Best Film for the Nikon N70
The best film to use in the Nikon N70 is going to depend on the lens, lighting, and type of film you want to use.
To prevent having to haul around a tripod and/or flash, purchase a film that has an ISO of 400 or higher.
Ensure you have a fast lens if you want to shoot photos in low light, conditions that are frequently encountered indoors. For lens lens suggestions read my article on the 5 Best Lenses for the Nikon N70.
Color Film
Consumer
Kodak UltraMax 400 - A fantastic choice for a variety of conditions. Using this film you should have the ability to handhold the N70 in almost all scenarios.
Expect images to look slightly warm with pleasant skin tones.
Fujifilm Superia X-TRA ISO 400 - Depending on where you are in the world, this film might have greater availability. It’s a very good alternative to Kodak emulsions.
Fuji photos tend to have cooler colors with an emphasis on blues and greens, compared to Kodak.
Lomography 800 - You’re limited to a small number of options if you want an ISO 800 speed color film. This is the only 35mm film targeted towards consumers.
Furthermore, if you have a medium format camera, it is also available in 120 film format.
Kodak Gold 200 - An excellent option to get that mid-80s through 90s rendering. Use an on-camera flash to get the “classic” look.
Over-expose it by 1 or 2-stops to reveal the most popular look the film has to offer. This will help you achieve the spectacular colors people love the film 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 style the film is known for.
There are also ISO 800 and ISO 160 emulsions of Kodak Portra. 8x10 sheets, 4x5 sheets, and rolls of 120 are also easily found.
Black and White Film
Consumer
With affordable costs and very good favorable to use in the Nikon N70.
The main attraction for budget minded photographers and photography students is the very affordable price. Even if you would not put yourself in those groups, it’s good to have economical rolls of 35 film on hand for trying out recently delivered camera gear.
Kentmere 400 - Made by Harmon Technology, which is the parent company of Ilford. This is good considering that allows this to be the most commonly sold B&W film out of the three.
Foma Fomapan 400 Action - It is less difficult to acquire in Europe as the film is manufactured out of the Czech Republic by Foma Bohemia.
A suitable film stock to employ for your initial couple of attempts at developing film at home or film photography. Also a good selection if you’re trying out a camera to check that it’s completely functional.
Ultrafine eXtreme 400 - The best place to buy this film is online directly from Ultrafine.
They produce chemical developer kits for 35mm film, so if you process film at home you might have already had interactions with them.
Professional
The 2 most widely used black and white films are Ilford HP-5 Plus 400 and Kodak Tri-X 400. They possess several capabilities that are equivalent that make them so well liked, while keeping different rendering.
You can achieve great 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 - The fundamental differences are that HP5 Plus has lower levels of contrast and is more affordable compared to Tri-X. Lower levels of contrast can be nice due to the fact contrast can be increased when making a print in the darkroom or editing digitally.
The film has subdued grain and still appears good when pushed 2-stops.
Kodak Tri-X 400 - This film has a more distinctive look to it. To produce the traditional grain structure, contrast, and look of the film, it should be processed in D-76.
Kodak Tri-X 400 clearly has far more contrast. That’s very good if that is the overall look you want to have because it means considerably less work when making a print or editing digitially.
Reversal Film
Film stocks that create a positive image are generally referred to as slide, reversal, or transparency film. That means a projector or lightbox can be used to exhibit the photos.
Colors are not required to be inverted to be seen, contrary to the more readily available negative film stocks.
Slide films have much less latitude and dynamic range when compared with negative films and so they are viewed as challenging to work with.
Kodak Ektachrome 100 - This is a fine grain film known for beautiful skin tones. There is virtually no hypersaturation of colors. It has been balanced for daylight.
Fujifilm Velvia 50 - This is a sharp color balanced for daylight transparency film with lots of saturation and contrast, giving shots a special look. It has the best resolving power of any available reversal film stock.
An ISO 100 emulsion is also available for purchase.
Fujichrome Provia 100F - Produces realistic and vivid colors with medium contrast and color saturation. It is a ultra fine grain film with a daylight color balance.
Foma Fomapan R100 - This is a black and white transparency film, described by Fomapan as having excellent resolving power, increased contrast, and very fine grain. It’s also mentioned as a replacement for the discontinued Agfa Scala.
Film Basics
Consumer vs Professional Film
Professional film stocks cost more due to the fact they can more easily be pushed, have greater latitude, and dynamic range.
There’s a difference in where 35mm rolls of film can be purchased. Consumer film stocks can often still be found in pharmacies and big-box stores in meager amounts. Professional film should be bought from a online retailer or specialized photography store.
ISO
The filml speed is shown as ISO, that can also be thought of as the film’s light sensitivity.
The less light there’s available to expose an image, the bigger the film’s ISO should be. This comes at the expense of noticeably increased film grain.
It might be troublesome to handhold the N70 with ISO 100 or slower films (ISO 25, ISO 50, etc). This is due to the fact that if you don’t have full sun, the exposure times might take more time than what you can handhold without producing motion blur.
To avoid motion blur you are going to need to use a tripod, a fast lens, and/or a flash. Using a fast ISO 400 or ISO 800 film will make the additional equipment not needed.
As a quick note, the ISO selection knob is marked as ASA on the Nikon N70. The switch to using ISO from ASA (American Standards Association) happened after the creation of the International Standards Organization (ISO).
Film Latitude
Latitude is the range of stops film can be overexposed while maintaining acceptable images. Pro film stocks have a larger latitude paired with a slightly higher cost.
Reversal film has less latitude compared to negative film. That is one of the reasons why it’s deemed to be more challenging to use.
Dynamic Range
Dynamic range represents the range between the shadows and highlights details of a photo that can be recorded. Areas of a picture that do not fit within this range will be seen as solid black underexposed shadows or completely white overexposed highlights.
When shooting in a wide variety or quickly changing lighting situations, film stocks with a bigger dynamic range are a superior choice.
- Digital cameras 14+ stops
- Negative film up to 13 stops
- Slide film 6-8 stops
The constrained dynamic range of reversal film is a second reason why it’s considered to be a challenge to shoot. Golden hour is the best time to use transparency.
Film Type
The Nikon N70 uses 35mm film that is sold in metal canisters. In addition, it is the most popular type of film and sometimes called 135 film.
The only other film format you are going to encounter is 120 or 220 film that is used in medium format cameras}.
Changing the film you are using will change the look of your photos. This is an example of the fantastic things about shooting film.
DX Coded Film
Most new 35mm film offered for sale these days has DX encoding on the canister. This enables cameras to automatically detect and set the ISO of the canister loaded.
DX-coding will not matter for the Nikon N70 because ISO must be manually set with the ASA knob.
Nikon N70 Resources
Where to Get 35mm Film Developed?
There are a few possibilities for where to get film processed. For a more complete discussion of the possible choices look at my article on Where to Develop Film.
WARNING: Film does not get processed locally at pharmacies and big box stores. They mail film off-site to be developed by a third party. That is why, you will not be given your processed 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 most convenient option if you are just beginning to shoot film. If you consistently use film, this could be a disadvantage due to the fact that it can get pricey.
As long as you are using a moderate to high volume of film, there are a couple of activities that you are able to do to greatly reduce your expenses.
Bulk Loading Film
Certainly one of the most well known methods to save money on film is to buy a bulk roll of 100’ of film and load canisters by hand.
All said and done, you’ll end up making around 18 canisters of 36 frames each. Look forward to cost savings of 20-30% based on your pick.
Be aware that you are going to be limited to 100’ rolls of black and white film. This is in part because black and white film is much easier and more affordable to process at home.
Home Developing and Scanning
Any film can be developed at home. It’s an excellent way to save money so that you can use more film with your Nikon N70.
Black & white film is by far the least difficult to process at home. Chemical temperature and time are both not as necessary to do correctly with black & white film as time and temperatures are for color negative or transparency film.