A random collection of my personal opinions and pointers on film photography. Other people will definitely have different ones, but these are my experiences with some common topics. I will assume a passing knowledge of concepts like shutter speed, aperture, ISO and how a camera works; this is not a tutorial for any particular camera, the user manual typically does a good job there!
Picking an ISO
You’re gonna have 3 different categories of film you’ll want to stock up:
- 50 - 200 ISO for general outdoor shooting
- 400 ish for indoor shooting
- 800 - 3200 for dusk and nighttime.
With a fast lens, 50 - 200 will be fine for brighter indoor use. If you only have one roll, take 160 - 200 ISO, it’ll work out most of the time during the day, indoor and out.
For indoor use, 400 ISO will be great, and with a fast lens shadowy indoor areas will be ok too. You’ll have problems shooting 400 ISO outside and will likely need to stop down your aperture if you don’t have a camera with a fast shutter speed.
800+ ISO will not be a good experience outdoors, you will need a very narrow aperture to be able to use it. Great for low light indoors and dusk. 1600+ ISO will be best for nighttime and dimly lit scenes.
In general, pick the lowest ISO you can get away with. This will let you open up your aperture, get nicer background separation, and more importantly get finer grain. If what you want is heavy grain or wider depth of field, pick a higher ISO and either pull the film or narrow your aperture depending on the look you want. Those looks haven’t particularly appealed to me, but they’d be fun to explore.
For telephoto lenses, hand-shake becomes a concern. Most tele lenses have narrow apertures, forcing you to make your shutter slower. In this case, pick a higher ISO film than you normally would, so you can keep your shutter speed high and reduce shake in your images. I’d recommend around a 400 or 500 ISO film. This also applies to sport photography or race photography, where you need a very high shutter speed to capture a fast moment.
Picking a film stock
You really just need to see which matches your tastes, but here are some of my favorites and why I like them.
Low ISO color films:
- Kodak Vision3 50D
- low speed very fine grain cinema film. Very nice colors. The inclusion of a remjet layer means this film requires special processing. DO NOT TAKE VISION3 FILMS TO UNTRUSTED DEVELOPERS. You may ruin their chemicals and get stuck with an unsightly bill. Ask first, and if in doubt just pass.
- Kodak ProImage 100
- reasonably fine grain low ISO film, very saturated reds. Very pretty for sunny scenes and things with bright red subjects. Don’t overpay for this, it should be a budget film; I’ve seen it scalped.
- Kodak Portra 160
- the go-to portrait film. Warm, fine grain, great for general use, also available in 400. A personal favorite. Expensive.
- Kodak Ektar 100
- Not quite and warm as Portra, a little more blue, still has that typical Kodak look where greens are less present. I love this one for landscape and outdoor shots. Could be something to try for street photos. Very fine grain, which is its claim to fame.
- Kodak Gold 200/400/etc.
- Saturated colors and supposed to be cheap, but I can never find it. Harder to hand reel because of the thinner emulsion.
High ISO color films:
- Kodak Vision3 500T
- Tungsten balanced indoor cinema film. Mildly saturated colors, not quite as warm as Portra or cool as Fuji Superia. Best in yellower lighting, see the Cinestill discussion below.
- Fujifilm Superia 400
- Very blue/green, cooler tones. Has some more grain than the above. Use for indoor scenes or a rainy day.
- Cinestill 800T
- Respooled Kodak Vision3 500T with the Remjet layer removed. It’s natively 500 ISO, therefore has finer grain for an 800 ISO film; the removal of the anti-halation Remjet layer is what both increases the ISO rating and also creates a halo effect on light sources. Tungsten balanced, so yellow looks white and white looks blue (can be corrected in post, but you’ll get better color rendition in yellower scenes). I’d recommend pushing to 1600, 3200 felt like it lost significant shadow detail. 6400 seems unwise, expect little shadow detail at that point (some sample shots). . Note this film can be commerically processed, since the Remjet has been omitted from factory.
- Kodak Portra 800
- no halation effect, lovely Portra colors, heavier grain. Can also be pushed, but probably only one stop, maybe 2, before grain becomes very prominent.
B/W films:
- Kodak Tri-x 400
- Great, forgiving b/w film. Good dynamic range, good exposure latitude.
- Kodak T-max 400
- The bougier, harder to use brother of Tri-x. Finer grain, less forgiving. Very nice. Expensive.
- Kodak T-Max P3200
- High speed, super contrasty. Ideal for night scenes. Surprisingly low grain for the speed, but far more grainy than most normal speed films. Technically a 800 ISO film, but advertised to be pushed to 3200.
- Ilford Delta 3200
- High speed, less contrast than P3200, more grainy. Decent.
Remjet Removal
Get a jug of hot water, add baking soda until no more dissolves. Wait for it to cool down and some baking soda to crystallize out. Take this solution and add it to your film tank. Shake for 60 seconds. Dump the solution back into the original jug (it can be reused). Then, rinse the film with water. Add water, shake vigorously, and dump it out. You should see it coming out black and opaque. Repeat the rinse step until the rinse is clear. Then, process normally.
Pushing and pulling
Pushing is when you tell your camera or exposure meter that the film you’re using is some number of stops more sensitive than it actually is. Given that a stop is a doubling of light, shooting 200 ISO film as if it were 400 ISO would be a +1 push. Shooting it as 800 is a +2 push. Shooting it at 100 is a -1 pull.
In general, pushing film gives it more contrast, pulling film reduces contrast. Pushing typically makes for more visible grain and a loss in shadow and highlight detail. Pulling can compress the dynamic range and make midtones feel like mush with no contrast. Ideally, you want to use the entire dynamic range of whatever film you’re shooting, capturing the most detail possible. If you push film, you spread out the range of brightest to darkest values in the image and you risk the extremes being outside the range the film is capable of. Pulling squishes this range down, so it’s more likely to fit, at the expense of losing midtone detail. Exposing less moves this band down and risks cutting off shadows, exposing too much cuts off the top.
To pull film, you need to develop it less. To push it, you need to leave it in the developer for longer. Typically, if you’re hand developing, the chemical kit you’ve bought will tell you how much longer or shorter to develop your film to achieve your desired offset. If you take it to a development lab, ask if they push film and be ready to tell them how many stops you’d like them to push your film by.