Best Film for the Canon EOS-10s
The best film to use in the Canon EOS-10s should be based on your lens, lighting, and if you want to shoot color or black & white.
Buying an ISO 400 film or faster will help you avoid needing to carry around a tripod or flash.
Ensure you have a fast lens if you want to shoot pictures in low light, conditions that are commonly encountered indoors. See my guide on the 5 Best Lenses for the Canon EOS-10s for ideas.
Color Film
Consumer
Kodak UltraMax 400 - The film handles a plethora of lighting conditions well and is a good option for a color film. The film is fast enough so that you should be able to handhold the EOS-10s in just about all scenarios.
The photos will have excellent colors and tend to be on the warm side.
Fujifilm Superia X-TRA ISO 400 - Depending on your location, this film may have greater availability. It is an excellent alternative to Kodak.
In comparison to to Kodak, Fuji appears to be a small amount cooler with stronger greens and blues.
Lomography 800 - You’re limited to a small number of options if you want an ISO 800 speed color film. This is the only 35mm film focused on consumers.
The film can also be found in the 120 film format, to be used in a medium format camera.
Kodak Gold 200 - A staple film emulsion that started production in the mid-1980s. The film gives the look and feel of snapshots from the 80s and 90s. Use an on-camera flash to get the “authentic” film look.
To really bring the best look out of the film, you’ll want to over-expose it by 1 or 2-stops. This will produce the great colors everyone loves Kodak Gold 200 for.
Professional
Kodak Portra 400 - Among the film shooting enthusiasts online, Portra 400 is definitely the most widely used color 35mm film. Overexpose the film by 1 or 2-stops to get the look the film is known for.
Kodak Portra is also offered in ISO 160 and 800 versions. It is also offered in rolls of 120, 4x5 sheets, and 8x10 sheets.
Black and White Film
Consumer
These film emulsions have reasonable costs and more than acceptable quality, making them quite popular to try in the Canon EOS-10s.
The main draw for budget minded photographers and photography students is the very affordable price. Even if you would not put yourself in those groups, it is nice to have low cost rolls of 35 film on hand for testing recently acquired used gear.
Kentmere 400 - It’s manufactured by the parent company of Ilford, Harmon Technology. This is great considering that allows this to be the most widely sold B&W film out of the three.
Foma Fomapan 400 Action - Is likely to be easier to obtain in Europe as the film is produced by Foma Bohemia in the Czech Republic.
A decent film emulsion to work with for your initial couple of attempts at analog photography or developing film at home. Also a good choice if you’re testing out a camera to ensure that it’s operating correctly.
Ultrafine eXtreme 400 - The best place to get this film is directly from Ultrafine.
If you process 35mm color film yourself, you could have used chemicals produced by them.
Professional
The 2 best black and white film stocks are Kodak Tri-X 400 and Ilford HP-5+ 400. While they both possess individual looks, they have several characteristics in common that help makes them so well liked.
Both films can be pushed 1 or 2 stops and while still supplying professional images. A roll can be used at ISO 400, 800, or 1600, making them quite useful.
Ilford HP5 Plus 400 - Between the two film stocks, HP5 Plus is less expensive and has less contrast. Lower levels of contrast can be nice because of the fact contrast can be adjusted when making a print or during digital processing.
The film has subtle grain and still appears great when pushed 2-stops.
Kodak Tri-X 400 - This film provides a stronger look. To bring out the old-school grain structure, contrast, and look of the film, it will need to be processed in D-76.
Kodak Tri-X definitely has higher levels of contrast. That is perfect if it’s the look and feel you are looking for because it means considerably less work when making a print or through digital post processing.
Reversal Film
Transparency film, also known as reversal film or slide film, gives you a positive image. That means a projector or lightbox can be used to showcase the pictures.
Colors are not required to be inverted to be seen, contrary to the more often used negative film emulsions.
Slide films have much less dynamic range and latitude than negative film and so they are viewed as tougher to shoot.
Kodak Ektachrome 100 - This is a fine grain film known for beautiful skin tones. The colors will not show up oversaturated. The film is daylight color balanced.
Fujifilm Velvia 50 - Delivers distinctive looking photos that have increased levels of saturation and contrast. It is razor-sharp and color balanced for daylight. It has the highest resolving power of any available slide film emulsion.
You can also get it in an ISO 100 emulsion.
Fujichrome Provia 100F - Creates natural and vivid colors with medium contrast and color saturation. It’s a film balanced for daylight with ultra fine grain.
Foma Fomapan R100 - This is a black & white reversal film, described by Fomapan as having very good resolving power, fine grain, and higher levels of contrast. It is also billed as a substitute for the long discontinued Agfa Scala transparency film.
Film Basics
Consumer vs Professional Film
Pro films cost more since they have greater dynamic range, latitude, and can more easily be pushed.
You should be prepared for a disparity in where it can be purchased. Consumer film emulsions can quite often be found in big-box stores and pharmacies in meager amounts. Pro film stocks should be purchased from a specialized camera store or online retailer.
ISO
A film’s sensitivity to light is shown as the ISO.
The less light there’s available to properly expose an image, the higher the ISO of the film will have to be. Additionally, be prepared for bigger film grain.
ISO 100 and slower films (ISO 25, ISO 50, etc) can be quite challenging to shoot handheld in the EOS-10s. The are going to take more time can take longer than what you can handhold without causing motion blur unless you are working in full sun.
To get around this you are going to need to use a tripod, flash, and/or fast lens. Using a fast ISO 400 or ISO 800 film is likely to make the additional accessories not needed.
The ISO knob is marked as ASA on the Canon EOS-10s. The change to labeling ISO from ASA (American Standards Association) happened after the creation of the International Standards Organization (ISO).
Latitude
Film latitude is the amount of stops film can be overexposed while holding onto adequate results. Professional film stocks have a larger latitude along with a slightly increased cost.
Negative film has more latitude compared to transparency film. That is a reason it is regarded as difficult to use.
Dynamic Range
The range between the highlights and shadows details of an image is referred to as dynamic range. Sections of a picture that do not fit in this range will appear as solid black underexposed shadows or completely white overexposed highlights.
When working in a variety or quickly changing lighting situations, film stocks with a larger dynamic range are a better choice.
- Digital cameras 14+ stops
- Negative film up to 13 stops
- Slide film 6-8 stops
Reversal film is considered to be tough to use on account of the constrained dynamic range. Golden hour is the prime time to shoot transparency.
Film Type
The Canon EOS-10s uses 35mm film that is in metal canisters. In addition, it is the most often used film format and occasionally called 135 film.
The only other type of film you are likely to encounter is 120 or 220 film that is used in medium format cameras}.
One of the wonderful things about film is that you can change the film emulsion you use and get a different look to your shots.
DX Coded Film
Most available 35mm film offered for sale currently has DX encoding. This enables electronically controlled cameras to auto detect and set the ISO when the film is loaded.
DX-coding will not change anything for the Canon EOS-10s because ISO needs to be manually set with the ASA knob.
Canon EOS-10s Resources
Where to Get Film Developed?
You will find limited possibilities for where to develop 35mm film. For a more comprehensive explanation of the possibilities check out my article on Where to Get Film Developed.
WARNING: Film doesn’t get developed on location at big box stores and pharmacies. They send film away to be processed by a separate company. Because of this, you won’t be given your developed negatives back.
- Develop Film at Home
- Use a Local Photography Lab
- Use a Mail Order Photo Lab
- Pharmacy or Big Box Store
The least difficult solution and the method I would suggest doing if you are just getting started shooting film is to mail off your film to a lab to be developed and scanned. A drawback to this is that it will become very expensive if you consistently use film.
There are two actions that you are capable of doing to lower the expenses involved in using film, as long as you’re using a medium to high volume of film.
Bulk Loading Film
Among the most well known methods to save money on film is to buy a bulk roll of 100 feet of film and load it into canisters yourself.
A 100 foot bulk roll can fill up about 18 rolls of film with 36 frames. Depending on the film you will probably save 20%-30%.
Bear in mind that you are only going to be able to get 100’ rolls of black & white film. This is in part because black & white film is less difficult and less expensive to develop yourself.
Home Developing and Scanning
It is simple to develop and scan film at home. It’s a good method to lower your costs so that you can use more film with your Canon EOS-10s.
Black and white film is by far the least difficult to process yourself. Chemical temperature and time are both not as vital to get correct with black and white film as temperatures and time are for transparency or color negative.