Best Film for the Canon EOS 750
The best film to use in your Canon EOS 750 should be based on the lens, lighting, and if you want to shoot color or black & white.
Getting an ISO 400 film or higher speed will allow you to eliminate needing to haul around a flash or tripod.
Make sure you have a fast lens if you want to shoot photographs in low light, conditions that are often found indoors. Go read my list on the 5 Best Lenses for the Canon EOS 750 for lens suggestions.
Color Film
Consumer
Kodak UltraMax 400 - The film handles a multitude of lighting conditions well and is a good option for a 35mm color film. Kodak UltraMax 400 is fast enough so that you should be able to handhold the EOS 750 in lots of situations.
Expect images to appear a little bit warm with wonderful colors.
Fujifilm Superia X-TRA ISO 400 - Depending on your location, this film could be more widely available. It’s a top quality alternative to Kodak.
Fujifilm pictures tend to have cooler colors with stronger greens and blues, compared to Kodak.
Lomography 800 - You’re limited to only a small number of possibilities if you want an ISO 800 speed color 35mm film. This is literally the only film geared towards consumers.
Additionally, if you own a medium format camera, Lomography 800 is also offered in 120 film format.
Kodak Gold 200 - An awesome way to achieve that mid-1980s through 90s look. Use a flash to get the “authentic” look the film is known for.
Over-expose it by 1 or 2-stops to create the most popular look the film has to offer. This will provide you with the outstanding colors everyone loves Gold 200 for.
Professional
Kodak Portra 400 - Among film shooting enthusiasts online, Portra 400 is undoubtedly the most frequently used color 35mm film. Overexpose Portra 400 by 1 or 2-stops to get the style the film is well known for.
Plus, ISO 160 and 800 versions of Portra. 8x10 sheets, 4x5 sheets, and rolls of 120 are also available.
Black and White Film
Consumer
With low costs and good very popular for use in the Canon EOS 750.
The major attraction for budget minded photographers and photography students is the very affordable price. Even if you do not put yourself in those groups, it’s good to have low cost rolls of film around for testing newly obtained used cameras.
Kentmere 400 - It is manufactured by the parent company of Ilford, Harmon Technology. This is good considering that allows this to be the most commonly available film out of the three.
Foma Fomapan 400 Action - Might be less difficult to get in Europe as the film is manufactured inside of the Czech Republic by Foma Bohemia.
A good film to use for your first couple of attempts at analog photography or developing film at home. Also a good option if you’re testing out a camera to make sure that it’s completely functional.
Ultrafine eXtreme 400 - You can get the best price by buying it directly from Ultrafine.
If you develop film yourself, you may have done that with chemicals produced by them.
Professional
The 2 most widely used black & white 35mm films are Kodak Tri-X 400 and Ilford HP-5+ 400. While they both have unique rendering, they have quite a few attributes that are similar that makes them popular.
You can achieve professional photographs after pushing both film emulsions 2-stops. A 35mm roll of film can be used at ISO 400, 800, or 1600, making them remarkably versatile.
Ilford HP5 Plus 400 - The most significant differences are that HP5 Plus is cheaper and has lower levels of contrast in comparison to Tri-X. Minimal amounts of contrast can be advantageous due to the fact contrast can be adjusted when making a darkroom print or editing digitally.
The film still appears excellent when pushed 2-stops. It is also known for having subdued grain.
Kodak Tri-X 400 - This film has got a stronger look to it. To reveal the traditional grain structure, contrast, and look of the film, it needs to be developed in Kodak D-76.
Kodak Tri-X 400 certainly has more contrast. That’s perfect if it happens to be the look you would prefer because it requires not as much work when editing digitially or printmaking.
Transparency Film
Transparency film, also known as slide or reversal film, gives you a positive image. This allows the photographs to be exhibited with a light box or projector.
This is different from the more commonplace negative films that produce photos that need the colors to be inverted in order to be viewed.
Slide films have a smaller amount of dynamic range and latitude than negative film and so they are viewed as more difficult to shoot.
Kodak Ektachrome 100 - This is a film known for fine grain and striking skin tones. There is virtually no hypersaturation of colors. The film has a daylight color balance.
Fujifilm Velvia 50 - Makes unique looking photos that have elevated amounts of saturation and contrast. It is razor-sharp and balanced for daylight. When compared to all the slide films you can buy, it has the top resolving power.
It is also available in an ISO 100 speed.
Fujichrome Provia 100F - Creates vibrant and natural colors with moderate contrast and color saturation. It’s a ultrafine grain film with a daylight color balance.
Foma Fomapan R100 - This is a black & white slide film, claimed by Fomapan as having fine grain, higher levels of contrast, and high resolving power. It is also regarded as a substitute for the long discontinued Agfa Scala slide film.
Film Basics
Consumer vs Professional Film
Pro film stocks cost more due to the fact that they have a greater dynamic range, are easier to push, and bigger latitude.
There’s a disparity in where 35mm rolls of film can be purchased. Consumer films can commonly still be bought in pharmacies and big-box stores in anemic quantities. Pro film stocks has to be ordered from a online retailer or specialized photography store.
ISO
The speed of the film is shown as ISO, which may also be thought of as the film’s sensitivity to light.
The less light there’s available to properly expose an image, the bigger the ISO of the film should be. This comes at the expense of more film grain.
It might be frustrating to handhold the EOS 750 with ISO 100 or slower films (ISO 50, ISO 25, etc). This is because in the absence of full sun, the exposure times will probably take longer than what you can handhold without causing motion blur.
A fast lens, tripod, and/or flash will assist you with longer exposure times. The additional equipment might not be needed if you decide to use a higher speed ISO 400 or ISO 800 film.
The dial to select film speed is listed as ASA on the Canon EOS 750. The transition to labeling ISO from ASA (American Standards Association) came after the creation of the International Standards Organization (ISO).
Latitude
Latitude is the range of stops a film can be overexposed while still keeping good images. Pro film stocks have a greater latitude along with a slightly higher price.
Transparency film has a smaller amount of latitude than negative film. That is one of the reasons it’s deemed to be difficult to work with.
Dynamic Range
Dynamic range is the range between the highlights and shadows details of a photograph that can be captured. Sections of a photograph that do not fit in this range will appear as totally white overexposed highlights or solid black underexposed shadows.
When working in a variety or quickly changing lighting situations, films with a bigger dynamic range is better.
- Digital cameras 14+ stops
- Negative film up to 13 stops
- Slide film 6-8 stops
The small dynamic range of reversal film is a second reason it’s thought to be tricky to shoot. Golden hour is the best time to use slide.
Film Type
The Canon EOS 750 takes 35mm film that is in canisters. 35mm film can also be described as 135 film, and it is the most commonly used type of film.
The only other film format you are likely to encounter is 120 or 220 film that is used by medium format cameras}.
Swapping the film stock you are using will alter the look of your images. This is one of the wonderful things about film.
DX Coded Film
Nearly all commercially available 35mm film for sale at this time has DX encoding. This lets electronically controlled cameras to auto detect and set the ISO when the film is loaded.
ISO (ASA) on the Canon EOS 750 needs to be dialed in manually. As a result DX-coding doesn’t do anything.
Canon EOS 750 Resources
Where to Get Film Developed?
There are a variety of possible choices for where to get film developed. For a more complete explanation of the choices read my article on Where to Develop Film.
WARNING: Film does not get processed on location at big box stores and pharmacies. They mail film off-site to be developed by a separate company. As a consequence, you won’t be given your negatives back.
- Develop Film at Home
- Use a Local Photography Lab
- Use a Mail Order Photo Lab
- Pharmacy or Big Box Store
Shipping film to a mail-order lab to be developed and scanned is the least complicated solution if you’re just getting started shooting film. If you frequently shoot film, this could be a drawback due to the fact that it can get really expensive.
There are two activities that can be done to reduce the expenses involved in using film, assuming that you’re using a moderate to high volume of film.
Bulk Loading Film
One of the best ways to reduce costs on film is to buy a bulk roll of 100’ of film and manually load canisters by hand.
All said and done, you’ll end up with roughly 18 rolls of 36 exposures each. Depending on the film you are likely to save 20%-30%.
Keep in mind that you are only going to be able to get 100’ rolls of black & white film. This is due to black and white film is less difficult and cheaper to develop yourself.
Home Developing and Scanning
You can develop and scan any film at home. In fact it is an intelligence method to spend less so you can shoot more film with your Canon EOS 750.
Black & white film is much simpler to develop at home. Developer temperature and time are not as essential to get correct with black & white film as they are for color negative or slide film.