If you buy your camera film at photo shops rather than in drugstores and supermarkets, you may have noticed that the big-brand films sometimes come in premium versions. Available in more or less the same choice of speeds as the standard line, premium films are often marketed as special-purpose or special-occasion films -- films for once-in-a-lifetime sorts of pictures.

Suspicious consumers may dismiss premium film as a marketing scam, but it really isn't. Real differences exist between a given maker's premium and standard films. The question, as usual, is whether you can see those differences. You'd probably be hard pressed to in a standard 4 x 6-inch print. Differences are more visible, if you have an attentive eye, in an 11 x 14-inch blowup for your family room wall. And, after all, important shots are the ones that you're more likely to be enlarging.

But if you don't want to pay the price premium for premium films, don't feel as if you're taking chances with you most important pictures. Photofinishing often has more to do with the quality of the results than the differences between films -- certainly between films that are already very good.