Best Film for the Canon EOS Rebel X
The best film to use in the Canon EOS Rebel X will be based on the available light, lens, and if you want to shoot color or black & white.
To eliminate having to carry around a tripod or flash, choose a film that has an ISO of 400 or higher.
If you have a need to take images in low light, such as indoors, ensure you have a fast lens. For lens lens ideas go read my guide on the 5 Best Lenses for the Canon EOS Rebel X.
Color Film
Consumer
Kodak UltraMax 400 - The film can be used in a multitude of lighting conditions and is a terrific pick for a color 35mm film. Using Kodak UltraMax 400 you should have the ability to handhold the EOS Rebel X in just about all situations.
The pictures will have wonderful colors and is on the warm side.
Fujifilm Superia X-TRA ISO 400 - Based on your location, this film may be more widely available. It’s a great alternative to Kodak.
Fuji photos tend to have cooler tones with stronger blues and greens, compared to Kodak.
Lomography 800 - If you want a color film with an ISO of 800, there are only a few options. For film targeted towards consumers, Lomography 800 is the single choice.
The emulsion is available in the 120 film format, for use in medium format cameras.
Kodak Gold 200 - A surefire means to get that mid-80s through 90s rendering. Use an on-camera flash to get the “nostalgic” film look.
To really bring the ideal look out of the film, you’ll want to over-expose it by 1 or 2-stops. This will provide the exceptional colors people love the film for.
Professional
Kodak Portra 400 - By far the most popular color negative film among enthusiasts online. Overexpose Portra 400 by 1 or 2-stops to get the look the film is known for.
There’s also ISO 800 and ISO 160 versions of Kodak Portra. 8x10 sheets, 4x5 sheets, and rolls of 120 are also easily found.
Black and White Film
Consumer
These film stocks have affordable costs and good quality, making them quite popular to be used in the Canon EOS Rebel X.
The largest attraction for budget minded photographers and photography students is the affordable price. Even if you wouldn’t put yourself in those groups, it is nice to have low-priced rolls of film on hand for testing recently acquired used cameras.
Kentmere 400 - Produced by Harmon Technology, which is also the owner of Ilford. This is good due to the fact that allows this to be the most commonly sold 35mm film out of the 3.
Foma Fomapan 400 Action - Is likely to be less difficult to acquire in Europe as the film is produced by Foma Bohemia out of the Czech Republic.
A very good film emulsion to choose for your first few attempts at analog photography or home developing. Also a good option if you happen to be testing out a camera to confirm that it is completely functional.
Ultrafine eXtreme 400 - The best store to buy this film is online directly from Ultrafine.
If you process color 35mm film yourself, you may have used developer produced by them to process your film.
Professional
The 2 most popular black and white 35mm films are Ilford HP-5 Plus 400 and Kodak Tri-X 400. They possess numerous traits that are similar that make them so well received, while maintaining distinctive styles.
Both films can be pushed 1 or 2 stops and deliver high quality photographs. 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 is cheaper and has less contrast. Low amounts of contrast can be an advantage because of the fact contrast can be adjusted when making a darkroom print or through digital post processing.
The film has subtle grain and still looks good when pushed 2-stops.
Kodak Tri-X 400 - This film possesses a stronger look. To showcase the classic grain structure, contrast, and look of the film, it will need to be developed in Kodak D-76.
You are going to undeniably see greater contrast with Tri-X. That’s great if it is the look and feel you would like because it involves not as much work when editing digitially or making a darkroom print.
Transparency Film
Transparency film, also known as reversal film or slide film, creates a positive image. That means a projector or lightbox can be used to show the slides.
Colors don’t need to be inverted to be viewed, in contrast to the more often used negative film stocks.
Slide films are believed to be difficult to shoot because slide film has a smaller amount of latitude and dynamic range when compared with negative film.
Kodak Ektachrome 100 - This is a film known for attractive skin tones and fine grain. The colors won’t appear oversaturated. It is daylight balanced.
Fujifilm Velvia 50 - This is a sharp color balanced for daylight slide film with lots of saturation and contrast, giving shots a unique appearance. It has the best resolving power of any elevated elevated.
There is also another speed that is ISO 100.
Fujichrome Provia 100F - Offers vibrant and realistic colors with medium contrast and color saturation. It has ultrafine grain with a daylight color balance.
Foma Fomapan R100 - This is a black and white transparency film, described by Fomapan as having high resolving power, elevated levels of contrast, and very fine grain. It is also billed as a alternative for the long discontinued Agfa Scala reversal film.
Film Basics
Consumer vs Professional Film
Professional film stock have greater dynamic range, latitude, and can more easily be pushed, which is why they will be more expensive.
You should expect a significant difference in business that sell rolls of film. Consumer films can quite often be obtained from pharmacies and big-box stores in anemic quantities. Professional film emulsions has to be ordered from a specialized photography store or online retailer.
ISO
The filml speed is displayed by ISO, which may also be thought of as the film’s sensitivity to light.
The higher the film’s ISO, the less light will be necessary to properly expose a frame. In addition, be prepared to see bigger film grain.
It can be tough to handhold the EOS Rebel X with ISO 100 or slower films (ISO 25, ISO 50, etc). The will probably take more time will most likely be longer than what you’re able to handhold without leading to motion blur unless you’re working in full sun.
A flash, tripod, and/or fast lens will assist you with longer exposure times. The additional equipment may not be needed if you go with a faster ISO 800 or ISO 400 film.
As a quick note, the dial to select film speed is marked as ASA on the Canon EOS Rebel X. The move to using ISO from ASA (American Standards Association) happened after the creation of the International Standards Organization (ISO).
Latitude
Film latitude is the amount of stops film can be overexposed while maintaining tolerable quality. Pro films have a larger latitude paired with a somewhat increased price.
Transparency film has less latitude in comparison with negative film. That is a reason it’s regarded as more difficult to shoot.
Dynamic Range
Dynamic range is the difference between the shadows and highlights details of a picture that can be recorded. Parts of an image that do not fit in this range will be seen as black underexposed shadows or completely white overexposed highlights.
When shooting in a variety or quickly shifting lighting conditions, films with a larger dynamic range are a much better choice.
- Digital cameras 14+ stops
- Negative film up to 13 stops
- Slide film 6-8 stops
The constrained dynamic range of transparency film is a second reason why it is considered hard to shoot. Golden hour is the ideal time to shoot slide.
Film Type
The Canon EOS Rebel X takes 35mm film that is in canisters. The film can also be called 135 film, and it’s the most popular type of film.
The only other type of film you are probably going to come across is 120 or 220 film that is used in medium format cameras}.
Changing the film stock you are using will change the look of your images. This is an example of the marvelous things about film.
DX Coded Film
Nearly all commercially available 35mm film offered at this point has DX encoding. This lets electronically controlled cameras to detect and set the ISO when the film canister is put in the camera.
ASA (ISO) on the Canon EOS Rebel X needs to be manually selected. So DX-coding will not do anything.
Canon EOS Rebel X Resources
Where to Get 35mm Film Developed?
You will find just a few options for where to get film processed. For a more thorough discussion of the possible choices go look at my guide on Where to Get Film Developed.
WARNING: Pharmacies and big box stores do not process film at the store. They send film away to be processed by a third party. Because of 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
Shipping your film to a mail-order lab to be developed and scanned is the least difficult choice if you’re just beginning to shoot film. A drawback to this is that it ends up being expensive if you are regularly shooting film.
There are two actions that you are able to do to help reduce the expenses required to shoot film, assuming that you’re shooting a moderate to high volume of film.
Bulk Loading Film
Certainly one of the common options to get a better price on film is to buy a roll of 100’ of film and manually load canisters by hand.
All said and done, you will end up having typically around 18 canisters of 36 exposures each. Based on the film stock you will probably save 20%-30%.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you are limited to bulk rolls of black & white film. This is because black & white film is much easier and more affordable to develop yourself.
Home Developing and Scanning
Any film can be processed at home. In fact it is an excellent method to cut costs so you can shoot more film with your Canon EOS Rebel X.
Black & white film is much less complicated to process. Temperature and time are both not as vital to do correctly with black & white film as time and temperatures are for slide or color negative.