Neutral and convincing color rendition, saturation, and contrast indoors under both available-light and flash; exposure latitude was decent; widely available.

Annoyingly grainy under many outdoors scenes, especially those incorporating foliage. Expensive compared to consumer ISO800 offerings from Agfa. Many people prefer films with more color saturation and contrast than this film offers.

Kodak would have you believe that this film is good for everything--it is not, but does have its virtues. I bought this film to take some candids at a wedding reception in available-light and long-range flash/zoom situations. I found the performance of the film to be a mixed bag:

Available-light, indoors: The film did well under both natural and tungsten light; colors were accurately rendered with neutral saturation, contrast was neutral and realistic. There was also a slight softness and a bit of grain to the image--overall, though, the effect was rather flattering.

Available-light, outdoors: Shots taken outdoors around sundown were much less pleasing than those taken indoors. Colors were still accurately rendered with neutral contrast, but grays, blues, and especially foliage were annoyingly grainy. This would be a terrible film for scenics.

Flash, indoors: Flash photos taken through a zoom lens on a darkened dance floor were very pleasing; color and contrast were near-ideal; details were well-rendered and exposure latitude was very forgiving. Graininess was well within acceptable limits.

Overall, this film performed adequately under a variety of low-light indoor situations which call for fast film--I would buy it again for those applications until something better comes along. Outdoor images, especially those with foliage, looked much less appealing than those taken indoors and I would avoid this film for any kind of outdoor scene.

The bottom line: Not suitable for general use! If Kodak could get the graininess under control, this film would be one of my favorites. As it stands now, you have to pick your spots carefully to get acceptable results.

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Kodak Gold 1600, Kodak Ektar 1000. Will be evaluating Agfa Vista 800 soon.

Good indoors, good color, good in general for normal photography.

Don't enlarge beyond perhaps 8 x 10

For indoor photography w/ motion, which I used this for, the 800 Max was really good. I saw none of the problems that the other reviwer seemed to have. At this link: http://www.boilerinvasion.org/?page=photos&gallery=Chicago04 you can see pictures taken with the 800 Max.

Makes an interesting gift-wrap ribbon. Otherwise none.

• Horrible colors • Grain the size of baseballs • Kodak's most expensive film - this is probably why they want you to buy it.

Horse manure. This film is absolute horse dung. The grain is HORRIBLE and the colors are all washed out and grayish-looking. Even at 4x6 the prints are so grainy they look like sandpaper. Why Kodak is always pushing this as their best is beyond me, someone at Kodak must have suffered more brain damage than Ozzy Osbourne. Besides, is there EVER really a need for an 800-speed film? 400 is about as fast a film as anyone should ever need. NOTICE: If you buy a one-time disposable camera by Kodak, make sure it doesn't have 800 MAX in it. Most of them do, and if so your vacation photos will be awful.

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I don't think there's any other film that comes close to being this gross-looking.