Bellamy Hunt told us that Japan Camera Hunter Street Pan 400 120 would be coming soon, and today he’s announcing that it’s available for pre-order. The film, which is popular with the 35mm film photography world, has finally sold enough that Bellamy decided that it would make sense to have it in a larger film emulsion. Street Pan 400 is unlike many of the others out there with the exception of a few Ilford emulsions. Japan Camera Hunter Street Pan 400 is a near infrared film that needs a lot of light unlike Kodak Tri-X, Fujifilm Acros and a number of others. So if you’re using it then you’ll need to give it more light or expose it at box speed vs pushing it.
Japan Camera Hunter Street Pan 400’s stock was seemingly also drying up and it was tough to get your hands on it, so perhaps this is one of the reasons why. With the 120 format you can shoot it in 645, 6×6, 6×7 and 6×9 if you wish along with many other medium format options. As the name implies, Bellamy really targeted the film at street photographers. However, I genuinely think that the high contrast and grain can make for a great film for portraiture and landscapes. It will look almost like Kodak T-Max 400 but with nowhere near the level of sharpness that can be delivered.
Here are some quotes from our review:
“The film grain from Street Pan is very fine overall. Itâs much finer than Tri-X and Delta 400. So if youâre a person that craves that super grainy look, then this may not be the 400 film for you. In fact, this is some of the finest grain that Iâve seen overall for a 400 speed black and white film…
Because itâs such a high contrast film, youâll also need to find a way to meter very carefully to try to balance out the shadows and the highlights. When you properly expose it, you can get a whole load of detail from both the shadows and the highights overall. Typically, you donât want to expose for the shadows or the highlights specificallyâinstead you just want a balance here or in certain situations even overexpose just a tad. The black here are very inky and deep, so the film will really reflect that.
This film is more contrasty than Tri-X overall though not as contrasty as Delta 400âso itâs an interesting in-between with the finest grain of all of the options.”
Check out all the details over at Japan Camera Hunter.