Best Film for the Canon EOS Rebel G II
The best film to use in the Canon EOS Rebel G II is going to depend on your lens, available light, and if you want to use color or black & white.
Choosing an ISO 400 film or faster will allow you to avoid being weighed down with a flash or tripod.
If you want to capture pictures in low light, such as inside, make sure you are using a fast lens. Read my short article on the 5 Best Lenses for the Canon EOS Rebel G II for lens suggestions.
Color Film
Consumer
Kodak UltraMax 400 - A good option for a plethora of conditions. Using this film you should have the ability to handhold the EOS Rebel G II in most circumstances.
The photographs will have fantastic colors and tend to be on the warm side.
Fujifilm Superia X-TRA ISO 400 - Based on your location, this film might have greater availability. It’s an excellent alternative to Kodak.
When compared to Kodak, Fujifilm appears to be a little cooler with stronger greens and blues.
Lomography 800 - You’re limited to only a small number of choices if you want a color ISO 800 35mm film. For 35mm film geared towards consumers, this is the only choice.
In addition, if you have a medium format camera, Lomography 800 is also offered in 120 film format.
Kodak Gold 200 - A surefire solution to achieve that mid-80s through 90s look. For the genuine shooting experience take advantage of a flash.
Over-expose it by 1 or 2-stops to bring out the most popular look the film has to offer. This will provide you with the stunning colors people love Gold 200 for.
Professional
Kodak Portra 400 - By far the most popular color negative film among film shooting enthusiasts online. Overexpose it by 1 or 2-stops to get the appearance the film is known for.
Portra is also offered in ISO 800 and 160 versions. As well as in rolls of 120, 4x5 sheets, and 8x10 sheets.
Black and White Film
Consumer
With affordable costs and very good quite popular to use in the Canon EOS Rebel G II.
The major appeal for budget minded photographers and photography students is the very low price. Even if you do not put yourself in those groups, it is good to have inexpensive rolls of 35 film readily available for trying out recently delivered used gear.
Kentmere 400 - Made by Harmon Technology, which is the parent company of Ilford. This is notable because that makes this the most broadly sold film of the three.
Foma Fomapan 400 Action - Is likely to be much easier to purchase in Europe as the film is made inside of the Czech Republic by Foma Bohemia.
A solid film emulsion to employ for your first couple of attempts at developing film at home or film photography. Also a good choice if you’re looking to try out a camera to be sure that it is fully operational.
Ultrafine eXtreme 400 - The best store to get this film is online directly from Ultrafine.
They produce chemical developer kits for 35mm film, so if you process film at home you could have already had interactions with them.
Professional
The two best black and white film stocks are Ilford HP-5 Plus 400 and Kodak Tri-X 400. While they both do have different appearances, they have a large amount of capabilities that are similar that makes them so well liked.
You can create excellent results 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 - Between the two film emulsions, HP5 Plus is less expensive and has less contrast. Lower levels of contrast can be beneficial due to the fact contrast can be added when making a print in the darkroom or editing digitally.
The film still appears good when pushed 2-stops. It is also recognized for having subdued grain.
Kodak Tri-X 400 - This film features a more distinctive rendering to it. To bring out the old-school grain structure, contrast, and look of the film, it should be processed in Kodak D-76.
You’ll certainly see higher levels of contrast with Kodak Tri-X. That’s great if that is the overall look you need because it results in not as much work when through digital processing or making a darkroom print.
Transparency Film
Films that create a positive image can be called reversal, slide, or transparency film. This means the photos can be shown with a light box or projector.
The colors are not required to be inverted to be seen, as opposed to the more prevalent negative film emulsions.
Slide films are regarded as very difficult to shoot due to the fact slide film has a smaller amount of dynamic range and latitude than negative film.
Kodak Ektachrome 100 - This is a fine grain film known for beautiful skin tones. The colors won’t seem oversaturated. The film is daylight balanced.
Fujifilm Velvia 50 - This is a sharp color balanced for daylight reversal film with high levels of contrast and saturation, giving photographs a beautiful appearance. It has the best resolving power of any available transparency film stock.
An ISO 100 emulsion is also available to buy.
Fujichrome Provia 100F - Creates vibrant and realistic colors with moderate color saturation and contrast. It is a ultrafine grain film with a daylight color balance.
Foma Fomapan R100 - This is a black and white slide film, marketed by Fomapan as having excellent resolving power, higher levels of contrast, and fine grain. It is also mentioned as a alternative for the long discontinued Agfa Scala slide film.
Film Basics
Consumer vs Professional Film
Pro films cost more due to the fact that they have larger latitude, are easier to push, and expanded dynamic range.
There is a difference in availability. Consumer film emulsions can often still be bought in pharmacies and big-box stores in small amounts. Professional quality film stocks usually need to be ordered from a specialized photography store or online.
ISO
The ISO shows the film speed, which can also be regarded as the film’s sensitivity to light.
The higher the film’s ISO, the less light will be needed to capture a photograph. This comes at the expense of more film grain.
It is often challenging to handhold the EOS Rebel G II with ISO 100 or slower speed films (ISO 50, ISO 25, etc). The will likely take more time will likely take more time than what you are able to handhold without resulting in motion blur unless you’re shooting in full sun.
A fast lens, tripod, and/or flash can assist you with longer shutter speeds. Using a high speed ISO 400 or ISO 800 film can make the extra accessories unnecessary.
The ISO selection knob is labeled as ASA on the Canon EOS Rebel G II. The change to using ISO from ASA (American Standards Association) came after the creation of the International Standards Organization (ISO).
Latitude
Latitude is the number of stops film can be overexposed while still keeping satisfactory results. Professional film stocks have a greater latitude to go along with a slightly increased cost.
Transparency film has less latitude compared to negative film. That is a reason it’s considered difficult to use.
Dynamic Range
Dynamic range is the range between the shadows and highlights details of an image that can be captured. Areas of an image that fall out of this range will be rendered as totally black underexposed shadows or solid white overexposed highlights.
When working in a variety or quickly changing lighting conditions, films with a larger dynamic range is preferable.
- Digital cameras 14+ stops
- Negative film up to 13 stops
- Slide film 6-8 stops
Slide film is considered challenging to shoot as a consequence of the small dynamic range. An excellent time to give it a try would be during the golden hour.
Film Type
The Canon EOS Rebel G II uses 35mm film that is sold in metal canisters. It can also be described as 135 film, and it’s the most frequently used film format.
The only other type of film you are probably going to come across is 120 or 220 film that is used by medium format cameras}.
One of the marvelous properties of film is that you can change the film stock you work with and get a fresh look to your photographs.
DX Coded Film
All available 35mm film sold at this point has DX encoding on the canister. This enables electronically controlled cameras to auto detect and set the ISO when the film is put in the camera.
ISO (ASA) on the Canon EOS Rebel G II has to be manually set. So DX-coding will not matter.
Canon EOS Rebel G II Resources
Where to Get Film Developed?
There are limited choices for where to have film processed. For a more thorough explanation of the options see my article on Where to Develop Film.
WARNING: Big box stores and pharmacies have stopped developing film on location. They mail the film off to be developed by a third party. Consequently, you will not get 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 complicated solution and what I would suggest doing if you are just getting started shooting film is to send off your film to a photo lab to be developed and scanned. A downside to this is that it will get expensive if you’re consistently using film.
As long as you are using a moderate to high volume of film, there are a couple of actions that you can do to reduce your costs.
Bulk Loading Film
Purchasing a bulk roll of 100’ of film and manually loading in into canisters yourself is among the most common options to lower your expenses.
Once you are done, you will get about 18 canisters of 36 exposures each. Look forward to savings of 20-30% depending on your selection.
Take into account that you are only going to find 100 foot rolls of black and white film. This is in part because black & white film is less difficult and more cost-effective to develop at home.
Home Developing and Scanning
All film can be developed by hand. In fact it is an intelligence option to lower your costs so you can shoot more film with your Canon EOS Rebel G II.
Black & white film is by far the simplest to develop yourself. Temperature and time are not as imperative to do correctly with black & white film as temperatures and time are for color negative or transparency film.