” saturation and “Standard” contrast [3].
• Neutral. Casual Photophile describes “neutral color rendering” and “color equilibrium in both primary and pastel colors, with no bias toward either” [7]; Analog.cafe “detailed realism and subdued expressivity” [5].
• Saturation: the sources disagree on the level, not the ranking. “Medium saturation and contrast” for The Darkroom and Tahusa [6] [8]; “punch and nuanced saturation” for Casual Photophile [7]; “amazing saturation without being too-overpowering” for Richard Haw [9]. All place it below Velvia [4] [9] [12].
• Slightly cool.
  • Tahusa finds that it renders “a cooler mood” [8], and Phillip Reeve’s blog “a bit cooler” than Ektachrome 100 [10].
  • Next to E100, Matt Osborne sees “slightly cooler” skies and skin “slightly less warm” [11].
  • Next to Astia 100F, Oleg Novikov finds that Provia has “a very noticeable green-and-blue tint”, while being “much closer to reality” [13].
• Skin. The Darkroom calls it its favorite portrait slide film because it does not make skin “go to red” [6]; Haw, because subjects do not look like “boiled prawns” [9].
• Greens. Tahusa mentions Fujifilm’s “signature green tint” [8]; we found no second source for it.
• Shadows. “Punchy” for Analog.cafe, with a blue cast in underexposed areas [5]. A reviewer on The Darkroom finds blacks “not color shifted” [6].

Tonality

• Curve. On the datasheet, D-min is about 0.09 and D-max 3.3 to 3.4. The slope rises from about 1.0 to 1.35 in the highlights, reaches 1.75 in the midtones and 1.9 in the shadows, then the shoulder rolls off gradually instead of stopping at a “wall” as Velvia 50’s does. About 5.8 stops separate densities 0.3 and 3.0, against about 5 for Velvia 50 [1] [14] (our reading of the graphs).
• Fujifilm promises “bias-free, brilliant highlights” and “highlight-to-shadow gradation linearity” [1].
• Contrast is “medium” for The Darkroom and Tahusa [6] [8] and lower than Velvia’s [4]. Haw notices that some midtones are clipped [9].
• Latitude.
  • Analog.cafe gives about five stops of dynamic range [5].
  • Overexposure: about one stop for The Darkroom [6], “as much as two stops” for Casual Photophile, which finds underexposure worse [7].
  • Haw sees errors of a third of a stop in the results [9]; Tahusa finds dim light “flat and muddy” [8].
• Processing: push or pull from −1/2 to +2 stops with minimal change [1].
• Long exposures: no correction up to 128 s, far longer than Velvia 50’s 1 s [1] [14].

Grain and sharpness

• Fujifilm launched Provia 100F as “the finest grain” among ISO 100 slide films [1]; Astia 100F, launched later, has an RMS of 7 [15]. The RMS values are read at a density of 1.0 with a 48 µm aperture, but not always from the same reference: above D-min for Provia, gross density for E100 and Astia [1] [15] [16].
• Reviews: “almost no grain to be found” in scans [7]; “smooth and organic under high magnification” [5].

Spectral sensitivity

Blue peaks near 455 nm, green has a double top near 543 and 576 nm, and red peaks near 642 nm. The green peak sits about 0.3 log below the blue one and 0.2 below the red one, while Velvia 50’s three peaks are level [1] [14]. Blue and green cross near 491 nm, green and red near 592 nm (our reading). The Grain Archive style is not computed from these curves.

Names, status and history

• 1978 to 2000. Analog.cafe traces the line from Fujichrome 100 Professional Type D (1978) to Provia 100 (1994) and Provia 100F (2000) [5].
• RDP II to RDP III. Provia 100F (RDP III) was developed to replace Provia 100 (RDP II), with better image permanence and fading resistance [4]. Its datasheet, AF3-036E, carries the print code EIGI-00.10 [1].
• Provia 400X, its ISO 400 sibling, has been discontinued [4].
• Velvia 100 left the US market on July 6, 2021 [17].
• In production. On September 29, 2026, Fujifilm’s US site listed Provia 100F in 35 mm, 120 and sheet film, without naming the sheet sizes [2]. The datasheet also lists 100 ft rolls and 4×5, 8×10, 11×14 inch and QuickLoad sheets [1].