Everybody seems to be getting into film photography these days. New photographers are discovering it for the first time, and many who made the switch from film to digital are now adding it back into the mix. But the film choices today aren’t quite the same as they were in film’s heyday. In this video, Jay P Morgan compares a whole bunch of 120 medium format colour and black & white films from Ilford, Kodak, Fujifilm and CineStill.
There doesn’t seem to be much point including Fujifilm in this list, given that they’re on a mission to kill off all their film stocks. In fact, the Acros 100 shown in the video already seems to have been discontinued. The video’s broken up into a whole bunch of sections so here’s the breakdown.
2:14 – Low ISO Black and White2:19 – Fujifilm Acros 1003:30 – Ilford Delta 1003:50 – Ilford FP4+ 1254:30 – Kodak TMAX 1005:21 – Medium ISO Black and White5:25 – Ilford Delta 4005:52 – Ilford HP5+ 4007:01 – Ilford XP2 Super 4007:44 – Kodak TMAX 4008:16 – Kodak Tri-X 4009:41 – High ISO Black and White9:46 – Ilford Delta 320010:20 – Low ISO Color10:26 – Kodak Portra 16010:50 – Kodak Ektar 10011:27 – CineStill 50D12:08 – Medium ISO Color12:11 – Fujifilm Pro 400H12:19 – Kodak Portra 40013:08 – High ISO Color13:14 – Kodak Portra 80013:25 – CineStill 800 Tungsten
As you can see, it’s a pretty comprehensive list. Although it is by no means complete. There’s no mention of Bergger Pancro 400 or JCH StreetPan 400, for example. And they’re not the only ones. But there’s only so many hours in the day, and these are the most popular and readily available around the world. Although certain films offer obvious advantages in different situations, a lot will boil down to personal preference. For example, with black and white I prefer Ilford FP4+ 125 over Ilford Delta 100. I also like to use Kodak Tri-X 400 over both Ilford HP5+ 400 and Delta 400. I just like the look more of FP4+ and Tri-X. Which will be right for you will depend on what you like the look of and fits your technical needs. For colour, I’ll stick with digital.
