I get many emails asking about the differences between certain brands of film, film speeds and which are better for which cameras but to be honest – the origins of 35mm consumer film are, to me, in murky waters. Color film production have ceased in several companies and although most brands are still for sale in the market, there has been a lot of re-branding going on so there’s no sure way of knowing what film I’m shooting with.
Having said that, I still think that a film guide would be useful for any other analogue enthusiast; every time before I try a new film, I like to check out samples on Flickr and blogs. Following my film camera guide, I do believe that a 35mm film guide is in order just so anyone who has half the mind to get into film photography has a clearer picture of what to expect. A few things to note about this guide:
1. This is by no means a professional guide.
I am an analog enthusiast, I do it for fun. I do not develop my own film and have absolutely no knowledge on how to do that. My films are sent to a local photo lab and I simply accept whatever has given back to me. My thoughts and opinions of each film are based on how my photographs turn out under the professional processing skills of the lab people.
2. This is a guide based on preferences, not professional results.
Following the first point, there will be no discussion on how great the range of a particular film is, no talks about push or pull processing, no insistence on how grainless images are “the best”. As a film photography enthusiast, how good a film easily translates to how right it is for my needs.
3. Like I mentioned earlier, there is a lot of rebranding going on in different markets around the world so there is no sure way of knowing what film I’m shooting with.
One prime example: Lomography does not produce their own film so they basically rebrand other film stock to sell as their own. The origins of Lomography film is a topic widely discussed on the Internet but generally inconclusive since it differs over time. Hence, all thoughts and opinions expressed here point back to what I’m being told on the film package box, not what they “actually are”. I will, however, try my best to include extra information wherever I can.
4. Film performance is not always constant, depending on type of camera, lens, settings and weather.
The results I have garnered are produced with the cameras I own, usually without flash and always without metering, and may only act as a general gauge. I have picked a number of pictures that I personally feel are representative of the results I have had with each film.
5. All films on this list have been used at least twice on different occasions.
Generally, I find it hard to characterize any film that I’ve shot with only once. There is no way to know for sure if anything that turned out was not by accident so I’ve made it a point to only include films that I’ve shot at least two rolls of.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, Iโll receive compensation that will go into helping me run this site.
The films, in alphabetical order:
Name: Adox Color Implosion (for international dealers, please click here)
Tones: range from yellow to red to green to blue, pre-treated for unpredictability and irregularity – blue happens the most often and reds are bright and saturated
Personal best results when used: absolutely anywhere so that you can see a bunch of different results
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Name: Agfa Vista Plus 200 (markings along the negatives are the same Fujifilm) (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: blue/green, washed-out red
Personal best results when used: in overcast daylight or indoors with specific light source (not necessarily natural light)
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Name: Agfa Vista Plus 400 (markings along the negatives are the same Fujifilm) (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: strong reds with undertones of yellow, medium to high contrast
Personal best results when used: in bright daylight with fast shutter speed (at least f/8)
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Name: Agfacolor 200 (expired, original Agfa film made in Germany) (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: bluish with undertones of yellow, low to medium contrast
Personal best results when used: indoors/under shade with lots of natural light (this film reminds me a lot of Solaris 100/200)
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Name: Agfacolor Pro 200 (expired) (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: slight blue-green undertones; purple tinge and orange burns in expired effects, underexposes easily
Personal best results when used: indoors with plenty of natural light and a slow shutter speed
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Name: Club Color 200 (expired)
Tones: blue undertones in daylight but yellow/red tinge indoors
Personal best results when used: outdoors when exposed correctly (no actual need to overcompensate for expired-ness)
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Name: Efiniti UXi Super 200 (markings along the negatives are the same as Agfa Vista Plus 200, which is likely rebranded Fujifilm emulsion)
Tones: blue with strong undertones of green
Personal best results when used: in overcast daylight or indoors with plenty of natural light
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Name: Ferrania Solaris 100 (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: slight blue tones, muted contrast, generally true to life
Personal best results when used: in overcast daylight or fast shutter speed in bright sunlight
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Name: Ferrania Solaris 200 (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: pastel hues with muted reds and yellows, generally true to life
Personal best results when used: in daylight or indoors with plenty of natural light
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Name: Ferrania Solaris 400 (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: slightly red in daylight but generally true to life, no apparent expired effects
Personal best results when used: with toy cameras for strong contrast
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Name: Fujichrome Sensia 100 (expired and cross-processed) (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: generally bright purples and reds with occasional cyans and oranges
Personal best results when used: outdoor in harsh light with SLRs for dramatic results, avoid indoors with artificial light
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Name: Fujicolor 100 (expired) (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: soft white-washed with hints of slight overexposure, no apparent expired effects except low performance when used indoors
Personal best results when used: in soft daylight with SLRs
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Name: Fujicolor C200 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: blue-green undertones, muted reds, muted contrast
Personal best results when used: slightly overcast days produce excellent muted tones that I love
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Name: Fujicolor Industrial 100 (ๆฅญๅ่จ้็จ) (click to buy on Big Cartel)
Tones: medium contrast, true to life tones, reds are a little dramatic
Personal best results when used: basically all circumstances, renders light beautifully even with little light source
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Name: Fujicolor Press 800 (expired) (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: obvious blue tones when overexposed, vivid reds, great contrast overall
Personal best results when used: outdoors in overcast daylight but great latitude for low-light circumstances
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Name: Fujicolor Pro 160s (expired) (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: muted contrast with relatively true to life tones, underexposes easily due to expiration
Personal best results when used: outdoors under shade or indoors with plenty of natural light
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Name: Fujicolor Pro 400H (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: true to life tones with obvious blue tinges, vivid colors with low contrast
Personal best results when used: indoors with plenty of natural light
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Name: Fujicolor Superia Reala 100 (expired) (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: extremely true to life tones even in artificial lighting, no apparent expired effects
Personal best results when used: outdoors in overcast/fading daylight or indoors with plenty of natural light
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Name: Fujifilm 400 NPH (expired) (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: green undertones with cool, muted colors overall
Personal best results when used: indoors with plenty of natural light or outdoors, slightly underexposed for dreamy quality
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Name: Fujifilm PROPLUS II 100 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: true to life tones even in artificial lighting, rather vivid reds but moderate contrast overall
Personal best results when used: anywhere, really, performs very well in low-light situations for a low speed film
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Name: Fujifilm PROPLUS II 200
Tones: true to life even in artificial lighting (so important), slight blue tones with vivid contrast
Personal best results when used: anywhere but especially outdoors with point-and-shoot cameras – read somewhere that this film is a variant of Superia 200 (which I haven’t had the chance to use in ages) but I think this comes off way more true to life with significantly less grain
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Name: Fujifilm Superia 200 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: green with tinges of blue
Personal best results when used: indoors with plenty of natural light or white artificial lights
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Name: Fujifilm Superia Venus 800 (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: green with slight red overtones; yellow indoors or at night
Personal best results when used: at night with artificial lighting, love the true to life representation without excessive grains
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Name: Fujifilm Superia X-TRA 400 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: prone to blue-green with slight yellow hues, muted reds
Personal best results when used: outdoors and indoors with plenty of natural light or white artificial lights
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Name: Ilford FP4 Plus 125 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: black and white with a huge range of gray values
Personal best results when used: indoors with strong light source produce higher contrast images, outdoors under shade for beautiful levels of gray
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Name: Ilford Pan 100 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: black and white with high contrast
Personal best results when used: indoors with light source, beautiful smoothness on highlights
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Name: Imation Scotch EXL Plus 100 (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: vivid contrast with slight blue/green tones (once in a while in a perfect light setting, the colors turn out like beautifully exposed slide film); expired-ness causes purples color shifts
Personal best results when used: indoors with light source for dreamy quality
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Name: Kodak ColorPlus 200 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: very slight yellow overtones in daylight but incredibly yellow in artificial lighting, would not recommend for indoors with no natural light
Personal best results when used: in bright sunlight with slight overexposure or indoors with plenty of natural light
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Name: Kodak Ektar 100 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: true to life with high contrast
Personal best results when used: in overcast/shaded daylight
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Name: Kodak Gold 100 (expired) (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: slight yellow hues; low, muted contrast in daylight, reacts well to artificial lighting; blue color shifts in expired effects
Personal best results when used: in daylight with fast shutter speed or indoors with light source (contrast goes up)
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Name: Kodak Gold 200 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: generally high contrast but not quite true to life, over-saturation occurs easily especially with little light
Personal best results when used: in shaded outdoors or indoors with plenty of sunlight
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Name: Kodak Portra 160 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: true to life (especially so for skin tones) with medium muted contrast under plenty of sunlight
Personal best results when used: on all occasions except indoors with little natural light (very much an outdoor/daylight film)
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Name: Kodak Portra 400 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: generally true to life with rather high contrast
Personal best results when used: outdoors with sunlight or indoors with white artificial lights (I need to use this again – on portraits – to be sure but I think the medium-format version of this film produces far superior results than the 35mm version)
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Name: Kodak Pro Image 100 (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: moderate contrast with blue tinges
Personal best results when used: indoors with plenty of natural light, the low speed renders natural light beautifully but not recommended for indoors with artificial lighting
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Name: Kodak ProFoto XL 100 (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: generally true to life with realistically high contrast
Personal best results when used: indoors with plenty of natural light, overexposes rather easily when used outdoors (unless under shade)
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Name: Kodak Professional Supra 400 (expired) (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: slight red undertones with extremely high contrast, especially when slightly overexposed
Personal best results when used: outdoors in daylight and overexposed – love the dramatic colors! (If you manage to get any of this film that was discontinued in 2003, they are bound to be expired and will perform terribly indoors with little light source or a fast shutter speed)
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Name: Kodak Professional Tri-X 400TX (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: black and white with pretty great contrast and lovely whites
Personal best results when used: at night with light source, the layers of black, gray and whites become so much more obvious
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Name: Kodak UltraMax 400 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: true to life with high contrast
Personal best results when used: on all occasions, very reliable and reacts fairly well to artificial lighting, suitable for toy cameras
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Name: Konica Centuria Super 400 (expired) (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: generally high contrast with slight blue/green undertones, punchy vintage tones when expired
Personal best results when used: outdoors in bright sunlight exposed accurately or indoors with light at very slow speed to overexpose
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Name: Lomography CN 100 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: generally true to life with medium to high contrast, over-saturation occurs easily when lack of light
Personal best results when used: outdoors with plenty of sunlight (very much an outdoor/daylight film)
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Name: Lomography CN 400 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: true to life with high contrast
Personal best results when used: outdoors with fast shutter speed or indoors with plenty of natural light, suitable for toy cameras
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Name: Lomography CN 800 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: blue-grey hues over muted medium contrast
Personal best results when used: outdoors with a toy camera
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Name: Lomography Lady Grey B&W 400 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: black and white with high contrast
Personal best results when used: on all occasions (don’t think too much with black and white film!)
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Name: Lomography Redscale XR 50-200 (click to buy on Amazon)
Tones: varying degrees of contrast in yellow, orange, red, green and blue hues
Personal best results when used: with slow shutter speeds for extremely blue tones (I’ll need to try this again to confirm method)
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Name: Lomography X-Pro Chrome 100 (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: generally blue with high contrast and saturation
Personal best results when used: crossed-processed, indoors with plenty of sunlight, suitable for toy cameras but over/underexposes easily
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Name: Lucky Super 100 (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: slight yellow undertones, pastel hues with low to medium contrast
Personal best results when used: in overcast daylight or indoors with plenty of light (not necessarily natural light)
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Name: Lucky Super 200 (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: slight blue hues, medium to high contrast, over-saturation occurs easily with little light
Personal best results when used: in bright daylight, suitable for toy cameras
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Name: Rossmann HR 200 (German drugstore film that is supposedly rebranded Fujifilm)
Tones: true to life with slightly muted tones
Personal best results when used: indoor with plenty of natural light
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Name: Solution VX 200 (both fresh and expired) (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: very true-to-life with slightly muted contrast, magenta color shifts when expired
Personal best results when used: fresh film preferred outdoors in daylight, expired film preferred indoors with plenty of sunlight
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Name: Tudor XLX 200 (expired, allegedly rebranded Fujicolor C200) (click to buy on eBay)
Tones: blue-green undertones, muted reds, muted contrast
Personal best results when used: indoors with plenty of sunlight produce rather true to life tones that I enjoy
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I hope this guide helped! It will continue to be updated as I experiment with different films. Please do not hesitate to leave a comment or email me if Iโve made any factual mistakes or if you have any further questions. Shoot film!
Katie Shoots Film 
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