Best Film for the Canon EOS Rebel 2000
The best film to use in the Canon EOS Rebel 2000 should depend on the lens, lighting conditions, and type of film you want to shoot.
Choosing an ISO 400 35mm or faster will allow you to avoid needing to lug around a tripod or flash.
If you would like to capture photographs inside or anytime there is low light, make sure that you are using a fast lens. Read my blog post on the 5 Best Lenses for the Canon EOS Rebel 2000 for lens ideas.
Color Film
Consumer
Kodak UltraMax 400 - A very good selection for a wide range of lighting conditions. The film is fast enough so that you should be able to handhold the EOS Rebel 2000 in lots of circumstances.
Expect photos to look slightly warm with beautiful colors.
Fujifilm Superia X-TRA ISO 400 - Depending on your location, this film can be more widely available. It’s a great alternative to Kodak film.
Compared to Kodak, Fuji tends to be a little bit cooler with notable greens and blues.
Lomography 800 - If you want an ISO 800 color film, there aren’t many offerings. This is the only 35mm film stock targeted towards consumers.
The emulsion can also be purchased in the 120 film format, for use in medium format cameras.
Kodak Gold 200 - A guaranteed way to achieve that mid-1980s through 90s feeling. Use a flash to get the “nostalgic” look the film is known for.
Over-expose it by 1 or 2-stops to reveal the best look the film can achieve. This will give you the fantastic colors people love Gold 200 for.
Professional
Kodak Portra 400 - By far the most popular color negative film among film enthusiasts online. Overexpose the film by 1 or 2-stops to get the rendering the film is well known for.
Portra is also for sale in ISO 800 and 160 emulsions. As well as in rolls of 120 film, 4x5 sheets, and 8x10 sheets.
Black and White Film
Consumer
These film emulsions have affordable costs and more than acceptable quality, making them quite popular for use in the Canon EOS Rebel 2000.
The biggest attraction for budget minded photographers and photography students is the very low price. Even if you wouldn’t put yourself in that group, it’s great to have comparatively cheap rolls of film around for trying out newly purchased used gear.
Kentmere 400 - Manufactured by Harmon Technology, which is also the owner of Ilford. This is great considering that makes this the most widely sold B&W film of the three.
Foma Fomapan 400 Action - It will probably easier to acquire in Europe as the film is made in the Czech Republic by Foma Bohemia.
A very good film emulsion to use for your first few attempts at analog photography or home developing. Also a good choice if you’re attempting to check out a camera to confirm that it’s totally operational.
Ultrafine eXtreme 400 - You can get the best price by ordering it from Ultrafine.
If you process color film at home, you could have used chemicals sold by them.
Professional
Ilford HP-5 Plus 400 and Kodak Tri-X 400 are the two most popular black & white film emulsions. While they both have different styles, they do have many characteristics that are similar that makes them popular.
You can get solid images after pushing both emulsions 2-stops. This makes the film versatile as a roll can be shot at ISO 400, 800, or 1600.
Ilford HP5 Plus 400 - The biggest differences are that HP5 Plus has less contrast and is cheaper when compared to Tri-X. Minimal contrast can be nice because contrast can be increased when making a print or through digital post processing.
The film still looks very good when pushed 2-stops. It is also known for having subdued grain.
Kodak Tri-X 400 - This film emulsion features a stronger style. To bring out the old-school grain structure, contrast, and look of the film, it should be processed in Kodak D-76.
You are going to definitely see higher levels of contrast with this film. That’s beneficial if that is the look and feel you want to have because it requires a great deal less work when during digital post processing or printmaking.
Transparency Film
Film stocks that make a positive image can be called reversal, transparency, or slide film. That means a projector or lightbox can be used to showcase the photos.
The colors are not required to be inverted to be viewable, contrary to the more prevalent negative film emulsions.
Slide films are viewed as tough to use because slide film has a smaller amount of dynamic range and latitude when compared with negative film.
Kodak Ektachrome 100 - This is a fine grain film known for beautiful skin tones. There’s not any hypersaturation of colors. Ektachrome is daylight color balanced.
Fujifilm Velvia 50 - This is a unbelievably sharp color balanced for daylight transparency film with lots of saturation and contrast, giving shots a distinct look. It has the highest resolving power of any elevated elevated.
An ISO 100 speed is also available to buy.
Fujichrome Provia 100F - Creates natural and vivid colors with moderate contrast and color saturation. It’s a daylight color balanced film with ultra fine grain.
Foma Fomapan R100 - This is a black & white slide film, marketed by Fomapan as having higher levels of contrast, very good resolving power, and very fine grain. It’s also billed as a alternative for the discontinued Agfa Scala film emulsion.
Film Basics
Consumer vs Professional Film
Pro film stock can more easily be pushed, have increased latitude, and dynamic range, this is why pro-film costs more.
You should expect to see a difference in business that sell rolls of film. Consumer film emulsions can commonly be bought in pharmacies and big-box stores in small quantities. Pro film should really be ordered from a online retailer or photography store.
ISO
A film’s light sensitivity is shown as the ISO.
The less light available to get an image, the higher the ISO of the film will need to be. Additionally, be prepared to see bigger film grain.
It may be tough to handhold the EOS Rebel 2000 with ISO 100 or slower speed films (ISO 50, ISO 25, etc). The can be longer will likely be longer than what you’re able to handhold without producing motion blur unless you are out in full sun.
To get around motion blur you’ll need to use a fast lens, flash, and/or tripod. Using a high speed ISO 400 or ISO 800 film is likely to make the extra equipment unnecessary.
As a quick note, the dial to select film speed is labeled as ASA on the Canon EOS Rebel 2000. The transition 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 a film can be overexposed while still having acceptable photographs. Professional films have a larger latitude paired with a somewhat increased cost.
Negative film has more latitude compared to reversal film. That is a reason it is thought of more difficult to shoot.
Dynamic Range
Dynamic range represents the range between the shadows and highlights parts of a photo that can be captured. Sections of an image that are not in this range will be seen as completely white overexposed highlights or black underexposed shadows.
A larger dynamic range is advantageous given that a bigger range can make shooting in different lighting conditions easier.
- Digital cameras 14+ stops
- Negative film up to 13 stops
- Slide film 6-8 stops
Slide film is considered to be hard to use due to the constrained dynamic range. Golden hour is the ideal time to use reversal.
Film Type
The Canon EOS Rebel 2000 uses 35mm film that is sold in metal canisters. The film can also be referred to as 135 film, and it is the most widely used type of film.
120 or 220 film, used with medium format cameras, is the only other film format you are likely to encounter}.
One of the best properties of film is that you can swap the film emulsion you work with and get a fresh look to your shots.
DX Coded Film
All new 35mm film sold these days has a DX code. This enables cameras to auto detect and set the ISO of the canister put in the camera.
DX-coding won’t matter for the Canon EOS Rebel 2000 because ISO has to be manually set.
Canon EOS Rebel 2000 Resources
Where to Get Film Developed?
There are only a few choices for where to get 35mm film developed. For a more detailed explanation of the options take a look at my guide on Where to Get Film Developed.
WARNING: Film does not get developed locally at pharmacies and big box stores. They send the film away to be processed by a separate company. Consequently, you will not get your processed negatives back.
- Develop Film at Home
- Use a Local Photography Lab
- Use a Mail Order Photo Lab
- Pharmacy or Big Box Store
The easiest choice and the method I suggest doing if you are just getting started using film is to mail your film to a lab to be developed and scanned. If you consistently use film, this might be a downside due to the fact that it can get really expensive.
So long as you are going through a moderate to high volume of film, there are a couple of things that you can do to reduce your expenses.
Bulk Loading Film
Among the common methods to lower your expenses on film is to buy a bulk roll of 100’ of film and manually load it into canisters by hand.
Once you’ve finished, you will get typically around 18 rolls of 36 frames. You should expect to save 20-30% depending on your pick.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you are only going to find 100’ rolls of black & white film. This is in part because black and white film is less difficult and more affordable to develop yourself.
Home Developing and Scanning
You can easily develop and scan any film at home. It’s a very good way to cut costs so that you can use more film with your Canon EOS Rebel 2000.
Black and white film is by far the least complicated to develop at home. Temperature and development times are not as essential to do correctly with black & white film as time and temperatures are for color negative or transparency film.