Like the speed test, I ran on TMax P3200 I decided it was only fair to give Delta 3200 a fair shake as well, but to make things more interesting, I decided to run it through in Medium Format instead of 35mm. After my review last year of Delta 3200, I decided that the film responded best in Ilford Microphen. Microphen has become one of my favourite developers to push or pull processing fast films. Like the TMax speed test, I’ll shoot the film at 1600, 3200, and 6400 and develop each in Ilford Microphen. Note that while I firmly believe that Delta 3200 isRead More →

Found in a dusty warehouse, based on where the film came from, Sweeden, Lomography promoted their Berlin 400 as an iconic cinematic film. 400-Speed, Black & White, and from East Germany. Well, that certainly narrowed it down to only one film, thankfully it is one that I did have planned to review at a later date, so why not discuss it under the Lomography Brand! The film, if you haven’t already guessed is ORWO N74, which made collecting developing formulas easy. Shooting cinematic film in still cameras is nothing new, at least for me, I still love shooting Double-X for urban work, so getting intoRead More →

From a snowstorm to a downpour, it was just before 7:30 in the morning as I walked out the door to my car. The time change had not messed me up too much, and I knew the area where I was driving. However, the night before freezing rain had come through. But the temperature had gone a few degrees above the freezing mark, so I figured it was safe by this point. Everything I had with me was waterproof, I had fast film, nothing below ASA-200, and even though it was dark, I could see some light through the deep clouds on the horizon. ItRead More →

I’m keeping with the budget-friendly theme here and going with the Ultrafine Extreme films for this month. I’m not exactly sure where Ultrafine gets its film stocks from, but it certainly knows how to get a decent product. Ultrafine Extreme 100 appears to be a classic grained panchromatic film that offers fine grain and excellent sharpness. And it certainly does not break the bank. The film isn’t so much cheap as it is inexpensive, a roll of 35mm 24-exposure runs about five dollars Canadian. I can honestly say I’m impressed by this film and it certainly stands up to most conditions you can throw atRead More →

Like Svema Foto 400, I’ve only ever shot a single roll of Kentmere 400, and that was when it was being bulk loaded by the Film Photography Project as their EDU line of films. And yes, like Kentmere 100, this film stock is also produced by Ilford/Harman for their export market. While I personally think the film is best for students and those photographers on a budget, I don’t mind the film. It’s a lot closer to the old Ilford Pan 400 than their HP5+ stock, and that’s not a bad thing. And while I can still only find the film in the old packaging,Read More →

When it comes to Soviet cameras you can never be too sure, I’ve had some winners in the way of the Fed and Zenit E, but also some failures with the Zenit 122K. However, when Boris, a member of the Toronto Film Shooters group offered up his Kiev-19 I jumped at the chance, and the day I tested it on, was the perfect way to see if these Soviet Cameras could take a Soviet Winter. But the Kiev-19 is no ordinary Soviet Camera. While most use a universal mounting system like the M39 or M42 Screw Mount, this camera uses a Nikon F mount. NotRead More →

One thing that is always satisfying is being able to come up with new processing details for rare films. I did some extensive testing with Eastman 5363 back when the Film Photography Project began to release it for general photographic use. But now I have a new challenge from the group, Derev. Of course, there has already been some testing of the film by the Alpha team over at FPP HQ in New Jersey which gave me a baseline, so I went and checked over my extensive list of films looking for similar film speeds, film feel, and developing times to see if other developmentRead More →

It wasn’t as cold as I figured it would be as I stepped out of Union Station around 8 in the morning. There was still an hour and a half before the meet officially started. But if there’s one thing I learned about running meetups, as the host and leader, you get there early. Besides I had a final roll of Ultrafine Extreme 100 to shoot first, I wish I had waited until later to shoot it because shooting Extreme 100 at 200 in the dim morning light was not exactly the wisest plan. But today the name of the game was pushing film. IRead More →

Svema, or by its proper name, Свема, is a film stock that is relatively unknown here in North America. But if you’re a fan of the Film Photography Podcast you will have heard of Svema. It would be Svema Foto 200 that first burst onto the FPP scene, and quickly became a favourite film of Leslie Lazenby. The name comes from the combination of two Russian words, Светочувствительные Материалы, translated means Photosensitive Materials. While Svema collapsed when the Soviet Union died in the 1990s, another Eastern European film manufacture, Astrum, continues the legacy of Svema using some of the old machinery in a new factoryRead More →

Before Plus-X there was Verichrome Pan. The two films have rather similar looks, but if there was a film that defined the look of the mid-century, that is the 1940s through 1950s of the 20th-Century that film is Verichrome Pan. Despite its age and the mid-speed nature of it, the film today remains surprisingly stable, having shot some that had expiry dates of the late 1960s. Designed as a general purpose film for the average consumer who at the time of its release in 1956 had nothing more than a box camera the film had a wide exposure latitude to overcome the disadvantages a boxRead More →