Lomographie Potsdam 100 - 120 Film

Potsdam is a nice clean film, It has a fine grain but I've definitely seen finer. The grain does have some texture which I like. I have always had little mishaps when shooting Lomography films, I must be unlucky as something always seems to go wrong! Once this roll was developed I, unfortunately, could see where the backing paper had imprinted itself onto the film. It had only taken up the first third of the roll so thankfully I still had some usable images.
I have seen some people praise the films sharpness, I was a little underwhelmed. The majority of my images are a little soft, not to incorrect focusing or scanning but as if the film itself has a sort of bloom effect to it.

500 C/M w/ 80mm 2.8 CT Lens
Developed in D76 Stock for 5.5 minutes.

It's good to try new films but I think I might stick to Ilford, Kodak and Fuji for my black and white stock in the future.

I've seen this film used a fair bit for studio/portrait work, being a cinema film (Orwo UN54) it turns out well with sharp, low grain images in studio light. I picked a roll up on a whim to take some photos at the seaside, and it turned out similarly well, the high contrast and low grain gave really sharp images even on a very cloudy day, around 1s exposures at f/11. I had to experiment slightly to work out times for my usual developer (Bellini Hydrofen/Agfa Studional/Rodinal Spezial), but developing for 4:00 min in a 1+15 dilution worked out well. Possibly a shorter development might give lower contrast, but that would kind of miss the point of this film I think. I'll definitely be picking up another few rolls, I think it would work great for architecture photography as well.

This 100 speed film lives up to the expectations. Tones like straight from Wim Wender's cutting room floor, sharp, low grain. A great film for portraits in natural light or with strobes. The film definitely looks special. Be careful not to blow out the highlights!

For those that develop at home: the backing paper is a bit too thick for my taste, attached photos developed in ID-11 1:1

I'm still finding my way with film photography and experimenting with, well, everything, really. I was seduced by the "cinematic" idea for this film stock and its sisters, and although my results aren't amazing, I'm certain this is down to operator error. It is very contrasty and therefore I think will perform better in really good light.

As this stock has cinema roots, it shouldn't be a big surprise that it truly shines with studio strobes: beautiful tonality, very sharp, with just the right amount of subtle grain to lend that classic look to studio portraits. I've been sneaking in a roll of this stuff into every portrait shoot and it has not disappointed me once! Highly recommended!

P.S. I've yet to try it in D96 which is supposed to be the best option for cinema stocks but it develops very, very well in Kodak Xtol - 1+1 for more contrast, 1+2 for smoother tonality.