Moving from Kodak films and developers, so the low end of the food chain may be a good place to start. Most of the Ilford films have been in my cameras, but not others. Freestyle has Kentmere, Arista and Fomapan on their budget rack. Is anyone shooting these, and what developers do you use? 100 to 400 ISO is fine.
This would be for darkroom printing if it makes any difference. I'm in the US.
Just don't use Foma "400" in it even @200. You will never see sharp images.
For people commenting on Foma/Arista, particularly the 400 speed, you should probably keep in mind that the emulsion underwent a change about 4 years ago-- pre 2017 data sheets show it being IR sensitive, whereas the 2017 data sheets show it as being totally non-responsive to the IR range. So if your experience is from before 2017, it's a different film (now called "Action").
Bulk HP5 is very inexpensive, and high quality to boot.
I paid $51 (and free shipping) from B&H for my current bulk roll of .EDU Ultra 400. The only cheaper 35mm would be if I could buy cine lengths of cine stock (400-1000 foot rolls), and I don't have any reliable way to reroll those down to sizes that will fit my Watson loaders.
It depends to an extent on whether your camera is a manual or automatic loader as to how wasteful it is to load very short rolls such as 10 Auto-loaders do waste quite a lot of film at the start but with manual you can usually avoid as much wastage.That's like $2.5 for a roll of 36. Is it possible to load film, say for 10 shots, or does the loader exposes film at the head/tail and loading a short roll is a waste of film? The one thing I don't like about 35mm is that I have to shoot 36 photos before developing.
+1 @Wallendo's suggestions. Ultrafine eXtreme 400 is an excellent film, but has been out of stock for a long time and possibly discontinued. Currently, I'm testing Kentmere Pan 400 to see if it's a good budget alternative replacement for me. As others have mentioned, Ultrafine eXtreme 400 and Kentmere Pan 400 might be the same or very similar. As for LegacyPro L110, I've used it for the past few years with good results. It's inexpensive, comes in a smaller 1 pint bottle, and is easy to pour and mix. @momus, I have image samples on my Flickr for both film stocks developed in LegacyPro L110.UltraFine Xtreme is very good and cheap film, but currently unavailable, PhotoWarehouse now has UltraFine Finesse available, but it is new and there are not a lot of online reports about it. I am currently shooting a 100 foot roll of this, and still trying to figure it out. It its not a bad film, but it isn't TX400 either. The Xtreme films were very good and looked very similar to Kentmere.
Kentmere is made in the same factory by the same people who make Ilford films and is a good affordable choice. There are also rumors that UltraFine Xtreme is rebadged Kentmere, or something very similar.
Foma and Arista EDU are the same film. These films have a somewhat different spectral response. It is a look I like, but many don't. I shoot a lot of Fomapan 100 because I like the film, not because of its low cost.
As for developers, Freestyle's L110 (HC-110 clone) is fairly cheap and develops a lot of film. The 1 gallon packet of D76 is also reasonable priced. I don't mix my own chemicals because, quite frankly, I don't have the time. I find that a batch of XTOL lasts me about 6 months. At that rate, it doesn't make much sense for me to try to save a few pennies.
Moving from Kodak films and developers, so the low end of the food chain may be a good place to start. Most of the Ilford films have been in my cameras, but not others. Freestyle has Kentmere, Arista and Fomapan on their budget rack. Is anyone shooting these, and what developers do you use? 100 to 400 ISO is fine.
This would be for darkroom printing if it makes any difference. I'm in the US.
I second the suggestion to mix one's own chemistry, hard to get less expensive than that and not that hard to do. Some think home brewed chems begin and end with Caffenol, but that's not true. Home mixed chems to do not have to be markedly inferior to commercial products. For example, there are home mixed versions of D-76, including one proposed by Kodak (H), that a number of experts say have advantages over the commercial version.
I second that! I am getting great results with EDU Ultra 200 and Xtol stockThere is no cheaper film than Arista .EDU Ultra -- this rebranded Fomapan undercuts Foma prices by a small amount. I like the 100 and 400 a lot; it's the only B&W I try to never be without.
For developer, it's hard to beat Parodinal for cost. If you buy acetaminophen in large bottles and can get the cost under a couple cents a tablet, you can make Parodinal at a final cost for 1:50 of around a nickel a roll. Homemade plain hypo fixer (pool supply thiosulfate -- sold as chlorine reducer -- and Amazon-sourced sodium sulfite) can run in the same range (240 g/L thiosulfate and 100 g/L sulfite has a capacity of 16-20 rolls).
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