Film and Analog

Quick Comparison Photo: Kodak Tri-X 400 vs Japan Camera Hunter Street Pan 400

Chris Gampat
No Comments
02/04/2017
2 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Japan Camera Hunter Street Pan Extra Samples 5

I’ve been playing with more Japan Camera Hunter Street Pan 400 film and shot a scene that I always photograph just to compare what this film and Kodak Tri-X do when rendering a specific scene. Kodak Tri-X has been around for a while and is heavily loved by many photographers out there. But, it’s expensive and many photographers have looked for alternative options out there. One of the newer black and white films to hit the market is Japan Camera Hunter Street Pan 400 film.

So let’s take a quick look at Kodak Tri-X 400 vs Japan Camera Hunter Street Pan 400.

Just to be sincere here, this is an informal comparison and I’m not using loads of science, numbers, etc. None of that is romantic; and quite frankly that can take the romance out of photography.

Japan Camera Hunter Street Pan 400
In the image above the film was shot 35mm with the Hexar AF.

Kodak Tri-X 400
This scene was shot with the Lomography LCA 120. Not a totally fair comparison here but we can see some key differences in the tonality and such. To be even more fair, the building in the back was shot years ago. It’s seen some wear and tear especially since Hurricane Sandy and all the snow that NYC gets.

In my opinion, these are both great films but neither of them is really giving me the look I personally want. I seriously digg high contrast film and these have high contrast for sure, but I think  I’ll need to work with a chromogenic film in order to get the looks that I want. I enjoy inky blacks so that the viewer’s eyes move immediately to the details clearly visible in the scene. It’s sort of like using color to compose a scene and is a very popular tactic overall.

If I have to pick one though, I prefer Kodak’s sharpness and Street Pan’s grain structure more. Both were developed with Rodinal to my knowledge.

I’m also starting to not really enjoy my Hexar AF’s metering system. We’ll be doing more of these in the future. And again: don’t take this uber seriously. It’s film–we have no need to become the cesspool that digital photography based forums and R/Photography has turned into.

black and white comparison contrast emulsions film Hexar AF Japan Camera Hunter Street Pan 400 Kodak Tri-X 400 Lomography LCA 120
Shares
Written by

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.