Every now and again Lomography comes out with some weird, limited edition film: and the most recent was Lomography f2/400 in 35mm. The film, which allegedly was aged over a number of years in oak wine casks, was a negative film. Surely it’s expired, but as every experienced film photographer will tell you, freezing the film greatly negates the effects of expiration. That’s more or less how Lomography stored it–at least according to reports and their semi-cryptic press release. My favorite film from the company was Sunset Stripe, though f2/400 was perhaps the easiest to use.
I keep saying “was” because the film is now gone.
Tech Specs
Considering that this film is now discontinued, I’ll just state that the film was a 35mm daylight emulsion. Rumor has it that it was a specially cared for Ferrania film of some sort.
Ease of Use
When the film first came to me, I was told that, due to its expiration, I needed to give it a whole lot of light. In fact, I was told to maybe expose it at ISO 100 to start. But then I heard about the great results that someone got when shooting it at ISO 800. And so when asking to have the film developed at those ISOs I shot the film in a way to give it a bit more light. Essentially, I kept the rules of Sunny 16 in mind as I used my Leica CL and 40mm f2 for every shot.
Essentially, it held up. In lower lit situations, the film surely wanted more light than 1/3rd of a stop. But the images still worked out well in my opinion.
Image Quality
Lomography f2/400 film was honestly a really incredible film; and a part of me is pretty sad it’s gone. It looked really nice and delivered a very nice color tonal range that otherwise wasn’t really available. Despite it being fairly muted, it retained its own look–remaining in some way or another more sterile than Portra or Fuji 400H yet still had its own unique look to it.
However, I have to be honest here, it delivered a look that could possibly be easily replicated in digital though albeit with trouble.
Here are some more images: and let’s say farewell to a very short lived but fun film.
