# a few beginner questions about film



## jando (Mar 31, 2014)

So I have my camera and all I need is film to start. As I'm just starting all this I'm trying not be too adventurous and experimental. I saw photos that I liked shot with lomography colour negative 400. But I'm not sure about it. I've been thinking about Kodak Gold and Fuji Superia. So is different brand film but like in this case all colour negative 400 the same thing? Ignoring if they are expired (or not) and how they've been stored.

Questions:
1. So can I get Kodak or Fuji instead of lomography if I was _trying_ to go for similar results as the photos I saw and liked? 
2. I saw there's Kodak gold ULTRAMAX, Kodak Gold MAX, Kodak Royal? What's the difference?
3. On the lomography box (3 rolls) it says 36 exp, does that mean per roll or per box?

Thanks!


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## compur (Mar 31, 2014)

Lomo photography is all about what would normally be considered poor image quality. That is, images made with cheap, poor quality lenses and crude cameras. Their films tend to share this idea and are, frankly, the worst quality (by normal standards of image quality) that the Lomo people can find for use in their cameras. The Lomo idea is to _distort _reality via grain, color shifts, etc. rather than to duplicate reality as is normally done with conventional photographic standards. 

35mm films marked "36-exposure" means 36 per role.


BTW, I don't mean to knock "toy camera" photography which I do believe is a valid form of art. However, I'm not crazy about the way the Lomo people exploit it.


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## AlanKlein (Mar 31, 2014)

What kind of camera do you have?


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## Derrel (Mar 31, 2014)

The film MANUFACTURER typically has a good page or two of on-line information and technical knowledge about each film stock.

http://www.kodak.com/ek/uploadedFiles/Content/Consumer_Products/Films/E7023_UltraMax400.pdf


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## jando (Mar 31, 2014)

compur said:


> Lomo photography is all about what would normally be considered poor image quality. That is, images made with cheap, poor quality lenses and crude cameras. Their films tend to share this idea and are, frankly, the worst quality (by normal standards of image quality) that the Lomo people can find for use in their cameras. The Lomo idea is to _distort _reality via grain, color shifts, etc. rather than to duplicate reality as is normally done with conventional photographic standards.
> 
> 35mm films marked "36-exposure" means 36 per role.
> 
> ...



A well put opinion! I personally prefer that grainy, etc. look but it can get a bit extreme, I like it subtle. This applies when I'm talking more about personal, everyday photographs. I explained all of this more in my other thread in which I was looking for a camera. 



AlanKlein said:


> What kind of camera do you have?



Minolta SR-1 50mm f/1.7


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## MartinCrabtree (Mar 31, 2014)

​
The general use color negative films have amazing latitude and as such are very forgiving. I've been using Fuji Superia 800. This image was shot on an overcast day with very flat light. From my first time out with my Nikon F5. A sub par scan from a "Pro" lab kinda beats it up a bit,i.e. it's not really that grainy. The only post is sharpened a bit and small boost to color via Nikon's ViewNX2. 

Honestly I don't think you'll see much difference between them so I'd use cost as the determining factor. They're all pretty good with the exception of the "Lomo" stuff referred to above.


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## limr (Mar 31, 2014)

Lomography doesn't make its own film - it repackages other brands and sells it under their name. Many times the film they repackage is low quality, like Shanghai for example. Other times, it's film made with old emulsion formulas, so it might be Kodak UltraMax, but an older version of the recipe that has since been updated. So the good thing is that it was a decent quality film to begin with, but it's also going to be old, possibly expired or about-to-expire film.

So in other words, it's a crap shoot. I've bought some Lomo color 100 ISO that was fine - colors weren't particularly vibrant, but I kind of like that as long as the colors are rendered well. But I've also seen some real crapola shots from other batches of Lomography color films.

I'd stick to the name brands. If you're looking for something less expensive, check for deals on Kodak Gold 200. I think it's either being discontinued or updated, so a bunch of about-to-expire film seems to be on sale. It's still perfectly good. UltraMax is a different emulsion formula - I prefer the colors from the Gold films. Better vibrancy.

Kodak vs Fuji: That's totally going to depend on preference. I tend to find the Fuji colors to be a bit cool for my tastes, but I can work with it. I prefer the Kodak Gold.

Shot with Gold 200:








Shot with Lomography Color 100:




I can't remember but I _think _this was Fuji Superia:




As for ISO, remember that the faster speeds (400, 800) are better for low light situations. If you are planning to do a lot of outdoor photography with more sunlit situations, you might consider 100 or 200 instead of the 400.

And of course, don't forget about black and white


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## 3Js (Mar 31, 2014)

I'm not to familiar with color negative film but I imagine it is similar to transparency fim (slides) and that each family has a particular color temperature. You'll need to figure out which is to your liking.

For example Ektachrome was fairly cold while Kodachrome was fairly warm. A lot of people switched to Fujichrome when it first came out because it was somewhere in between, considered more natural.


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## minicoop1985 (Mar 31, 2014)

I've had horrible luck with Lomography color 100 (got some rolls in a lot I bought). That being said, their redscale stuff (literally film that's turned around and fed through backwards-I'll post one) is actually pretty awesome. The Lomography company irks me a bit, but at least it's inspiring people to get back into film, even with non-crappy (read: old SLRs, good medium format stuff) cameras. Does make the prices rise, which is good and bad for me... lol

Lomo Redscale 100, pardon the dust-one of my first scans.





Lomo Color 100. I hate how the colors rendered. Not just washed, but a little green.





Those little ghostly marks in the same spot are marks on the glass in the scanner. Took me way too long to realize that.  Those two were done with my Hasselblad.

This is more my speed in terms of image quality and color rendering. Shot with Portra 400 in a Franka Rolfix equipped with a Schneider Radionar.


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## vimwiz (Mar 31, 2014)

Lomo film sucks. Bad. Its rebadged chinese £1 film deliberatelty outdated or overheated to look "cool" i.e. crappy.

Kodak UltraMAX 400 is *excellent*. FujiColour 200 is similar, slower but cheaper, Agfa Vista+ 200 is _very_ cheap and okay (a bit retro in terms of colours, if you want something more like the lomo, yet decent)

Example of how sharp the cheap FujiColour can be:


(and thats a lo res scan of a print, not the neg)


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## minicoop1985 (Mar 31, 2014)

And don't count out Kodak Ektar. That's my go-to film for real shoots. Don't have any examples scanned, but I've got a roll waiting to be developed and another waiting to be burned. And a roll of 35mm too.


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## gsgary (Mar 31, 2014)

This is 13 years out of date Ektar 100, i have also got a roll of the same age Ektar 1000 that should be fun


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## vimwiz (Mar 31, 2014)

or shoot b&w and develop at home. (Ilford!)

What camera you got?


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## Derrel (Mar 31, 2014)

I shot a lot of Kodacolor Gold in its various incarnations, in the 200 speed, and "down-rated" it to ISO 125, which ensures a generous degree of exposure. I shot maybe a mile of Kodak VPS, but that has been updated and upgraded to the much newer Kodak "Portra" family.

The difference between "amateur" color negative film and "professional" is that the amateur oriented film is shipped "green", with around a year to 18 months of ripening planned for the film after it hits dealer shelves. The "pro" films are shipped at peak date, so their color and performance is OPTIMAL right as shipped, and they are shipped cold, and sold cold, and are supposed to BE KEPT REFRIGERATED to keep them at their peak. Also, some of the "pro" color negative films have emulsion types that are what you might call "low-contrast", allowing the photographer to shoot pictures that have bright tones and dark tones, and not have a really high-contrast, garish rendering. Think "white wedding gown and black tuxedo"...there are also higher-contrast, more "snappy" pro emulsions.

The manufacturer's data sheets can tell you thinks like the degree of contrast, and the level of saturation the film provides when exposed normally, and developed properly. Many "amateurs" used to prefer the rich, jazzy color and relatively high degree of contrast and SNAPO! found in the Kodakcolor Gold and EKTAR series films; many pros who shot portraits and wedding preferred lower-contrast films with more subtle, naturalistic color. For ocean scenes with greenish seawater and blue skies, I always preferred Fujicolor to Kodacolor. I thought Fuji really 

The difference between good film and average film can be negated by crappy developing and printing. One needs to find a lab that offers good, and consistent processing and related services: proofing/scanning/printing/packaging of negs and prints. My impression is that today's *average* color print develop and print utterly sucks compared to what was available widely back in "the film days". The high-end work is as good or better, but less commonly encountered in every single city; you might want to ship film off for processing and scanning. If you want to be able to SEE and enjoy the differences in color negative films, you need a lab that can consistently develop them RIGHT.

Some people like the "vintage color" look;some people want crappy, LOW-fdidelity artsy looks; some want neutral and real looks; others expect high-fidelity, high-resolution, and optimally 'classic' looks; so...opinions vary all over the spectrum.


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## cgw (Apr 1, 2014)

Hard to go wrong with Fuji Superia 200/400. It's probably the most widely available film in N. America and most surviving Noritsu/Fuji minilabs use Fuji paper. Ilford XP2 is a c-41(color)process b&w film with huge latitude that's worth a try, too.

Sorry but many "Lomo" shots posted online are *not *SOOC scans but rather manipulated to boost contrast/saturation/hue. It was part of the Lomo con and probably helps explain why their stores mostly vanished in N. America.

Get your film processed and scanned. Skip the prints, check-out/manipulate shots you like, and only print what suits you.


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## limr (Apr 1, 2014)

cgw said:


> Sorry but many "Lomo" shots posted online are *not *SOOC scans but rather manipulated to boost contrast/saturation/hue. It was part of the Lomo con and probably helps explain why their stores mostly vanished in N. America.



Proof?


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## minicoop1985 (Apr 1, 2014)

Most "Lomography" shots have the saturation boosted to the max, which seems to add to the grainy look. They don't look like that SOOC, as CGW said, but more like what you find in my above examples. The colors are just kinda flat, really, even on a bright, sunny day. Shadow contrast just looks weird and oddly colored.


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## cgw (Apr 2, 2014)

limr said:


> cgw said:
> 
> 
> > Sorry but many "Lomo" shots posted online are *not *SOOC scans but rather manipulated to boost contrast/saturation/hue. It was part of the Lomo con and probably helps explain why their stores mostly vanished in N. America.
> ...




Think you provided some. Your shot looks quite SOOC compared to the Pokemon-hued stuff touted online.


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## minicoop1985 (Apr 2, 2014)

Actually, this would be a good example. There's no chance this saturation came out of Lomo 100. While Lomo 100 is grainy, I have a feeling that the extra grain seen here is from boosting saturation with the scanning software. My Epson Scan stuff seems to do that.

A photo by ?scootiepye? - Lomography

I mean maybe the 35mm stuff is different, but still.


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## compur (Apr 2, 2014)

One thing is sure: There are no film photographs on the internet.


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## cgw (Apr 2, 2014)

compur said:


> One thing is sure: There are no film photographs on the internet.



And yet there's apug.org where film photographs(sic) amazingly appear online and where the word "scanner" is blasphemy. A strange world, indeed.


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## limr (Apr 2, 2014)

cgw said:


> limr said:
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ONE photo is proof? There are tens of thousands of "lomo" scans on the Internet. How is it possible to say MOST of them have boosted contrast because of digital manipulation post-scan? What about cross-processing effects? Wasn't that the whole point of cross-processing, to get funky colors.

To be clear: I don't give a crap if they are boosted digitally or not. I also believe that many of them are. But it just seems disingenuous to state - without demonstrable proof - that MOST pictures are digitally altered.


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## compur (Apr 2, 2014)

cgw said:


> compur said:
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> > One thing is sure: There are no film photographs on the internet.
> ...



Stranger still are your posts which always seem to miss the point.


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## cgw (Apr 2, 2014)

compur said:


> cgw said:
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Oh, there's was point to your post? Seemed like the same old apug-like crankiness.


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## compur (Apr 2, 2014)

^ Yes, there was a point to my post but I am filled with too much apug-like crankiness to explain it to you.


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## cgw (Apr 2, 2014)

limr said:


> cgw said:
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We both know that x-pro is the antithesis of consistency. Lomo stuff printed SOOC from film often doesn't look much like Lomo stuff posted online. The scope for post massaging is huge, given the fact that all we look at here is digitized. I rest my case. And pin the the disingenuity tail elsewhere, SVP?


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## cgw (Apr 2, 2014)

compur said:


> cgw said:
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> > Oh, there's was point to your post?
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Best save your strength for the deep truths pondered over there.


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## compur (Apr 2, 2014)

I rarely visit that forum and my strengths are in no need of saving, thank you. 

BTW, have you figured out the point of my post yet? It seems Derrel has.


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## limr (Apr 2, 2014)

cgw said:


> limr said:
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Restatement does not mean proof.


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## Mike_E (Apr 2, 2014)

I enjoy APUG along with a few other sites, including this one.

The thing is I like hammers AND wrenches.





And sometimes a screwdriver after a long day.


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## compur (Apr 2, 2014)

Nothing wrong with APUG. Lots of good info there. I just haven't visited there in a long time. No particular reason.


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## cgw (Apr 2, 2014)

limr said:


> cgw said:
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Jeesh, they're scanned, OK? Heard a few too many customers of the late Toronto Lomography store kvetch at a nearby pro lab that Lomo film just didn't scan/print much like the stuff they'd seen online. Why? You fill in the rest.


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## limr (Apr 2, 2014)

cgw said:


> limr said:
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Yes, jumping to conclusions would necessarily require the other person to fill in the gaping holes in an argument. You're clearly comfortable with your generalization, so whatever small interest I had in this topic is totally gone. There's just no point.


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## minicoop1985 (Apr 2, 2014)

I think I need a bloody mary after this thread. lol


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## limr (Apr 2, 2014)

minicoop1985 said:


> I think I need a bloody mary after this thread. lol



Those can be tasty. A bad one, though, is horrifying.


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## compur (Apr 2, 2014)

I'll have a nice Chianti.


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## limr (Apr 2, 2014)

I just had a Shock Top.


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## minicoop1985 (Apr 2, 2014)

Hmm. Maybe I'll have one of these instead:

Snapshot - New Belgium Brewing

Awww yisss


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## AlanKlein (Apr 2, 2014)

jando said:


> compur said:
> 
> 
> > Lomo photography is all about what would normally be considered poor image quality. That is, images made with cheap, poor quality lenses and crude cameras. Their films tend to share this idea and are, frankly, the worst quality (by normal standards of image quality) that the Lomo people can find for use in their cameras. The Lomo idea is to _distort _reality via grain, color shifts, etc. rather than to duplicate reality as is normally done with conventional photographic standards.
> ...



A Minolta SR-1 with a 50mm f/1.7 lens is a fine camera.  It will take professional photos. I'd practice with non-expired film of good quality until you get more experience.  You have plenty of time to get fancy with graininess.  Anyway, if you plan on scanning them for posting on the web or printing digitally, you can always add grain in post processing.  But in the meanwhile, you'll have better photographs with good color because you're using good film.  Good luck with whatever you decide to do and have fun.


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## dav305z (Apr 2, 2014)

I think Kodak Gold, more than Fuji Superia, has that subtle, warm quality that makes people instantly look at it and say, "You still shoot film? Cool!"


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## webestang64 (Apr 3, 2014)

1. So can I get Kodak or Fuji instead of lomography if I was _trying to go for similar results as the photos I saw and liked? 
..........I mainly shoot Fuji 400......but Kodak is as good or better. I get "you still shoot film" from both.

2. I saw there's Kodak gold ULTRAMAX, Kodak Gold MAX, Kodak Royal? What's the difference?
.........not much, it's Kodak's way of marketing with fancy words. From what I've seen Royal is the best-ish. Every time they change or enhance the emulsion they rename the film.

3. On the lomography box (3 rolls) it says 36 exp, does that mean per roll or per box?
............I believe so, I never buy from there since I work in a camera store.......

I say buy a roll of each of Kodak and Fuji, shoot away and compare. 


_


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