Been quite a while.
It has been some time since I have embarked on my analog photography journey. I figure a bit of an update to this blog is long overdue.
Shooting in analog, for it to be a rewarding and a successful endeavor requires many components. In today's blog, I would like bring forth, a component, which although I am not an expert in, is very necessary for this journey to continue. With this, I mean, film.
Yes, film, the part of the system that serves primarily to capture the image you see, and after it has been processed, will produced the negatives from where your images resides. The other components, would of course, be the camera and the parts that make up the camera system, like the lenses and you! Your understanding of how proper exposure is made, how much light is exposed to the film inside the camera, generally would greatly influence how good or not good, your image will be.
However, there are countless varieties of films. There are colour films, there are black and white films, positive films ad maybe others that I may not have heard about. Within each type of films, there are many different flavours of films. Kodak for example have Kodak Ectar, Kodak Gold, Kodak Potra, Kodak ProImage and several others. Fuji used to have the Superia line of films, although I heard they may resurface in the near future. Of course there are now various indie companies that tries to fill in the void left by the major film producing giants like Kodak, Fujifilm, Agfa, Konica and others. This when it gets interesting.
The indie company such as Vibe, Lomo, Alien and other small companies' films would tend to be respooled films from another source. Bulk films would be respooled and the rebranded and sold under a different brand, sometimes not alluding to the original source of films.
Having said that, I would be making a sin not to mention Harman's new film A totally new emulsion, which I like, for what is is.
However, most of these offering from the indie companies would be films that require ECN2 processes. It gets more confusing when these private companies would do a pre-process in removing the remjet layer and then sell it as a normal C41'ed colour film. What would happened is that you would see lots of halation in the final results. Blooming of overexposed areas. Some liked it, some don't, As for me, I do not like surprises when it comes to my films. Example below is from a remjet removed film which I bought from Aliexpress.
Olympus Om2SP , 50mm 1.8
Pentax MX, Pentax A 50mm F2
Shots showing halation
Some people do prefer such "effects" . I have seen where the halation does add another dimension to their pictures. I am just wondering if people are made aware of the such "effects"? As for me, I have used up all of the C41-enabled film and I would not be getting more of it.
Then there are ECN'ed rolls that do not have their remjet removed. Usually these films would have a "D" at the end of the product name. For example 250D and so forth. D here would refer to daylight, while T would be that the film would be Tungsten corrected.
Nikon FM, 50mm 1,8, EL 800T
Tungsten Corrected Film.
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| Nikon FM, 50mm 1.8 EL 800T Tungsten Corrected Film Notied the halation spots? I attribute it to light leaks when the film was respooled. |
Should I dismiss such films, no. But would I rather? No. There are still several films, "normal" films that are purely photography films that can help to produce "normal" images. Kodak Ultramax 400m Fuji 400 and Kodak Pro Image are still widely available. With "normal" films, more labs would be able to process it for you, and at a cheaper rate too.
Until my next post where I intend to extoil the virtues of one several favourite films. Until then, Be well and keep on shooting.
Appended below is a video explaining what a remjet is.
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