Best Film for the Canon EOS 700
The best film to use in your Canon EOS 700 will have to depend on the lighting, lens, and type of film you want to shoot.
Taking advantage of an ISO 400 35mm or faster will let you skip having to carry around a tripod and/or flash.
Ensure you have a fast lens if you want to take photographs in low light, conditions that are commonly found indoors. Go read my short article on the 5 Best Lenses for the Canon EOS 700 for lens recommendations.
Color Film
Consumer
Kodak UltraMax 400 - An excellent option for a plethora of lighting conditions. Using Kodak UltraMax 400 you should have the ability to handhold the EOS 700 in the majority of situations.
Expect images to appear a little bit warm with pleasant colors.
Fujifilm Superia X-TRA ISO 400 - Based on your location, this film may have greater availability. It is a top quality alternative to Kodak film.
In comparison to Kodak, Fujifilm tends to be a little cooler with an emphasis on greens and blues.
Lomography 800 - If you want a color 35mm film with an ISO of 800, there are not many options. For film targeted towards consumers, Lomography 800 is the sole choice.
Furthermore, if you own a medium format camera, it is also sold in 120 film format.
Kodak Gold 200 - An awesome means to achieve that mid-80s through 90s feeling. Use an on-camera flash to get the “authentic” film look.
To really bring the best out of this film, you’ll want to over-expose it by 1 or 2-stops. This will give you the outstanding colors everyone loves Gold 200 for.
Professional
Kodak Portra 400 - Among the film shooting enthusiasts online, Portra 400 is hands down the top color negative film. Overexpose it by 1 or 2-stops to get the appearance the film is known for.
There are also ISO 160 and ISO 800 versions of Portra. 8x10 sheets, 4x5 sheets, and rolls of 120 are also available.
Black and White Film
Consumer
With reasonable costs and more than acceptable very popular for use in the Canon EOS 700.
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 is great to have low-priced rolls of 35 film on hand for trying out newly purchased used gear.
Kentmere 400 - Made by Harmon Technology, which is the parent company of Ilford. This is notable considering that allows this to be the most broadly available 35mm film out of the three.
Foma Fomapan 400 Action - It is less difficult to purchase in Europe as the film is made by Foma Bohemia inside of the Czech Republic.
A suitable film to work with for your initial couple of attempts at home developing or film photography. Also a good selection if you’re looking to try out a camera to confirm that it’s totally operational.
Ultrafine eXtreme 400 - You can get the lowest price by buying it directly from Ultrafine.
They make chemical developer kits for 35mm color film, so if you develop film at home you could have already interacted with them.
Professional
The two most widely used black & white films are Kodak Tri-X 400 and Ilford HP-5+ 400. They do have a large amount of attributes that are comparable that make them so popular, while retaining different rendering.
You can achieve excellent photographs after pushing both films 2-stops. A roll of film can be shot at ISO 400, 800, or 1600, making them quite versatile.
Ilford HP5 Plus 400 - The biggest differences are that HP5 Plus has less contrast and is cheaper compared to Tri-X. A lack of contrast can be nice due to the fact contrast can be changed when making a darkroom print or during digital processing.
The film emulsion still appears good when pushed 2-stops. It is also notable for having subtle grain.
Kodak Tri-X 400 - This film emulsion provides a stronger look. To create the old-school grain structure, contrast, and look of the film, it needs to be processed in D-76.
You’ll clearly see considerably more contrast with this film. That is awesome if it’s the overall look you would prefer because it results in not as much work when editing digitially or making a print in the darkroom.
Slide Film
Slide film, also known as transparency or reversal film, creates a positive picture. That means a lightbox or projector can be used to show the slides.
Colors do not need to be inverted to be seen, unlike the more commonplace negative film stocks.
Slide films have much less dynamic range and latitude when compared with negative film and so they are perceived as challenging to work with.
Kodak Ektachrome 100 - This is a fine grain film known for beautiful skin tones. The colors won’t seem oversaturated. The film has been balanced for daylight.
Fujifilm Velvia 50 - This is a sharp color balanced for daylight transparency film with lots of contrast and saturation, giving images a beautiful look. Compared to all the transparency films you can buy, it has the highest resolving power.
An ISO 100 emulsion is also available for purchase.
Fujichrome Provia 100F - Creates natural and vibrant colors with moderate color saturation and contrast. It is a film balanced for daylight with ultrafine grain.
Foma Fomapan R100 - This is a black and white transparency film, claimed by Fomapan as having higher levels of contrast, very good resolving power, and very fine grain. It’s also regarded as a replacement for the discontinued Agfa Scala slide film.
Film Basics
Consumer vs Professional Film
Pro films cost more due to the fact that they have larger dynamic range, latitude, and can more easily be pushed.
There is a disparity in business that sell film. Consumer film emulsions can usually still be found in pharmacies and big-box stores in meager amounts. Pro film emulsions will need to be purchased from a online retailer or camera store.
ISO
The ISO represents the speed of the film, which may also be regarded as the film’s sensitivity to light.
The bigger the ISO, the less light is necessary to expose an image. This comes at the cost of larger film grain.
It can be quite challenging to handhold the EOS 700 with ISO 100 or slower speed films (ISO 50, ISO 25, etc). The will likely take longer will probably be longer than what you are able to handhold without producing motion blur unless you are working in full sun.
A flash, fast lens, and/or tripod will assist you with longer shutter speeds. Using a high speed ISO 800 or ISO 400 film often makes the additional accessories not needed.
As a quick note, the ISO knob is listed as ASA on the Canon EOS 700. The switch to labeling ISO from ASA (American Standards Association) happened after the creation of the International Standards Organization (ISO).
Film Latitude
Film latitude is the amount of stops film can be overexposed while still keeping usable images. Professional film emulsions have a larger latitude paired with a slightly higher cost.
Negative film has a greater amount of latitude when compared to transparency film. That is one of the reasons it’s considered harder to work with.
Dynamic Range
Dynamic range is the difference between the darkest and brightest details of an image that can be recorded. Parts of a picture that don’t fit within this range will be rendered as solid black underexposed shadows or totally white overexposed highlights.
When shooting in a variety or quickly changing lighting situations, film stocks with a bigger dynamic range are a much better choice.
- Digital cameras 14+ stops
- Negative film up to 13 stops
- Slide film 6-8 stops
Transparency film is regarded as a challenge to shoot resulting from the small dynamic range. A very good time to give it a try is during the golden hour.
Film Type
35mm film that comes in metal canisters is used by the Canon EOS 700. The film can also be called 135 film, and it is the most often used type of film.
The only other type of film you are likely to see is 120 or 220 film that is used in medium format cameras}.
One of the fantastic things about film is that you can change the film emulsion you use and get a unique look to your photographs.
DX Coded Film
Most commercially available 35mm film manufactured these days has DX encoding. This enables electronically controlled cameras to automatically detect and set the ISO when the film canister is put in the camera.
ISO (ASA) on the Canon EOS 700 is required to be manually selected. As a result DX-coding is not going to make a difference.
Canon EOS 700 Resources
Where to Get 35mm Film Developed?
There are several choices for where to develop 35mm film. For a more complete discussion of the possible choices read my article on Where to Develop Film.
WARNING: Film does not get developed on location at big box stores and pharmacies. They ship film off to be developed by a third party. This means that, you will not 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 most convenient option and what I suggest doing if you are just beginning to shoot film is to mail off your film to a photo lab to be processed and scanned. If you consistently use film, this might be a disadvantage since it can get really expensive.
There are two things that you are capable of doing to lower the costs involved in using film, assuming that you’re shooting a medium to high volume of film.
Bulk Loading Film
Certainly one of the leading options to cut costs on film is to buy a bulk roll of 100’ of film and manually load canisters by hand.
After you have finished, you’ll find yourself with about 18 rolls of 36 frames. Based on the film stock you will probably save 20%-30%.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you are limited to 100’ rolls of black & white film. This is because black & white film is easier and more affordable to process at home.
Home Developing and Scanning
You have the ability to process and digitize film at home. In fact it is a very good method to reduce costs so you can shoot more film with your Canon EOS 700.
Black and white film is much simpler to develop. Temperature and development times are both not as crucial to get correct with black and white film as temperatures and time are for transparency or color negative.