Worst film that you have ever used?

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tyrone.s

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Hi all,

I've seen threads about what film people recommend and so on and I've done a quick search through the forums and on the net, but I can't seem to find a thread that considers 'the worst 35mm films' that people have ever used. Now there may be many dimensions to this: Worst colour fidelity, poor shadow tones, worst to develop, poor material quality - scratchy, ineffective anti-halation layer, lifting emulsion. What else might there be? Too expensive for the results or film that was just plain TERRIBLE! Heck might even be some film that you kept in the freezer for 20 years and you were amazed at how much film has improved during the intermission before you finally got round to developing it.

I'd love to get some perspectives on this from some of the more experienced and wide-ranging film users.


 Cheers,


 Tyrone
 
I'll probably have to duck here but for me Tmax ... probably not the film's fault but I just couldn't get it right! 😛
 
Kodak 200 Color - I forget what its called. I bought 10 rolls of it and five years later disposed of the remaining 9 rolls.

Keith, T-Max is better enjoyed in large format. I never warmed up to it in 135 either.
 
Keith said:
I'll probably have to duck here but for me Tmax ... probably not the film's fault but I just couldn't get it right! 😛
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Seems quite a few have a dislike for Tmax. I think it's the development stage where most have problems. Seems to me that Tmax don't fare to well with certain developers. It's a finicky film.
 
Tmax in 120 is very nice. i've always had it processed at a prolab.

"Bad" films - efke ISO 25 tried many years ago - very hard to use and the lab never seemed to develop it right.

Some of those max color films don't seem very good.
 
Worst film I ever tried was the old 3M color films back in the 80's. They all sucked big time. I liked Tmax film, a lot, before Kodak built a new factory for their BW films and reformulated them all. Tmax 100 and 400 both got REALLY grainy and I dropped them in favor of Tri-X and Ilford FP-4. Most of my best work was done on the old tmax 100 developed in Rodinal. All 120 size.
 
Worst I have seen were Soviet color negative films, all of them. There was no point in using them since the paper was even worse than the film, and expensive. The only decent color film available in Russia was Czech slide film (Orwo).

Fow b&w, Svema 64. As everything Russian in those days, it was of rather uneven quality, and sometimes actually good.
 
Never had much use for Ansco films. Super Hypan 500 was grainy and as I recall had poor tonality. Didn't like Anscochrome 50 either.

Maybe worse: Sears Dynachrome -- ISO 25 -- similar technology to Kodachrome but nowhere near as good.
Night exposures have very greenish shadows, flare though shadow detail good. Daylight color somewhat yellowish.
 
Back in the 80s I used "RGB" film which was Kodak neg movie
film. There was a lab in Hollywood that sold it in 35mm cassettes
and processed it. It was cheap and crappy. I did some film set
still photography at that time and (unfortunately) used some
of it. Very grainy with washed out color.

I also tried some 3M/Scotch film at that time. The 1000 speed
film was so bad it was good (i.e., good for exaggerated grain
effect).
 
erikhaugsby said:
Kodak Gold 200. The one roll of it that I shot was absolutely terrible.
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I've never seen a bad Kodak film and I've had excellent results with all the Kodak Gold I've used. It's a very tolerant, consumer grade C41, with decent color saturation and moderate grain -- perhaps you had some that had been abused by bad handling before you bought it.
 
I can't really say I've ever had really "bad" film. I've certainly had a strong disposition to all Agfa films, and an undying love of Kodachrome, but almost every roll of reasonably in-date film I've used when properly exposed has served me well.
 
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