35mm film reviews ?

A

anorphirith

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is there a site out there explaining how the 6$ film are better than the 2$ ones ? I'm looking at BH and they have a large variety of films
 
Grain. Sharpness. Color fidelity (with color films). Quality control.

There's far from 100% correlation but it's still quite high.

Cheers,

R.
 
I've found the 2 dollar stuff to be fine except that it's performance is not consistent. It could just be me, but I've found results to vary.

Rather then buying the cheap stuff, may i suggest you go to freestyle photo and check out their house brand. They buy huge rolls from kodak and fuji, efke and fomapan.

It's been shown that Arista Premium 100 and 400 are Kodak Plus X and TriX respectively.

Legacy Pro 100 and 400 are re branded Fuji Across 100 and Neopan 400.

Arista EDU Ultra 100, 200, and 400 are re branded fomapan 100 lassic, fomapan 200 creative and fomapan 400 action.

In my experience trying these out and from info off the web, i can see no difference between the "real" stuff and the re branded stuff, the prices are convincing and the results are there.

Try saving a bit of money that way.
 
bmattock said:
The photo magazines used to do annual film reviews. Then film died.
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Commercial interest in promoting film (from a magazine's point of view) died, but certainly film is not dead, in fact, i would say that film has never been this good, Kodak has been updating it's film in the past couple years to make them better. Companies like fomapan and efke are providing older style emulsions for very good prices. Foma is also making replicas of discontinued developers for all of us to enjoy... things are great.
 
samoksner said:
Commercial interest in promoting film (from a magazine's point of view) died, but certainly film is not dead, in fact, i would say that film has never been this good, Kodak has been updating it's film in the past couple years to make them better. Companies like fomapan and efke are providing older style emulsions for very good prices. Foma is also making replicas of discontinued developers for all of us to enjoy... things are great.
Click to expand...

If the people who read photography magazines wanted to read film reviews, the magazines would do them. People don't want them, so the magazines don't do them. There is no conspiracy to keep people from reading about film.
 
bmattock said:
If the people who read photography magazines wanted to read film reviews, the magazines would do them. People don't want them, so the magazines don't do them. There is no conspiracy to keep people from reading about film.
Click to expand...

Dear Bill,

Film manufacturers don't advertise much, and editors don't have a crystal ball (or tinfoil helmets) to tell them what their readers want to read.

If your tinfoil helmet tells you otherwise, please hesitate to share your insights.

A recent Shutterbug had two reviews of Ektar 100. Far from perfect, perhaps, but still film reviews.

Cheers,

R.
 
bmattock said:
The photo magazines used to do annual film reviews. Then film died.
Click to expand...


when did film died? i think 90% of the users here (who uses old rangefinders) still uses film? not? oh well, a handful of my friends still uses the old died film which i think is nice. we're all cool! :D

@OP if you find any sites that review film please share it here ;)

@samoksner - nice info there!
 
I suspect that between RFf and Flickr - film reviews are obsolete in print! All you have to do is type the film you are interested in - and someone has information. Also Google works well for ideas about developers (with black/white).
 
To say that film is dead is completely wrong ( IMO - then again, this post is all IMO :) ). The fact that magazines don't print as many film reviews as they used to doesn't necessarily mean that nobody wants to know about them. The media rarely seems to give the people what they want - they give the people what they think they want, or what they are paid ( by their corporate owners ) to tell the people. I think that relying on the photography magazines ( or any media ) as a gauge of what people's attitudes are or what it is they want, is a grave mistake.

Getting back to the original OP, it's hard to go wrong with Kodak Tri-X ( or it's doppleganger, Arista Premium 400 ). I can't tell the difference...
 
I have been really wondering about this gap for a while.
Flickr+tags - great photos for specific film
digitaltruth - good source for development times
RFF+APUG - good tips on development, user reviews, etc.

www.stackexchange.com - is a knowledge sharing platform, but it's too expensive.

We could put in some effort to get a microsite up and running within RFF? Say a sub-forum with reviews, links to flickr photos and optionally development timings, etc.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Bill,

Film manufacturers don't advertise much, and editors don't have a crystal ball (or tinfoil helmets) to tell them what their readers want to read.

If your tinfoil helmet tells you otherwise, please hesitate to share your insights.
Click to expand...

Fortunately, my tinfoil helmet is the latest model - it has eyeholes in it. This gave me the ability to see with my own eyes that magazines do constant research into what their readers what to read, by way of survey, readership questionnaire, and study groups. Probably because they need to earn market share so that they can show high circulation figures and then sell advertising at higher rates. The demographics of their readership is also, for some strange reason, considered useful by potential advertisers.

You write for a couple of excellent magazines. How is it you didn't know that?

A recent Shutterbug had two reviews of Ektar 100. Far from perfect, perhaps, but still film reviews.
Click to expand...

I can sympathize. Hard to do a comparo of the one or two films still on the market. I've got old issues of Modern Photography that have 20+ pages of nothing but film stats for comparison. I know, I know, film is just resting, getting its wind. It will come roaring back as soon as everyone comes to their senses and smashes their digital cameras with a hammer, ruing the day they were deluded by the evil camera manufacturers and forced to buy digital cameras. They'll wail and gnash their teeth, and then descend in a fury on the remaining camera stores, demanding film and film cameras.

I wait in patience.
 
jpa66 said:
To say that film is dead is completely wrong ( IMO - then again, this post is all IMO :) ). The fact that magazines don't print as many film reviews as they used to doesn't necessarily mean that nobody wants to know about them. The media rarely seems to give the people what they want - they give the people what they think they want, or what they are paid ( by their corporate owners ) to tell the people. I think that relying on the photography magazines ( or any media ) as a gauge of what people's attitudes are or what it is they want, is a grave mistake.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Apparently, magazines make money by being wrong (or at best indifferent) about what their readers want to read. I had no idea they were so anti-capitalistic. Imagine my surprise.

Getting back to the original OP, it's hard to go wrong with Kodak Tri-X ( or it's doppleganger, Arista Premium 400 ). I can't tell the difference...
Click to expand...

Tri-x is lovely stuff, and if Arista Premium 400 is the same stuff, then even better.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Grain. Sharpness. Color fidelity (with color films). Quality control.

There's far from 100% correlation but it's still quite high.

Cheers,

R.
Click to expand...

I would also add speed. Foma 100 is 1/2-2/3a stop slower than D100 and FP4+ (125 admittedly). Foma 200 is nowhere near 200 and in fact the same speed as FP4+. Foma 400 is 200-25 at best with larger grain than the current 400 offerings from Ilford, Kodak, Fuji etc.

QC with the above are real issues too. After my recent rant about the 200, I have found some more peculiar issues with the 100 (which I had thought perfect) that I cannot explain or replicate with any other film in the same tank, same chems etc. I won't go into them here, but it seems clear to me that the premier films have some real advancements even beyond then issues mentioned here. Thats not to say the others are not worth using - they are - but that they are not as consistent and there are occassional hidden achilles heels which can bite you. That said, I happen to think the Foma 200 is one of the most attractive films I have ever used. Foma 100 also has a character I like very much and I would gladly have a film with slightly rougher grain and lower resolution with such character, btu sadly the QC has just not been good enough for me. Shame the two Foma 200 batches I had were fit only for the trash, the 100 faring far better; however, I have discovered uneven development around the sprocket holes in high density sky areas, something not present on any other film I have used no matter what I do. The odd thing is the surge marks are in reverse in that I get increased density streaks between the sprocket holes not beneath them, so regular surge artifacts they are not (which with 3-4 agitations per minute you would not expect anyway)!

Better anti-halation characteristics in the top brand films, but the lesser performance of some of the Foma films in this regard helps give them some real character!
 
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