Film reviews today: am I the only one disappointed?

I’ve been feeling a bit disappointed when looking for film reviews lately. Most of the time we see average scans that are considered good enough, and then those are compared with other average or even worse scans. Conclusions are often made based on poor examples rather than showing what the film can really do.

There are exceptions, but they are hard to find (Andrew O'Neill being an exception here).

I don’t consider myself an old fart yet,, but I remember reading photography magazines in the 1990s where film tests felt more serious and useful. Today it seems harder to find that level of quality with so many bloggers doing reviews.

Does anyone else feel the same?

miha said:

I’ve been feeling a bit disappointed when looking for film reviews lately. Most of the time we see average scans that are considered good enough, and then those are compared with other average or even worse scans. Conclusions are often made based on poor examples rather than showing what the film can really do.

There are exceptions, but they are hard to find (Andrew O'Neill being an exception here).

I don’t consider myself an old fart yet,, but I remember reading photography magazines in the 1990s where film tests felt more serious and useful. Today it seems harder to find that level of quality with so many bloggers doing reviews.

Does anyone else feel the same?

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Given that 99.999% of film is scanned or copied these days - rather than optically printed - most current reviews are all pretty much nonsense.

You can easily make any film look like any film other colour wise if you're going to manipulate them digitally.

I’m not arguing against scanning itself. My point was about the quality and consistency of examples used in reviews. Since most film today is scanned, the issue isn’t scanning in general, but how well it’s done and how representative the samples are.

miha said:

I remember reading photography magazines in the 1990s where film tests felt more serious and useful. Today it seems harder to find that level of quality with so many bloggers doing reviews.

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It's the same with a lot of stuff. For example, I was big into video game magazines in the 90s. The amount they actually did their job and gave honest rather than paid off or sensationalist reviews has changed drastically since then. The level of technical expertise has also gone down while mediums have become more "democratized", in the bad sense of the word with the meaning that as more non-specialist, average people have access, the more that anything goes. I don't know what the solution is other than "do it yourself".

I've complained so often about the issue of inconsistent scanning in film reviews that I feel like a sour old stuck record.

I try to just stick to what I think I can conclude from such reviews (which often isn't much, admittedly) in the awareness of the methodological issues involved.

Also, I try (although not always successfully) to keep in mind that those reviews primarily constitute a symbol of the enthusiasm of the reviewers for the medium of film. And that's nice.

Finally, I'm very aware of the fact that no matter how well a review is conducted, it's not going to make me a better photographer anyway. What's left is the amusement value, and I find there's a low methodological bar associated with that.

koraks said:

Also, I try (although not always successfully) to keep in mind that those reviews primarily constitute a symbol of the enthusiasm of the reviewers for the medium of film. And that's nice.

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Yeah, I share these sentiments too.

There aren’t that many emulsions out there. Try them and draw your own conclusions.

Pieter12 said:

There aren’t that many emulsions out there. Try them and draw your own conclusions.

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It's not about me, I've tried most.

Just reading through the thread, I had in mind the suggestion that Pieter12 eventually suggested. There are so many variables with development, usage, light conditions etc that I don't think it's really feasible to do more than loosely characterise any film stock in a review. The touchy feely 'impressionistic' reviews are about as good as one can expect for free. When you compare reviews to the 90's you have to bear in mind that people used to pay for opinions, which means reviewers were (mostly) paid for their efforts. That economy is now gone. The proof is always, and only, in the pudding. Try any stock you are interested in. I feel like I'm in a permanent 'test mode' with every stock. In saying all of that there is some really useful stuff online. I like David Hancock for one.

miha said:

I’ve been feeling a bit disappointed when looking for film reviews lately. Most of the time we see average scans that are considered good enough, and then those are compared with other average or even worse scans. Conclusions are often made based on poor examples rather than showing what the film can really do.

There are exceptions, but they are hard to find (Andrew O'Neill being an exception here).

I don’t consider myself an old fart yet,, but I remember reading photography magazines in the 1990s where film tests felt more serious and useful. Today it seems harder to find that level of quality with so many bloggers doing reviews.

Does anyone else feel the same?

Click to expand...

The only useful film tests are the ones you do yourself...& that inform your photo work ...& get you results you are pleased with

miha said:

I’ve been feeling a bit disappointed when looking for film reviews lately. Most of the time we see average scans that are considered good enough, and then those are compared with other average or even worse scans. Conclusions are often made based on poor examples rather than showing what the film can really do.

There are exceptions, but they are hard to find (Andrew O'Neill being an exception here).

I don’t consider myself an old fart yet,, but I remember reading photography magazines in the 1990s where film tests felt more serious and useful. Today it seems harder to find that level of quality with so many bloggers doing reviews.

Does anyone else feel the same?

Click to expand...

Keep in mind that those old reviews were written in the context of specific developers with the intention of silver printing the negatives.

Moreover, the developer, agitation method, light source and paper type all play significant roles in what you're going to get, so just doing H/D curves isn't remotely the whole story.

And, to add fuel to that fire, the lack of calibration across monitors makes it hard to objectively demonstrate what are usually rather small and subtle differences.

When I find a film I want to try, I just try it with a well known (to me) developer, agitation method, printing workflow and paper. It is only when I have enlarged physical prints in front of me that I can actually judge the merits, or lack thereof of the film.

In the old days, reviewers were paid professionals working for major magazines. In modern days, most reviewers are hobbyist sharing their experience. I doubt most youtube reviewers can make a living out of creating film related content. Most of them are doing this for fun or as a side hustle, so they cannot afford too much time on scientific experiments. Also YouTube algorithm favor interestingness, length, and large audience. Scientific film stock review might not be as well rewarded as a quick opinionated new film stock review.

On the other hand, there are a few youtube creators who are more thorough than the others. In addition to David Hancock and Andrew, I think Naked Photographer, Analog Resurgence and a few others are pretty good. Alex Luyckx is mostly blogging, but he does occasional video too.

A further thought: Reviewing films makes more sense as a proposition when using tightly controlled processes like commercial C41 or E6. These processes were standardised and the goal was universal consistency. In that context one could decide a film was 'contrasty' or better rated at a different speed with some confidence that results were repeatable elsewhere. Such opinions assumed consistency of processing results.

That's just not really feasible with B&W, given the fact that there is a huge variety of processing techniques and most film appears to be home processed with all the variations that brings, as opposed to using the few remaining commercial labs left. Even commercial labs were mostly not great for B&W processing anyway.

So as many above have said, best to try film stocks yourself. Ideally home process or failing that, find a reliable lab that you can trust to provide consistency.

That stuff is all virtually useless.

miha said:

I’ve been feeling a bit disappointed when looking for film reviews lately. Most of the time we see average scans that are considered good enough, and then those are compared with other average or even worse scans. Conclusions are often made based on poor examples rather than showing what the film can really do.

There are exceptions, but they are hard to find (Andrew O'Neill being an exception here).

I don’t consider myself an old fart yet,, but I remember reading photography magazines in the 1990s where film tests felt more serious and useful. Today it seems harder to find that level of quality with so many bloggers doing reviews.

Does anyone else feel the same?

Click to expand...

Milpool said:

That stuff is all virtually useless.

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Same conclusion on my end.