Best Film for the Nikon N2000
The best film to use in your Nikon N2000 will depend on the available light, your lens, and if you want to shoot color or black & white.
To avoid having to carry around a tripod and/or flash, pick a 35mm film that has an ISO of 400 or faster.
If you want to be able to to capture images in low light, such as indoors, make sure that you have a fast lens. For lens ideas go to my article on the 5 Best Lenses for the Nikon N2000.
Color Film
Consumer
Kodak UltraMax 400 - An excellent choice for a diverse range of lighting conditions. Kodak UltraMax 400 is fast enough so that you should be able to handhold the N2000 in most circumstances.
Expect photos to look a little bit warm with pleasant colors.
Fujifilm Superia X-TRA ISO 400 - A different option than Kodak that may have better availability based on what country you are in.
Compared to Kodak, Fuji appears to be a little cooler with an emphasis on greens and blues.
Lomography 800 - If you want an ISO 800 color 35mm film, there are only a small number of offerings. This is literally the only 35mm film geared towards consumers.
Furthermore, if you own a medium format camera, it’s also for sale in 120 film format.
Kodak Gold 200 - A staple film stock that debuted in the mid-1980s. Kodak Gold 200 offers the look of snapshots from the 80s and 1990s. For the genuine experience have an on-camera flash.
Over-expose it by 1 or 2-stops to bring out the most popular look the film has to offer. This will help you achieve the spectacular colors everyone loves Kodak Gold for.
Professional
Kodak Portra 400 - Among film shooting enthusiasts online, Portra 400 is by far and away the most popular color film emulsion. Overexpose Portra 400 by 1 or 2-stops to get the look the film is known for.
Portra is also for sale in ISO 800 and 160 versions. As well as in rolls of 120, 4x5 sheets, and 8x10 sheets.
Black and White Film
Consumer
With reasonable prices and very good quite popular to be used in the Nikon N2000.
The major appeal for budget minded photographers and photography students is the reasonable cost. Even if you wouldn’t put yourself in those groups, it is nice to have comparatively cheap rolls of 35 film available for trying out recently acquired camera gear.
Kentmere 400 - Produced by Harmon Technology, which is the parent company of Ilford. This is good since that makes this the most broadly sold B&W film of the three.
Foma Fomapan 400 Action - Can be much easier to get in Europe as the film is manufactured out of the Czech Republic by Foma Bohemia.
A great film stock to employ for your initial few attempts at analog photography or developing film at home. Also a good selection if you happen to be testing out a camera to make sure that it is functioning properly.
Ultrafine eXtreme 400 - The cheapest store to get this film is online directly from Ultrafine.
If you develop 35mm color film at home, you might have done that with developer sold by them.
Professional
Ilford HP-5 Plus 400 and Kodak Tri-X 400 are the 2 best black and white 35mm film stocks. They do have a number of attributes in common that help make them so well liked, while retaining different styles.
Both film stocks can be pushed 1 or 2 stops and while still delivering good quality images. A 35mm roll of film can be shot at ISO 400, 800, or 1600, making them very flexible.
Ilford HP5 Plus 400 - Between the two films, HP5 Plus has less contrast and is less expensive. Lower levels of contrast can be a benefit because of the fact contrast can be changed when making a darkroom print or through digital processing.
The film has subdued grain and still looks outstanding when pushed 2-stops.
Kodak Tri-X 400 - This film provides a more distinctive look. To produce the classic grain structure, contrast, and look of the film, it should be developed in Kodak D-76.
Tri-X 400 certainly has greater contrast. That is awesome if that is the overall look you want because it requires a smaller amount of work when editing digitially or printmaking.
Slide Film
Film stocks that produce a positive image are referred to as reversal, slide, or transparency film. That means a lightbox or projector can be used to display the slides.
Colors do not need to be inverted to be seen, unlike the more commonplace negative film stocks.
Slide films are thought to be hard to shoot because slide film has a smaller amount of dynamic range and latitude compared to negative film.
Kodak Ektachrome 100 - This is a fine grain film known for beautiful skin tones. There is virtually no hypersaturation of colors. Ektachrome has a daylight color balance.
Fujifilm Velvia 50 - Provides unique looking photographs that have elevated levels of saturation and contrast. It is sharp and color balanced for daylight. Compared to all the reversal films available, it has the best resolving power.
You can also get it in an ISO 100 speed.
Fujichrome Provia 100F - Offers vibrant and realistic colors with medium contrast and color saturation. It is a ultrafine grain film with a daylight color balance.
Foma Fomapan R100 - This is a black and white reversal film, marketed by Fomapan as having fine grain, higher levels of contrast, and excellent resolving power. It’s also mentioned as a replacement for the discontinued Agfa Scala transparency film.
Film Basics
Consumer vs Professional Film
Professional film stock have increased latitude, dynamic range, and are easier to push, that is why they cost more.
There might be a significant difference in where it can be purchased. Consumer film emulsions can often be found in pharmacies and big-box stores in anemic amounts. Professional quality film emulsions often need to be ordered from a online retailer or specialized camera store.
ISO
Film speed is shown as ISO, that can also be regarded as the film’s sensitivity to light.
The less light there is available to properly expose an image, the higher the ISO needs to be. This comes at the expense of larger film grain.
It can be difficult to handhold the N2000 with ISO 100 or slower films (ISO 50, ISO 25, etc). The will most likely be longer will likely be longer than what you can handhold without producing motion blur unless you’re shooting in full sun.
A flash, fast lens, and/or tripod will help you with longer exposure times. Using a fast ISO 800 or ISO 400 film will likely make the additional gear unnecessary.
The dial to select film speed is labeled as ASA on the Nikon N2000. The transition to labeling ISO from ASA (American Standards Association) came after the creation of the International Standards Organization (ISO).
Film Latitude
Film latitude is the range of stops a film can be overexposed while maintaining adequate photographs. Pro films have a larger latitude to go along with a somewhat higher cost.
Negative film has more latitude than reversal film. That is a reason it is believed to be difficult to work with.
Dynamic Range
Dynamic range represents the difference between the brightest and darkest details of a photo that can be captured. Parts of a photo that do not fit within this range will be rendered as black underexposed shadows or white overexposed highlights.
A larger dynamic range is advantageous because a bigger range tends to make shooting in a wide variety of lighting conditions easier.
- Digital cameras 14+ stops
- Negative film up to 13 stops
- Slide film 6-8 stops
Reversal film is regarded as a challenge to shoot due to the small dynamic range. Golden hour is the best time to use reversal.
Film Type
The Nikon N2000 takes 35mm film that comes in metal canisters. It can also be called 135 film, and it’s the most popular film format.
120 or 220 film, used in medium format cameras, is the only other film format you are going to encounter}.
Switching the film you are using will transform the look of your photos. This is an example of the best things about using film.
DX Coded Film
Nearly all available 35mm film offered at this time has a DX code. This lets cameras to auto detect and set the ISO of the film canister put in the camera.
DX-coding won’t matter for the Nikon N2000 because ISO has to be set manually with the ASA knob.
Nikon N2000 Resources
Where to Get 35mm Film Developed?
There are several possible choices for where to get film processed. For a more thorough explanation of the options see my article on Where to Develop Film.
WARNING: Big box stores and pharmacies don’t develop film on location. They ship the film off-site to be developed by a separate company. Because of that, you won’t receive 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 least complicated choice and the method I would suggest doing if you’re just getting started using film is to mail your film to a lab to be developed and scanned. If you consistently use film, this can be a downside because it can get very expensive.
Assuming that you are using a moderate to high volume of film, there are a few activities that can be done to decrease your costs.
Bulk Loading Film
Investing in a roll of 100 feet of film and manually loading in into canisters yourself is among the leading options to lower your expenses.
A 100 foot roll should fill around 18 rolls of film with 36 frames each. Based on the film stock you will probably save 20%-30%.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you are only going to be able to get rolls of black & white film. This is in part because black & white film is a lot easier and more cost-effective to develop at home.
Home Developing and Scanning
It’s possible to process and digitize film at home. It is a good option to spend less so you can use more film with your Nikon N2000.
Black and white film is by far the simplest to develop. Chemical temperature and time are both not as vital to do correctly with black and white films as temperatures and time are for color negative or transparency film.