Best Film for the Canon EOS Rebel S
The best film to use in the Canon EOS Rebel S is going to depend on your 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 being burdened with a flash or tripod.
If you intend to capture photos indoors or anytime there is low light, make sure you have a fast lens. For lens lens ideas take a look at my guide on the 5 Best Lenses for the Canon EOS Rebel S.
Color Film
Consumer
Kodak UltraMax 400 - The film can be used in a large range of lighting conditions and is a good pick for a color 35mm film. Using this film you should have the ability to handhold the EOS Rebel S in lots of scenarios.
The photographs will have wonderful colors and leans towards the warm side.
Fujifilm Superia X-TRA ISO 400 - Depending on your location, this film might be more widely available. It is an excellent alternative to Kodak.
Fuji photographs appear to have cooler colors with notable greens and blues, compared to Kodak.
Lomography 800 - There are only a few choices if you want a color ISO 800 film. For 35mm film geared towards consumers, this is the sole choice.
Additionally, if you own a medium format camera, it is also for sale in 120 film format.
Kodak Gold 200 - A staple film emulsion that started production in the mid-1980s. Gold 200 gives the look and feel of home snapshots from the 80s and 1990s. Use an on-camera flash to get the “classic” look the film is known for.
Over-expose it by 1 or 2-stops to produce the best the film can achieve. This will provide you with the exceptional colors everyone loves the film 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 rendering the film is well known for.
Additionally, ISO 160 and ISO 800 versions of Portra. 8x10 sheets, 4x5 sheets, and rolls of 120 film are also available to purchase.
Black and White Film
Consumer
These film emulsions have reasonable prices and more than acceptable quality, making them quite popular to be used in the Canon EOS Rebel S.
The largest draw for photography students and budget minded photographers is the competitive price. Even if you don’t put yourself in those groups, it’s nice to have comparatively cheap rolls of 35 film available for trying out recently obtained used cameras.
Kentmere 400 - Made by Harmon Technology, which is the parent company of Ilford. This is good because that allows this to be the most widely sold 35mm film out of the three.
Foma Fomapan 400 Action - Can be much easier to obtain in Europe as the film is produced inside of the Czech Republic by Foma Bohemia.
A fine film stock to use for your initial couple of attempts at home developing or analog photography. Also a good choice if you happen to be testing out a camera to guarantee that it’s working correctly.
Ultrafine eXtreme 400 - The cheapest place to get this film is straight from Ultrafine.
They distribute developer kits for color film, so if you develop film at home you might have previously had interactions with them.
Professional
Kodak Tri-X 400 and Ilford HP-5+ 400 are the two most frequently used black and white film emulsions. They do have several qualities in common that help make them so well liked, while maintaining individual appearances.
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 stocks, HP5 Plus has less contrast and is more affordable. Lower levels of contrast can be a benefit due to the fact contrast can be adjusted when making a print or editing digitally.
The film has subdued grain and still looks excellent when pushed 2-stops.
Kodak Tri-X 400 - This film emulsion features a stronger look. To create the traditional grain structure, contrast, and look of the film, it needs to be developed in Kodak D-76.
Kodak Tri-X without a doubt has greater contrast. That is notable if that is the look and feel you would like because it means significantly less work when printmaking or editing digitially.
Transparency Film
Reversal film, also known as transparency or slide film, generates a positive picture. That means a lightbox or projector can be used to showcase the slides.
The colors are not required to be inverted to be viewable, as opposed to the more often used negative film stocks.
Slide films are thought of very difficult to shoot because slide film has much less dynamic range and latitude when compared with negative film.
Kodak Ektachrome 100 - This is a fine grain film known for beautiful skin tones. There is virtually no hypersaturation of colors. The film has been balanced for daylight.
Fujifilm Velvia 50 - This is a extraordinarily sharp daylight balanced transparency film with lots of saturation and contrast, giving shots a beautiful look. When compared with all the transparency films offered, it has the top resolving power.
An ISO 100 speed is also available to buy.
Fujichrome Provia 100F - Creates vivid and natural colors with medium color saturation and contrast. It has a daylight color balance and ultrafine grain.
Foma Fomapan R100 - This is a black & white reversal film, marketed by Fomapan as having very fine grain, higher levels of contrast, and high resolving power. It is also regarded as a alternative for the long discontinued Agfa Scala.
Film Basics
Consumer vs Professional Film
Professional film stock can more easily be pushed, have better dynamic range, and latitude, this is why they will be more expensive.
There’s a difference in where film can be purchased. Consumer film stocks can commonly still be obtained from big-box stores and pharmacies in limited quantities. Professional quality film emulsions should be purchased from a camera store or online retailer.
ISO
The filml speed is listed as ISO, that can also be regarded as the film’s sensitivity to light.
The higher the ISO of the film, the less light is needed to properly expose a picture. Also, be prepared to see bigger film grain.
It may be tricky to handhold the EOS Rebel S with ISO 100 or slower speed films (ISO 25, ISO 50, etc). This is because in the absence of full sun, the exposure times will most likely be longer than what you can handhold without causing motion blur.
A tripod, a fast lens, and/or a flash will help you with longer exposure times. The additional accessories may not be needed if you go with a higher speed ISO 800 or ISO 400 film.
As a quick note, the ISO selection knob is marked as ASA on the Canon EOS Rebel S. The change to labeling ISO from ASA (American Standards Association) came after the creation of the International Standards Organization (ISO).
Latitude
Film latitude is the number of stops a film can be overexposed while still keeping tolerable quality. Pro film stocks have a greater latitude paired with a slightly increased cost.
Negative film has a greater amount of latitude than slide film. That is a reason it’s deemed to be more challenging to use.
Dynamic Range
Dynamic range is the range between the shadows and highlights details of an image that can be captured. Areas of a photo that don’t fit in this range will appear as completely black underexposed shadows or completely white overexposed highlights.
A bigger dynamic range is ideal because it helps make shooting in various lighting conditions easier.
- Digital cameras 14+ stops
- Negative film up to 13 stops
- Slide film 6-8 stops
Slide film is considered difficult to shoot resulting from the limited dynamic range. Golden hour is the prime time to shoot transparency.
Film Type
35mm film that comes in canisters is used by the Canon EOS Rebel S. The film can also be called 135 film, and it is the most commonly used type of film.
120 or 220 film, used by medium format cameras, is the only other film format you are likely to encounter}.
Switching the film emulsion you are using will transform the look of your photos. This is an example of the excellent things about film.
DX Coded Film
All commercially available 35mm film manufactured at this point has a DX code. This enables cameras to automatically detect and set the ISO when the canister is loaded.
DX-coding won’t change anything for the Canon EOS Rebel S because ISO must be manually dialed in.
Canon EOS Rebel S Resources
Where to Get Film Developed?
You will find several options for where to get film processed. For a more in depth explanation of the choices see my article on Where to Develop Film.
WARNING: Big box stores and pharmacies have ended developing film locally. They mail film off to be processed by a separate company. That is why, you won’t 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 easiest choice and the method I would suggest doing if you are just getting started using film is to mail off your film to a photo lab to be developed and scanned. A drawback to this is that it becomes really expensive if you are consistently using film.
So long as you’re using a moderate to high volume of film, there are two things that can be done to cut back on your expenses.
Bulk Loading Film
Ordering a bulk roll of 100’ of film and loading in into canisters by hand is considered one of the most well known ways to lower your expenses.
Once you have finished, you’ll have around 18 rolls of 36 frames. Depending on the film stock you are likely to save 20%-30%.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you’re only going to find rolls of black & white film. This is in part because black and white film is easier and cheaper to develop yourself.
Home Developing and Scanning
All film can be processed by hand. It’s an excellent way to lower your costs so that you can use more film with your Canon EOS Rebel S.
Black and white film is by far the easiest to develop at home. Chemical temperature and development times are not as imperative to get correct with black and white films as they are for slide or color negative.