What's the worst film you've ever used?

[magic1]

My first box of Bergger 200 4x5. I didn't get a useful neg the whole first box. Now its what I mainly shoot in 4x5 (with a little Efke 25 & TriX). Sometimes you just need to stick with something till you figure it out.

 

As to the T-Max films the dang anti-halation layer drives me nuts.

 

Pretty much all consumer grade color films suck by definition. I do however like the new Kodak HiDef 400 color neg film.

[lex_jenkins]

Steve, the anti-halation layer on T-Max films is nothing compared with Agfa and Efke films. Normally I don't presoak films but if I'm going to soup in a reusable developer like Diafine or Microphen stock solution I'll presoak.

 

Last time I presoaked APX 100 it poured off an impenetrable green soup. I've never seen anything like that coming from T-Max films.

[gareth_harper]

The fuji 100-1000asa film was updated and rebranded as provia 400.

 

Tmax 400 is great stuff. Rated at 400asa and developed in Ilfosol S 1/9 it is super sharp with much finer grain than tri-x and a massive spread of mid tones. It also has a very thin base with a big usable lattitude which makes for easy exposure and quick darkroom printing. Yes a lot of the time I prefer tri-x in rodinal but Tmax is so much easier to work with and in any case I don't like all my shots to have the same look.

[arnabdas]

Samsung 100 ASA print film. I was really drunk at the time I bought it.

[gauthier]

Konica VX-100. But then, I never used any of the Kodak MAX films.

[emmy_montano]

Ok now I don't feel so bad. Kodak 800 Max-grain galore!

[jsbc]

VX100 is not one of the worst films. It's actually very low contrast, and no doubt the worst of the chromogenic b&w films. There's no reason to buy it at all. But it's not the worst film. the other Konica films are better. However, sometimes it's hard to separate development/ printing from the original film.

 

Gold Max 800 or whatever it's call is HORRENDOUS, however.

[michael_goldfarb]

I must also chime in and say that Kodak's 800-speed color print stuff is godawful!

 

I'm also in the camp that doesn't much like TMY - I much prefer good old Tri-X. (But I shoot tons of TMX in my Minox, so I'm not anti T-grain, per se.) And I'm pretty surprised to see some negative comments on APX 100 here, which I think is a splendid film: I prefer it to both PX and FP4+.

 

Oh well, if we all agreed, there'd be nothing to talk about!

[roger krueger]

Konica SRG-3200: Amazingly huge grain, speed at most 1600, and a halfway-to-being-a-tungsten-film color response. Anything it could do, PJC could do better...

 

Kodak 2475 Recording Film and Scotch 100 slide film both had immense grain, but at least it was interesting, appealing grain.

 

I'll chime in as a defender of TMY--I use it as a night film, EI 12,500, 30 minutes in XTOL 1:1, 75 degrees, four inversions every four minutes. Makes me wonder what I ever saw in Delta 3200.

[ed_hurst]

Lex - re. pushing an iso 400 to an ei of around 1600.

 

Have you tried Ilford Delta 400 (new version) in straight Microphen or DD-X? I've had some very decent results with these combos.

[carl smith]

Isn't Kodak 2475 the copy film, which some people used for unsharp masking?

[lex_jenkins]

Ed, nope. It's on my to-do list. Some day. Since pushing film tends to be a make-or-break situation I'm inclined to stick with what I know. Took me almost a year of experimenting to find a combination of film, developer, temperature, time and technique that works reliably. Kinda hate to go through that routine again.

[oskar_ojala]

Ed, Lex:

 

This gets really interesting since I just shot my first roll of Delta 400 @1600 (I've used Delta 400 before but I'm a bit undecided...maybe I need more experimention?). I quite like HP5+, so let's see how this compares. I've never used TMY though. Maybe there should be some 400 speed BW film shootout/discussion?

[samdeleted]

This is a silly question, but what exactly does pushing a film mean? If you say you shot a roll of 400 film pushed to 1600, are you simply telling the camera that the ASA is 1600, and if so won't they come out horribly underexposed? I assume I'm missing something.

[phule]

Sam Fentress,

<p>

If all you do is tell the camera that the film is 1600, then you will have problems. As Art Haykin wrote in a post: "In the simplest of terms: Pushing or pulling is done in the lab, and NOT in the camera."

<p>

You tell the lab to push it 2 stops when you drop it off for processing, then they will process the roll, not as 400, but as if it were 1600. (However, this is not directly true, as there are some time and temp differences between processing normal 1600 and film that's been pushed to 1600. But for a basic introduction, this is a decent description. If I have messed that up, I'm sure there are other photo.netters that'll point it out).

<p>

Note: you can't get push-processing done at Walmart or any other similar store. You'll have to get it done at a pro lab.

<p>

For far more info than you'll ever want see this link: <a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=push%20processing%20site%3Aphoto.net">http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=push%20processing%20site%3Aphoto.net</a>

[lex_jenkins]

Sam, short answer: We're trading away shadow detail in exchange for the ability to use a slower film in whatever light's available. In exchange we often get superior midtone gradation and finer grain than films with higher ISO ratings can offer. Today's improved films and speed developers can work wonders in low light. The old arguments against pushing need no longer hinder us and never were applicable to the types of candid photography 35mm is typically used for anyway.<p>

 

See this URL for the best comparison I know of. It beats even my own examples:<p>

 

<a href=http://www.angelchild.net/filmtest.html>http://www.angelchild.net/filmtest.html</a>

[stephan_pejic]

The only time I have used high-speed film is with disposable cameras - and it seems I have the total opposite experience with most of the people here (the Kodak cheap 800 speed being far better than the Fuji cheap 800 speed in terms of colors and grain).<br><br>

 

My experience with Fuji Superia 100:<br>

black = black<br>

dark grey = black<br>

dark green = black<br>

anything in shadow = black<br>

anything in shadow, spot meter on the shadow, + 2 stops = black<br>

green = random<br>

Bad for cars, airplanes, construction equipment, motorbikes. Nice for flowers, though.

[oskar_ojala]

Lex, I'm not sure about the comparison; the problem is that he devved the Delta3200 in T-max also and I suspect it wouldn't be the best combination. Granted, it works for him as he only has T-max dev, but eg. I always have a bottle of DD-X in my chemistry.

[lex_jenkins]

Dunno, Oskar. Delta films are Ilford's "core grain" (?) films which are supposedly similar to T-Max films in some respects. So the T-Max developer would seem to be appropriate for Delta 3200.

 

What I see in Nathan's example is identical to what I get from Delta 3200 at EI 1600 in Diafine, right down to the grain, tonality, gradation and shadow detail (pros and cons). Microphen or DD-X might do a bit better when pushing Delta 3200 to its nominal speed or much faster but at least at 1600 my results and Nathan's are entirely comparable.

 

What I haven't tried, something that might be interesting, is to expose Delta 3200 at EIs up to 3200 for development in Perceptol. Perhaps that would produce superior grain and gradation without a loss of effective speed and shadow detail.

[roger krueger]

Carl: No, 2475 was Kodak's extreme speed film (ISO 1000) in the days before TMZ. The only four-digit copy film I recall is 4125.

 

2475 was far and away the best extreme grain film ever. I was amazed at the ferocity of bidding when I ebayed a few rolls I'd found at a local camera store--I originally intended to shoot them, but then figured it would be a better thing to let someone already hooked get their fix.

 

But that was 2 or 3 years ago, and they were part of the last batch--anything left now is probably pretty far gone.

 

I can only hope others will be as kind to me when it comes time to fight for the last of the Tech Pan.

[carl smith]

Thanks Roger, all I remember was last year I was working with some 4x5 sheet film that was quite slow but also had been discontinued some years ago. It was no speed king though so definitely something else.