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Five Photographic Film Emulsions Every Photographer Needs to Try

Chris Gampat
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02/23/2015
4 Mins read

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Every single photographer should try to shoot with film consistently at least for a month. Why? Because film makes a photographer pay more attention to a scene than they do to the LCD screen of their camera. The slow process of pay attention to the subtle details, finding the right light because you’re locked into a single ISO setting, slowly focusing on a subject and ensuring that they’re totally in focus, getting the exposure just right to balance the highlights and shadows, and knowing that you’ll only get a handful of chances to capture the scene is all part of what can help you become a better photographer.

Some of the best photographers out there are very detail oriented. And as long as you have the pressure on yourself to get the shot right in a single frame, you’ll be better off.

Don’t know where to start? Here are five films that every photographer needs to try.

Kodak Portra 400

Portra

Kodak Portra is arguably the single best negative film left on the market. Though it was originally designed for shooting portraits and rendering some of the most incredible skin tones one could ask for, photographers have used it for pretty much everything.

Kodak Portra comes in both 35mm and 120 formats as well as larger formats if you wish. It’s a negative film and incredibly forgiving. During one portrait session I shot the film at ISO 100 instead of ISO 400. However, my lab was able to push the film quite a bit and still deliver beautiful images to me in the scans.

Best Used for: Kodak Portra is best used shooting portraits and in combination with spot metering.

Chris-Gampat-The-Phoblographer-Film-scans-27-of-74

Buy Now: B&H Photo

Fujifilm Velvia 50

Fujifilm velvia 50

If you’re a photographer that loves to shoot landscapes, then Fujifilm Velvia is what you should get your hands on.

Velvia has an odd name. The colors aren’t like velvet, but instead rich, punchy, vibrant and heavily saturated. For this reason, Velvia 50 is best for landscape work. But like other Chrome films, you need to ensure that you get the exposure absolutely completely correct. The interesting thing about Chrome films is that they can give you the absolute best color but have no latitude. In contrast, negative films can give you great latitude and pretty good color.

Considering that this is rated at ISO 50, you should be sure to bring along your tripod and a good wide angle lens.

Best Used for: Landscapes and travel work.

Fuji Velvia 50 --
Fuji Velvia 50 —

Buy Now: B&H Photo

Kodak Tri-X

Kodak Tri-X

Arguably the most popular black and white film on the market still, Kodak Tri-X has been the choice of many professionals for many different reasons.

What makes it so appealing? More than any other film, Kodak Tri-X has the right amount of grain and grit to it that makes so many different subjects look spectacular.

Street Photography? It’s the king.

Photojournalism? Yup.

Weddings? Oh yeah!

Portraits? Yeah, it can do that too.

It’s easy to fall in love with Kodak Tri-X.

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Lomography LCA 120 black and white images (10 of 11)

Best Used for: Pretty much anything that you can think of. It’s such a versatile film and has such an iconic look that you can’t get over it.

Buy Now: B&H Photo

Ilford Delta 400

Ilford Delta 400 in 120 Format

If you’re not too big of a fan of Kodak Tri-X, most photographers would tell you to go score some Ilford HP5. We have to gently and respectfully disagree.

My personal favorite black and white film is Ilford Delta 400. Grainy, low contrast, and more monochrome in look than black and white, Ilford Delta 400 can give you absolutely beautiful images. What’s really nice is that Delta 400 if anything looks a bit like a combination of both black and white and sepia if overexposed. If underexposed, it looks like Tri-X.

Even if you happen to fall madly in love with Kodak Tri-X, we strongly suggest that you give this film a shot and see what’s on the other side of the counter.

But even if you’re not a fan of this film, Ilford HP5 could be more of your personal jam.

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Ilford Delta 400 scans image samples review (6 of 13)

Best Used for: Street photography and portraits

Buy Now: B&H Photo

Fujifilm FP-100C 3×4


 Fujifilm fp-100c

What would this list be without a really solid instant film?

As what’s probably the best instant film emulsion currently made, 100C used to be in the cameras of professional medium format photographers everywhere. It used to give them a preview of what they were getting as the test shot. And while many of them didn’t quite like it, the film saw a resurgence along with the influx of film in general. It’s got a beautiful look to it when used with the right cameras.

So what are the right cameras? Even though we like the Polaroid land cameras, the lenses aren’t anything compared to the medium format SLR cameras that Hasselblad, Bronica, Mamiya and Pentax make.

Chris-Gampat-The-Phoblographer-Fujifilm-Instant-100C-of-Brandon-1-of-1-680x536

Best Used for: General use. Expose for the shadows and be sure to carry a timer on you when you pull it out of the camera.

Buy Now: B&H Photo

 

 

black and white color delta fujifilm ilford instant film kodak Photography porta tri-x
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.