So, what kind of film do you use?

I generally shoot both color and black and white; both prints and slides. I don't favor black and white over color or vice versa; I do, however, prefer color slides over prints. This may change. Below is an incomplete list of emulsions that I've used.

Color Slide Film

• Kodachrome 64. My favorite film. Very sharp with very tight grain, and excellent color reproduction, particularly warm tones. Reds are very punchy, so much so that some blues and some greens suffer in comparison. Very good skin tones. Moderate contrast for a slide film. Many people like to shoot it at EI 80, 1/3 of a stop faster than rated, to slightly punch up color saturation and increase contrast. Responds very well to underexposure; however, washes out very easily if overexposed. Archival, too: Kodak estimates that modern Kodachromes will last more than 100 years before they start to fade. Neat trick: shoot it at EI 200/250 for a day-for-night look. Major drawback: K-14 processing is very hard to find and normally entails using Kodak/Kodalux mailers, and while Kodak processing (international) is pretty darn good, Kodalux (US) is not what it used to be. The best Kodachrome processing in the world is at A&I in Hollywood.
• Kodachrome 25. Essentially a slower version of Kodachrome 64 (or K64 is a faster version of K25), this is the sharpest and tightest-grained slide film made, bar none.
• Kodachrome 200. Something of a different beast than its slower siblings, Kodachrome 200 is actually rather grainy. However, it is very sharp for the grain, and I find the grain texture itself rather pleasing. It has a similar, though not identical, color response to other two Kodachromes. Handles an EI of 250 without blinking.
• Fujichrome Velvia. The only slide film that comes close to Kodachrome 25 in terms of grain and sharpness. However, colors are punched up to the point of artificiality, and contrast can be off the scale. Many people actually overexpose to cut back on the contrast and color saturation, though there are who underexpose to punch it up even further. One huge advantage is that same-day E-6 processing is available in every major city in the world, so you don't have to wait three weeks to get your slides back from Australia (like I did when I lived in Hong Kong).
• Fujichrome Provia. Fuji basically toned down Velvia and made it an ISO 100 film. Colors are still pretty bright, but much better than Velvia. On the whole, though, I still prefer Kodachrome 64.

Color Print Film

Color print film technology changes so fast (particularly with the introduction of APS emulsions into 35mm format) that it's impossible to keep up with it unless you're a journalist paid to cover the industry. I'm not a journalist, and I don't cover the photo industry, so I'm not even going to try to keep this section up to date. Instead, here are some general notes and comments:

• The most popular film in the world is Kodak Gold 100.
• Fuji films tend to be slightly punchier and contrastier than their Kodak equivalents. For most purposes, though, they're pretty interchangable.
• The most useful color print film for general purpose use is either Kodak Gold 400 or Fuji HR 400.
• The relatively new 800-speed films that Kodak and Fuji have been pushing for P&S cameras are actually pretty good.
• Don't use professional portrait film (Kodak VPS, etc.) for general use.

Black and White

• Kodak TMax 100. If you have very consistent darkroom procedures and know how to expose it, this is one of the greatest films of all time. Some people swear by it; others swear at it. Very sensitive to variations in processing, TMax 100 turns the old dictum of "expose for shadow and let the highlights fall where they may" upside down. My most consistent results were achieved by exposing for highlights and letting the shadows fall where they may. All the TMax films have a spectral response closer to that of the human eye than most other B&W films (i.e. less blue-sensitive), which partially accounts for the difficulty than many photographers have had using it. For optimum sharpness, it should be developed in D-76, not TMax Developer.
• Kodak TMax 400. An odd film. Can be developed in D-76, but is best developed in TMax. Shares very similar exposure characteristics with TMax 100. Not a very popular film; many people shooting at EI 400 prefer Tri-X or HP5+.
• Kodak Tri-X 400. The greatest film of all time? Certainly one of the most popular films of all time. It is much easier to get a good negative out Tri-X than out of any of the TMax films. Careers have been built on the combination of Tri-X and D-76. Many folks rate it at EI 320; interestingly, Professional Tri-X, which is a different emulsion than regular Tri-X, is rated by Kodak at 320.
• Ilford Delta 100. The two Delta films (there's also a Delta 400) are Ilford's response to Kodak's TMax. Very fine-grained, but with a more 'conventional' spectral response (i.e. more blue-sensitive). And printing it is easier than with TMax, or at least that's what I've found in my limited experience with it.
• Ilford HP5+. Ilford's version of Tri-X. Pushes very well, and is quite popular with photojournalists.
• Ilford XP2. A B&W film that's developed in C41 chemistry. Good for when you need B&W negs and proofs in about an hour. Nice grain, and is supposed to push, as well as print, quite nicely.
• Kodak TMax 3200p. Nominally rated at about ASA 1000. Pushes well but above EI 1600 grain and contrast go way up. Good for SFX shots. Allegedly can be pushed to 12,800 and up. I've been shooting a lot of this stuff recently at 3200 to get grainy, noir-ish prints. Despite the grain, it's actually pretty darn sharp.
• Agfa Scala 200. This is a weird film. It's very fine-grained as these things go, but it's also very contrasty and it has no exposure latitude. And, because it is a slide film, you really can't use filters the way you can with other B&W films because you can't dodge and burn the print. I suspect that it will eventually find a niche as a portrait film. It can produce some very nice results if handled with kid gloves.
• There are two more B&W films worth mentioning, even though I've never used them: Kodak Technical Pan and TMAX 400 CN. Technical Pan is the finest-grained film ever made, and can be used in some interesting SFX situations. If you don't want to deal with the limitations of Tech Pan, Agfa makes a 25 ASA film (APX?) that's supposed to be almost as fine-grained as Tech Pan. TMAX 400 CN is Kodak's answer to XP2 -- a black-and-white film that gets processed in C-41 (color) chemistry. There are differences between the two films, however -- perhaps the most important being that XP2 develops as an essentially clear negative, designed to be printed on standard B&W paper, while TMAX CN develops to an orange negative and is designed to be printed on standard color paper. Either film is a good choice if you need B&W prints in a hurry.

July 5, 2001