I've always wanted to play with this film and I've had a few shots in mind.
In low light with a Tungsten light source it really did get the effect I was after.
If you get the contrast of a good artificial light source at night time, you can get that certain look.
nice
nice
nice
nice film
I’ve always thought that HP5 was the daddy, but now I have a new favourite! Lovely contrast, fabulous tones, and ISO 125 is perfect for shooting wide open (f3.5) on my Fujica 690 BL. It also looks lovely in my Ondu 6x9 pinhole. I’m yet to try 35mm, but in 120 it’s just lovely!
Shot on a bright sunny late afternoon in a Canon EOS, the results were very pleasant with almost digital sharpness and great contrast but more saturation than expected on some shots. There was a fairly heavy red cast off the scanner but corrected easily and consistently across the roll.
The 400 speed made for nice flexibility as long as you have the shutter speeds to control it - was around 1/2000th at f8 for several shots so maybe not one to explore blurred backgrounds with!
Ran a roll of this through my Kiev 6C as a test of the newly repaired shutter. Someone previously removed the aperture from the lens so was stuck on f2.8 on a really bright sunny day so slow film and an ND filter was order of the day.
Tried as much variety as I could around here - a bit of close-up, a bit of greenery and a bit of building, in a mix of full sun and shade, and the film coped nicely with everything.
Did produce a slight yellow cast developed in C41 (I believe this was originally an ECN2 emulsion) but only needed the mildest tweak to the blue curve to correct and the tweak was the same across all the conditions so easy to apply.
A nice, forgiving, film that I'll certainly be using again!
I really like this film, but with reservations. I've been a fan of FP4 for some time and like the look of the images it produces. XP2 looks different. Processed and scanned at BCE Photolab, the scans look very sharp, crisp and clean but there's something about the mid greys that seem "lighter". Contrast is good and, after tweaking slightly in Lightroom, the resulting images are very acceptable but to my eye seem somehow more 'gritty', not grainy (there's little of that), just an extra edge to them. All this may, of course, be the result of scanning - I haven't had any negs printed directly yet. In contrast, FP4 looks smoother and with a more linear grey scale.
However, the big advantage of XP2 is the low 'running costs' - BCE will process and scan for a fiver (plus postage). FP4 (BCE can't process this) costs more than twice. And its other great advantage is the massive latitude which makes it very forgiving and easy to shoot with.
I like it, and I like the cheap processing, but for quality work I may stick to FP4.
This film is another first for me. I’ve not shot this before. In fact, the roll sat around a little while as I couldn’t decide what to do with it. I’ve recently had my old Ilford Sportsman camera serviced and put back into working order. I wanted to run a black and white film through it for a more vintage feel. Seemed like it was time to try the Potsdam.
Shot at box speed the film delivered some beautiful tones and a very low grain. I especially love detail in black and white films and this one delivers. The 45mm lens on the Sportsman resolved some lovely images with a wonderful vintage feel. The photographs look like they could have easily been taken in the 1950s. The film has wonderful contrast with gorgeous blacks. I was pleasantly surprised with this film and it will certainly keep a roll or two lying around.
One note of caution. This is the second roll of Lomography film that I’ve noticed was very stiff to wind on in the camera. Lomography Purple was the other. My Praktica pulled that out of the canister which made rewinding it impossible. This film felt the same so I was super cautious when getting near the end of the roll. I don’t know if this is common with Lomography film in 35mm, but wind with caution!
it has incredible detail.
Great film to use in my Rollie for handheld street photography.
I'd not shot with this film for quite some time. I used to use it a lot in 120 format in a Holga and loved the saturation but after it was discontinued in that format it sort of dropped off my radar.
But having tried some out again recently, I think I need to use it some more. I'd forgotten just how nice it is - really lovely saturation. It captures the feel of the shots beautifully - cold days seem cold whilst it can also capture that nice warm sunny glow.
A lovely film.
I love a nice clean look on my photos sometimes, and Portra 160 is great for capturing vibrancy of colours. The fine grain gives a nice gloss to photos, so I've enjoyed using it with bright colours in full sun / daylight conditions. Intend to photograph architecture, street, banal type stuff, and the film lends itself well to anything where crispness or colours are important. It's good at capturing colour even on overcast days.
I shot a roll of Conestill 50d at around the same time, and the results were similar. I started with one roll of Portra 160 and it's now my preferred film for getting out and about when I need to chase the sun and shadows.
Great service at a really really good price for one of my favourite films. Such a good all rounder
Great film for old school colours and tones. Great price point!!! However if you're using this in a 120 camera that auto winds make sure the roll is really tight as the film isn't as long as some brands so you might not get twelve frames. Also because the rolls are quite loose they're prone to light leaks when loading and unloading the camera.
Honestly I'm so pleased I bought these. I really wanted a means of writing down how I've shot rolls through my fm3a, how I liked certain emulsions & what labs I've used. Sure I could have done that on my phone or even a normal notepad but there's something a bit special about these. Something that pleases the organised mind.
I purchased this film based off one key aspect of this film, the glow.
This film is very special in that it seems to have a glow not unlike you would see in infrared film but not to the same degree. The glow also really is exaggerated by bright highlights but can be somewhat tamed if needed.
A very high contrast film but with a surprising amount of dynamic range handled with care.
Given the ISO rating and lack of information regarding reciprocity I was not sure what to expect but it seems to not suffer too badly. I approached this by shooting standard exposures up 10s and anything over I added a stop.
The main issues I have with this film are as follows
Lack of development options - I ended up searching and cross referencing to try and find another film that had timings close to what was available and then again cross referencing that against other developers to get a rough idea of the development time for my choice of developer.
The images in this review are all developed using Rodinal 1:50 @ 21C for 8 Minutes.
The second biggest issue is trying to cut and scan the negatives. This film curls like you would not believe.
I would recommend this to anyone looking for something a little different. Its by no way an every day film and every shot will have to be thought about to get the best from this film.
I already have another roll that I will be using soon and is going to be one of those films that I will keep in stock for an occasion that suites it. I would not recommend this to beginners or anyone wanting an every day kind of film however. Given the low ISO rating I would not use this in pinhole cameras either.
Used a roll of this today out of necessity.
I received a new-to-me Kiev 6C in the post, which arrived with no aperture blades in the lens and only one shutter speed (about 1/40ths) working regardless of the setting. It's a really bright day but needed to try it out!
So, picked the slowest film I had, added a deep red filter and an ND8, and went for some point n shoot fun.
Despite the really approximate exposures the film coped really well, mostly holding detail right through the (remarkably smooth) range from shadow to the brightest cloud highlights. Sharpness is great and "Grain? What's grain?"
Some pretty heavy vignetting in the shots thanks to the wide-open Russian glass and double filter rings starting to encroach on the corners. But lots of negative area to play with for cropping, and really looking forward to running another roll under more controlled conditions!
I love this film! Gives a really timeless and classic feel. Easy to use and pictures came out great :)
Very unpredictable but it creates a cool effect! Very easy to overexpose, though.
I have only been doing photography since middle last year and needed to figure out different films that I would prefer to use.
I found this film to be both a hit and miss(my own mistakes). Some shots came out really nice but I found some to be under exposed quite badly. This actually most likely to be the fault of myself as I'm learning as I go. But will recommend from the shots that came out well
Classic 35mm film for good quality colours at a a very reasonable price, great for beginners just starting to shoot film and who may be on a budget. Hard to get hold of at present so snap it up when you can.
My first purchase of this film. I don't tend to use any film stock above IS0 400. Went out for a night shoot during the last lockdown and I got some good results with the help of my tripod and Olympus OM-10. I also took photos during the day and so lots more cold tones but I liked it.
Incredible colours from this film, slightly saturated but feel true to life. And great exposure latitude, I was able to bring back a lot of detail from the highlights.
