The State Of Film in 2024
The State Of Film in 2024
So much film, from classics like Ektachrome to crazy .5 ISO B&W
Perfecting Equilibrium Volume Three, Issue 20
Got a place
We can go
Lights are low
Let me show you to my darkroom
Came a come along with me
To my darkroom
Come a come along with me
To my darkroom
Editor’s Note: This story first appeared Oct 5 on Pentax Forums.
The Sunday Reader, April Day, 2024
Imagine being able to change out your sensor anytime you please.
For digital cameras that’s just science fiction, of course. If your camera has a 24-megapixel APS-C sensor when you buy it, that’s the sensor it will have every day until it dies.
But it’s reality if you’re shooting film. Want a Pentax 17 Monochrome today? Load it with Kodak Tri-X black and white film. Want punchy color tomorrow? Load your 17 with Legacy's Stay Positive 100 slide film. Want that old time color palette after that? Feed a roll of Wolfen NC 500 "Warm" into your camera.
Indeed the biggest shock, whether you are new to film or returning after a hiatus, is the vast and bewildering array of options available to film photographers in 2024. Take Legacy’s Stay Positive 100 Slide Film. It’s actually Kodak Ektachrome 100D. Which is Kodak Ektachrome 100, but in 400-foot rolls for the film industry. Some enterprising soul realized you can buy those 400-foot rolls, cut it into 36-exposure lengths, load it into 35mm film cartridges, sell it for 10 to 20 percent less than boxed Kodak Ektachrome, and still turn a profit! Now it does require some equipment – film has to be handled in pitch black while it is measured and cut and loaded into cassettes. Which you’re not doing at home with a dark bag when you’re dealing with 400-foot rolls.
So a 36-exposure roll of Ektachrome is $21.99 at Legacy Photo Labs. A 36-exposure roll of Legacy Stay Positive 100 – which is also Ektachrome – goes for $18.99.
Meanwhile $17.99 will get you a 36-exposure roll of Flic Film Chrome 100. Which is also Ektachrome, reloaded from 400-foot rolls from Kodak Ektachrome 100D. Just by a different company. And Flic and Legacy aren’t the only ones reloading.
Got all that?
Film cameras give you choices, and that’s a great thing.
But there are so many film choices in 2024 that it can be overwhelming.
I’ve never given up on film entirely, but for the last decade that pretty much meant grabbing a few rolls of Kodak Tri-X black and white film for my Pentax 6x7 and MX. I’ve been shooting Tri-X for a half a century; it was the standard for newspaper photojournalists. I’m primarily a black-and-white photographer, and after all those rolls I know what Tri-X will do in any situation.
But when Ricoh Imaging Americas lent me a Pentax 17 to review, I wanted to really put it through its paces. I wanted to give see what the camera could do for all different types of photography. And I wanted to find which film stocks are the best fit for this new camera. So I headed down to Don’s Used Photo Equipment in Dallas, where owner Todd Puckett perches on a stool in front of The Great Wall of Film. I figured I’d grab one roll of each film stock; how many could that be?
Many, many more than I could possibly shoot during the three weeks I had for the review, as it turns out.
Some of the film was familiar. I did grab a roll of Tri-X. I’ve shot thousands of rolls of Tri-X as a photojournalist, so it is my measuring stick for any new film gear. One roll of Tri-X tells me more about what I can expect from a camera and lens than a half-dozen rolls of anything else. And there were other familiar Kodak boxes: Portra, and Ektachrome, and the like.
And there were other old friends, like Ilford HP5.
But there were even more unfamiliar film stocks from companies I’d never heard of before I started working on the review.
Indeed, 2024 is an embarrassment of riches for film photographers. Here’s why: over the last decade the film market has been expanding, drawing manufacturers back in. For example, Kodak reintroduced Ektachrome a decade ago, while Harmon Technologies – maker of Ilford products – is investing millions into developing new film stocks, including its recently introduced Harmon Phoenix color film.
But before that the film industry was dying, and film stocks were being discontinued left and right. But as it became harder and harder to find film for still photography, enterprising individuals noticed that manufacturers were still making film for movies and industrial applications, plus all sorts of stock from abandoned applications.
What if that film could be repurposed and reloaded for still photography?
Some of it was easy; Ektachrome and EktachromeD are the same film in different packaging. And folks started reloading EktachromeD into 35mm cassettes.
Some of it was more complicated, requiring exposure adjustments. Some of it is very complicated, such as movie stocks like Kodak Vision 500t, which has a remjet backing layer that protects against electrostatic buildup in movie cameras. The remjet layer has to be removed to process the film for still photography.
And then there’s film as an adventure. People are repurposing industrial film stocks, and salvaging expired celluloid; there’s no telling what you’re going to get until you see the processed film.
The Great Wall of Film had been intimidating, but the sheer magnitude of film choice facing photographers hit me when I visited Legacy Photo Lab in Fort Worth to get the review film processed fast so I could quickly adjust how I was shooting. Lab Manager of Operations Reece Woolsey said he wanted me to try Panther Air film.
Sure! I’m always game for new film recommendations. Is it slide film or negative?
Yes!
I’m sorry…what!?!
Turns out that Panther Air – repurposed, re-spooled Kodak Aerocolor 2460 film – can be processed in C41 chemistry for very fine-grained negatives with an excellent color palette. It’s an interesting alternative to Ektachrome 100 with similar sharpness and colors that run a little less punchy and a little more green.
But you can also process it in E6, which produces delicate slides with good grain and a nostalgic color palette that looks like it would have been right at home shooting 1960s Rat Pack pix.
So if you’re new to film, or getting back into it from a while away, what’s the best way to navigate all these choices?
Get you a guru.
I’m fortunate to have two. Over at Don’s, owner Todd Puckett has assembled The Great Wall of Film loaded with almost every type of film you can imagine. He knows what films are available, what new stocks are on the way, and how they all compare.
Over at Legacy, Reece not only knows my photography, he knows what I’m working on because he processes and scans all my film. He knew I’d like the Panther Air because he’d seen what I was working on with Ektachrome.
But what if you want to let your freak flag fly and get into the dark corners of the film world? Expired emulsions? Repurposed industrial stocks?
Film designed to record military shells bursting and exploding?
Then you need you a mad scientist.
The first time I met Bret Bolton he shook my right hand and stuck a roll ISO 10 Black and White film in my left hand. Sorry, he said. I didn’t have any of the slow stuff.
Bret wasn’t kidding. He’s currently working with 0.5 ISO film.
No, that’s not a typo. He is shooting recovered 0.5 ISO black and white film.
Bret is a sort of accidental 35mm film tourist. He eschews small formats for his own work. His casual “small” camera is a heavily modified Graflex 4x5. But for serious work he has a large format 11x14 rail camera. It’s not really meant for the field, he admits. But he keeps running into film stocks that are simply too interesting to pass up.
Like the time that he read in a local newspaper that a school was closing down its photography department. He went, and found a lot of great film and equipment he could use.
He also found 1,000-foot rolls of 35mm film. How could he pass those up? He had all sort of crazy ideas – his words – like building 35mm film holders for large format cameras, but in the end he shot some on 35mm equipment for fun, and began selling the rest.
Even though I don’t shoot 35, I thought those rolls would be fun to play with, he said. But it ended up being that there was these crazy films that I had in my hands that people would like to shoot. So I started selling them. And I say selling it in quotes, because you see the prices online. I’m not making any money.
That may be because he seems to give away more film than he sells. Indeed, that’s how I met Bret; he posted a note online saying that he was out and about testing interesting film in Dallas Fort Worth, and anyone in the area should stop by and help – he'd supply the film. I couldn’t make it that day, so we arranged to meet for lunch the next week. He still showed up with a roll of film for me.
So Todd knows all the film companies and what stocks they are producing. Reece develops my film and knows what emulsions fit my work. And Bret opens my eyes to types of film I never knew existed. You should definitely get your own film gurus and mad scientists. Get to know people in your local film community. Hang out in the film forums. But while you’re doing that I thought I’d ask my crew to share some advice with you.
All three had the same advice to those just getting started – or restarted – with film: Load up on cheap color negative film such as Fuji 400 or Kodak Ultramax. They’re forgiving, and cheap, and cheap to process. Shoot a lot, and learn what you like. The same holds for black and white – start with an inexpensive emulsion such as Ilford Kentmere, and shoot a lot until you find your groove.
For experienced film photographers coming back after taking a break, Bret recommends Kodak Portra. It may be cliche, but Portra. Super reliable, a lot of latitude, it looks good, it scans good, and it’s easy to get developed.
Once you have established a baseline for you and your equipment, well, the possibilities are quite literally endless. There is a lot of new film out in the analog world today. For C41 there is Original Wolfen out of Germany, and CineStill which is just Kodak movie film without the remjet. There’s the new Harmon Phoenix 200, which is still being tweaked. Black & White has the return of Film Ferrania out of Italy, which offers good contrast with details in the shadows and good grey tone, and the added bonus of more silver giving the film a tighter grain, “said Todd, whose first love film is Ilford’s XP2, which he shoots with a Bessar 35mm.
Reece, meanwhile, is rocking Lomography 800 in his K-1000. My current favorite film when shooting 35mm is Lomography 800 because the color pallete is so unique and balances everything so well. I'll shoot Gold 200 when I shoot 120mm mostly because of how cheap it is. Panther 800 or 400 is also a very fun film stock. Kentmere 400 is my go-to B&W film.
Bret’s go-to rig is, not surprisingly, a bit more unusual. Another film that I’ve been using a lot of over the past couple years is Kodak 2476. In one of my film buys, I picked up a 1200-foot can of this stuff in 70mm. There was a word on the can though, that I kept coming back to: SHELLBURST. This film was created by Kodak for filming explosions against the sky (presumably for military use). I sorta had to try it. I slit some down and rolled it into backing paper for 120, and it was awesome. Excellent exposure from 25 ISO up past 200, and just a lovely film. As you’d expect, I now have some 70mm equipment, and this film has become a central part of an ongoing project I have shooting a decaying explosives factory with this 1990 expired film for explosions.
All three say the film market is healthy and growing, and said this summer’s launch of the Pentax 17 half-frame film camera has turbocharged the film community.
And all three have the same advice for those new to film, and those getting back into film: Go out an shoot, and don’t be afraid to try all these crazy emulsions.
I agree with them. Sometime this fall I’ll cross 1,000 shots with the Pentax 17, which I currently have loaded with Legacy’s Stay Positive 100 Slide Film-Ektachrome 100D. I love the sharpness and the punchy colors I get with this film in the Pentax 17, so I have more rolls of Stay Positive in my camera bag. Which also has Panther Air. And some Harmon Phoenix 200. Plus the Robot Rolls ISO 10 40 Percent black and white film…Yeah, it’s time for film.
Speaking of crazy films, here’s Bret’s advice to new and recovering film photographers: Obviously go out and shoot and keep things going. But I have an addendum to that: print your stuff. Instagram is fine and all, but print your stuff and hang it on the wall. Find a local gallery and go visit. Then go again for their next showing. Go to the opening, hang out, meet the artists. Buy someone else’s print and hang it on your wall. Photography should be seen beyond our phones, beyond sitting in an airplane, beyond sitting on the toilet. Being in front of a print makes all the difference. You can see the complete vision the artist had. So….Print, go see prints, and buy prints. Oh yeah, and buy some crazy films too.