Sakura · ISO 100 Color negative
Sakura Color SR-G 100
The Sakura branding on this box is a transitional artifact. Konishiroku launched the name in 1929 and ran it nearly six decades; the company killed it worldwide in 1987 to consolidate under the Konica nameplate, and the SR-G family appeared in 1989 inside the new branding. Boxes carrying the Sakura mark on an SR-G emulsion are late Japanese domestic overhangs. Collectors prize them. Photographers shooting them get the same film either way.
SR-G 100 sat at the slow end of a four-speed lineup running 100, 200, 400, and 3200. It was a consumer C-41 stock built for daylight and electronic flash, with Konica's typical late-1980s color signature: warmer than Fujicolor Super HG, less red-leaning than Kodacolor Gold 100, softer skin tones than either. Grain held cleanly at 8x10.
Use cases match any modern ISO 100 negative: studio work with strobes, daylight portraits, landscapes where you want the slower speed for shallower depth at wider apertures. Compared with current Kodak Gold 200 pulled to 100, the Konica runs cooler and resolves a bit more midtone gradation. It loses to fresh Portra 160 in latitude by a stop on each side.
Konica emulsions had a reputation problem with aging. Centuria stocks of the early 2000s turned purple within a year past their dates in published reviews. SR-G does not suffer that fault as severely, but base fog climbs and the cyan layer drifts toward magenta on rolls stored at room temperature for thirty years. Freezer stock holds up better. If you find a cold-stored brick, rate it down a stop and process at a lab that still handles weird old C-41.
No fresh stock exists. Konica Minolta closed its photo division in March 2006, and the DNP-licensed Centuria relaunch failed in 2009.
Reciprocity exponent is 1.20. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second. A metered 30-second exposure becomes about 70 seconds at the negative, which matters for night street work or dim interior shots on a tripod. For a stock this old, also add a stop for storage fade before you trust the math.
How the app handles this stock
- Box speed: ISO 100. Picker exposes pull/push chips so you can shoot it at any speed you want and the meter follows.
- Reciprocity: Above one second the app raises metered time to the power of 1.20.
- Expired film: if you load an old roll, set the expiry year and storage in the app and the ISO scales for you. Color negative decay rates are baked in.