Best Film for the Canon EOS-1v
The best film to use in the Canon EOS-1v is going to depend on the lighting conditions, your lens, and if you want to shoot color or black & white.
To eliminate having to lug around a tripod or flash, get a 35mm film that has an ISO of 400 or faster.
Ensure you have a fast lens if you want to take pictures in low light, conditions that are commonly encountered indoors. For lens recommendations read my brief article on the 5 Best Lenses for the Canon EOS-1v.
Color Film
Consumer
Kodak UltraMax 400 - A terrific option for a wide range of lighting conditions. Using Kodak UltraMax 400 you should have the ability to handhold the EOS-1v in almost all circumstances.
Expect images to appear slightly warm with beautiful colors.
Fujifilm Superia X-TRA ISO 400 - An alternative to Kodak that may have better availability based on what country you are in.
Fujifilm images tend to have cooler colors with an emphasis on blues and greens, when compared to Kodak.
Lomography 800 - If you want an ISO 800 color 35mm film, there are only a small number of offerings. For 35mm film stocks geared towards consumers, this is the only option.
Additionally, if you own a medium format camera, it is also offered in 120 film format.
Kodak Gold 200 - A staple film emulsion that was released in the mid-1980s. Gold 200 offers the look of snapshots from the 1980s and 1990s. Use a flash to get the “nostalgic” film look.
To really bring the ideal look out of the film, you’ll have to over-expose it by 1 or 2-stops. This will produce the fantastic colors everyone loves Gold 200 for.
Professional
Kodak Portra 400 - Among film shooting enthusiasts online, Portra 400 is definitely the most popular color 35mm film. Overexpose the film by 1 or 2-stops to get the rendering the film is well known for.
Portra is also available in ISO 160 and ISO 800 versions. As well as in rolls of 120 film, 4x5 sheets, and 8x10 sheets.
Black and White Film
Consumer
With reasonable costs and excellent very popular to be used in the Canon EOS-1v.
The major attraction for photography students and budget minded photographers is the reasonable price. Even if you do not put yourself in that group, it’s good to have comparatively cheap rolls of film readily available for evaluating newly acquired used gear.
Kentmere 400 - Made by Harmon Technology, which is also the owner of Ilford. This is notable because that allows this to be the most broadly sold film out of the 3.
Foma Fomapan 400 Action - Will be less difficult to acquire in Europe as the film is made inside of the Czech Republic by Foma Bohemia.
A fine 35mm film to employ for your initial few attempts at developing film at home or film photography. Also a good choice if you happen to be testing out a camera to make sure that it is completely functional.
Ultrafine eXtreme 400 - The best place to purchase this film is directly from Ultrafine.
They make chemical developer kits for film, so if you process film at home you may have already interacted with them.
Professional
Kodak Tri-X 400 and Ilford HP-5+ 400 are the 2 most widely used black & white 35mm films. They possess a number of qualities in common that make them so popular, while maintaining unique rendering.
Both film emulsions can be pushed 2 stops and while still supplying good quality results. This makes the film versatile as a roll can be shot at ISO 400, 800, or 1600.
Ilford HP5 Plus 400 - Between the two film stocks, HP5 Plus has less contrast and is cheaper. Less contrast can be advantageous because contrast can be adjusted when making a print in the darkroom or editing digitally.
The film emulsion has subdued grain and still appears outstanding when pushed 2-stops.
Kodak Tri-X 400 - This film provides a more distinctive look to it. To produce the legendary grain structure, contrast, and look of the film, it will need to be developed in Kodak D-76.
You are going to unquestionably notice greater contrast with Kodak Tri-X 400. That is helpful if it is the style you are after because it requires considerably less work when through digital post processing or making a darkroom print.
Reversal Film
Slide film, also known as transparency film or reversal film, gives you a positive image. This means the photos can be viewed with a light box or projector.
This is distinct from the more commonplace negative film stocks that produce pictures that require the colors to be inverted so that they can be seen.
Slide films are thought to be difficult to shoot because slide film has a smaller amount of latitude and dynamic range when compared with negative film.
Kodak Ektachrome 100 - This is a film known for fine grain and attractive skin tones. There is almost no hypersaturation of colors. The film is daylight balanced.
Fujifilm Velvia 50 - This is a amazingly sharp daylight balanced transparency film with high levels of saturation and contrast, giving pictures a beautiful appearance. Compared to all the transparency films available for purchase, it has the top resolving power.
There is another emulsion with an ISO of 100.
Fujichrome Provia 100F - Produces natural and vivid colors with moderate contrast and color saturation. It’s a ultra fine grain film balanced for daylight.
Foma Fomapan R100 - This is a black & white reversal film, marketed by Fomapan as having higher levels of contrast, very fine grain, and high resolving power. It’s also regarded as a substitute for the long discontinued Agfa Scala reversal film.
Film Basics
Consumer vs Professional Film
Pro film stock have larger latitude, are easier to push, and larger dynamic range, that is why pro-film costs more.
There’s a disparity in business that sell film. Consumer film emulsions can generally still be purchased from pharmacies and big-box stores in anemic quantities. Pro film should really be ordered from a specialized camera store or online.
ISO
The speed of the film is listed as ISO, which can also be regarded as the film’s sensitivity to light.
The higher the film’s ISO, the less light is required to properly expose an image. This comes at the cost of bigger film grain.
ISO 100 and slower speed films (ISO 25, ISO 50, etc) might be quite challenging to use handheld with the EOS-1v. The might take longer might take longer than what you are able to handhold without resulting in motion blur unless you are working in full sun.
To prevent motion blur you will need to use a fast lens, tripod, and/or flash. Using a high speed ISO 400 or ISO 800 film will likely make the additional accessories unnecessary.
The ISO selection knob is labeled as ASA on the Canon EOS-1v. The move to labeling ISO from ASA (American Standards Association) happened after the creation of the International Standards Organization (ISO).
Film Latitude
Film latitude is the number of stops film can be overexposed while maintaining usable quality. Professional film stocks have a greater latitude to go along with a slightly increased price.
Negative film has a greater amount of latitude compared to slide film. That is one of the reasons why it is perceived as difficult to use.
Dynamic Range
The range between the brightest and darkest parts of a photo is described as dynamic range. Areas of a photograph that do not fit in this range will appear as white overexposed highlights or totally black underexposed shadows.
A larger dynamic range is ideal given that it tends to make shooting in a wide variety of lighting conditions easier.
- Digital cameras 14+ stops
- Negative film up to 13 stops
- Slide film 6-8 stops
Reversal film is regarded as hard to use resulting from the limited dynamic range. A fantastic time to test it out would be during the golden hour.
Film Type
The Canon EOS-1v uses 35mm film that is in metal canisters. The film can also be called 135 film, and it is the most often used film format.
The only other type of film you are likely to see is 120 or 220 film that is used with medium format cameras}.
Changing the film emulsion you are working with will transform the look of your photos. This is an example of the best things about film.
DX Coded Film
Nearly all new 35mm film for sale these days has a DX code. This will allow electronically controlled cameras to auto detect and set the ISO of the film loaded.
The ASA (ISO) on the Canon EOS-1v has to be manually dialed in. So DX-coding is not going to be of any use.
Canon EOS-1v Resources
Where to Get 35mm Film Developed?
There are just a few options for where to develop film. For a more comprehensive explanation of the possible choices have a look at my guide on Where to Get Film Developed.
WARNING: Film doesn’t get processed on location at big box stores and pharmacies. They ship film away to be developed by a 3rd party. Because of this, you will not get your negatives back.
- Develop Film at Home
- Use a Local Photography Lab
- Use a Mail Order Photo Lab
- Pharmacy or Big Box Store
The most straightforward choice and what I suggest using if you’re just beginning to shoot film is to mail your film to a photo lab to be processed and scanned. A drawback to this is that it ends up being really expensive if you frequently shoot film.
So long as you are using a medium to high volume of film, there are two activities that you are capable of doing to lower your costs.
Bulk Loading Film
Buying a roll of 100 feet of film and loading in into canisters yourself is certainly one of the most common methods to reduce costs.
A 100 foot roll of film should fill typically around 18 rolls of film containing 36 exposures. Based on the film you are likely to save 20%-30%.
Take into account that you’re only going to find rolls of black and white film. This is in part because black & white film is quite a bit easier and more cost-effective to develop at home.
Home Developing and Scanning
You can easily process and digitize film yourself. It is a great method to lower your costs so you can use more film with your Canon EOS-1v.
Black & white film is significantly easier to process. Chemical temperature and time are both not as imperative to do correctly with black and white films as time and temperatures are for color negative or transparency film.