Best Film for the Olympus OM-10 Quartz
The best film to use in the Olympus OM-10 Quartz should depend on your lens, lighting conditions, and type of film you want to shoot.
Choosing an ISO 400 35mm or higher speed will let you skip needing to carry around a tripod and/or flash.
Ensure you have a fast lens if you want to shoot pictures in low light, conditions that are frequently found indoors. Read my post on the 5 Best Lenses for the Olympus OM-10 Quartz for ideas.
Color Film
Consumer
Kodak UltraMax 400 - An excellent choice for a wide range of lighting conditions. Kodak UltraMax 400 is fast enough so that you should be able to handhold the OM-10 Quartz in lots of scenarios.
The photographs will have fantastic skin tones and is on the warm side.
Fujifilm Superia X-TRA ISO 400 - Based on your location, this film can have greater availability. It’s a very good alternative to Kodak film.
When compared to Kodak, Fuji tends to be a bit cooler with notable blues and greens.
Lomography 800 - You’re limited to only a small number of offerings if you want an ISO 800 speed color film. For 35mm film emulsions focused on consumers, Lomography 800 is the only option.
The emulsion is also available in the 120 film format, to be used in medium format cameras.
Kodak Gold 200 - A staple film stock that debuted in the mid-1980s. The film provides the look of family snapshots from the 1980s and 90s. For the authentic experience have an on-camera flash.
To bring the best look out of the film, over-expose it by 1 or 2-stops. This will give you the wonderful colors people love Gold 200 for.
Professional
Kodak Portra 400 - Among film shooting enthusiasts online, Portra 400 is undoubtedly the most frequently used color 35mm film. Overexpose it by 1 or 2-stops to get the color the film is known for.
Portra is also available in ISO 160 and ISO 800 versions. 8x10 sheets, 4x5 sheets, and rolls of 120 are also available.
Black and White Film
Consumer
With reasonable costs and very good favorable to be used in the Olympus OM-10 Quartz.
The main appeal for budget minded photographers and photography students is the very low price. Even if you wouldn’t put yourself in those groups, it is great to have relatively cheap rolls of film available for testing recently delivered used cameras.
Kentmere 400 - It’s produced by the parent company of Ilford, Harmon Technology. This is great because that makes this the most widely available B&W film of the three.
Foma Fomapan 400 Action - It’s less difficult to obtain in Europe as the film is manufactured by Foma Bohemia inside of the Czech Republic.
A decent film to work with for your first couple of attempts at analog photography or developing film at home. Also a good choice if you’re trying out a camera to ensure that it’s completely operational.
Ultrafine eXtreme 400 - The cheapest store to buy this film is directly from Ultrafine.
They make chemical developer kits for 35mm color film, so if you process film at home you could have previously interacted with them.
Professional
Kodak Tri-X 400 and Ilford HP-5 Plus 400 are the two most popular black & white 35mm film emulsions. They have a number of traits that are equivalent that make them so well liked, while maintaining unique looks.
Both film emulsions can be pushed 1 or 2 stops and provide great photos. A 35mm roll of film can be shot at ISO 400, 800, or 1600, making them quite flexible.
Ilford HP5 Plus 400 - The fundamental differences are that HP5 Plus is more affordable and has less contrast compared to Tri-X. A lack of contrast can be advantageous because contrast can be adjusted when making a print or through digital processing.
The film stock still appears good when pushed 2-stops. It is also known for having subdued grain.
Kodak Tri-X 400 - This film has a more distinctive rendering. To bring out the traditional grain structure, contrast, and look of the film, it needs to be processed in D-76.
You’re going to unquestionably notice a higher level of contrast with Kodak Tri-X 400. That’s beneficial if it’s the look and feel you want because it means less work when printmaking or during digital processing.
Slide Film
Reversal film, also known as transparency film or slide film, gives you a positive picture. That means a lightbox or projector can be used to display the photos.
This is different from the more often used negative film stocks that create photos that require inverting the colors for the image to be seen.
Slide films are believed to be tough to work with due to the fact slide film has substantially less dynamic range and latitude than negative film.
Kodak Ektachrome 100 - This is a film known for excellent skin tones and fine grain. There’s not any hypersaturation of colors. It has been balanced for daylight.
Fujifilm Velvia 50 - Makes signature looking photos that have high levels of contrast and saturation. It is razor-sharp daylight balanced film emulsion. Compared to all the slide films offered, it has the greatest resolving power.
There’s another emulsion that is ISO 100.
Fujichrome Provia 100F - Offers vibrant and natural colors with medium color saturation and contrast. It is a ultra fine grain film balanced for daylight.
Foma Fomapan R100 - This is a black & white slide film, noted by Fomapan as having very fine grain, higher contrast, and very good resolving power. It’s also billed as a substitute for the discontinued Agfa Scala Film Stock.
Film Basics
Consumer vs Professional Film
Pro film stocks cost more due to the fact that they can more easily be pushed, have improved dynamic range, and latitude.
You should expect a difference in availability. Consumer film emulsions can quite often still be seen in pharmacies and big-box stores in small quantities. Professional film stocks has to be bought from a online or camera store.
ISO
The filml speed is represented by ISO, which may also be regarded as the film’s sensitivity to light.
The less light there is available to capture an image, the higher the film’s ISO will be required. Furthermore, be prepared for more noticeable film grain.
It may be difficult to handhold the OM-10 Quartz with ISO 100 or slower films (ISO 50, ISO 25, etc). This is because if you do not have full sun, the exposure times are going to be longer than what you can handhold without resulting in motion blur.
A flash, tripod, and/or fast lens will assist you with longer exposure times. Using a fast ISO 400 or ISO 800 film probably will make the additional gear unnecessary.
The ISO knob is listed as ASA on the Olympus OM-10 Quartz. The switch to using ISO from ASA (American Standards Association) happened after the creation of the International Standards Organization (ISO).
Film Latitude
Film latitude is the range of stops film can be overexposed while still holding onto adequate quality. Professional film emulsions have a greater latitude to go along with a slightly increased cost.
Negative film has more latitude than transparency film. That is a reason why it is considered harder to shoot.
Dynamic Range
The difference between the brightest and darkest parts of an image is described as dynamic range. Sections of a picture that fall out of this range will be rendered as completely black underexposed shadows or white overexposed highlights.
A larger dynamic range is better since it tends to make working in a variety of lighting conditions easier.
- Digital cameras 14+ stops
- Negative film up to 13 stops
- Slide film 6-8 stops
Slide film is regarded as hard to shoot because of the small dynamic range. Golden hour is the ideal time to use reversal.
Film Type
35mm film that comes in metal canisters is used by the Olympus OM-10 Quartz. The film can also be referred to as 135 film, and it is the most commonly used type of film.
The only other type of film you are likely to encounter is 120 or 220 film that is used in medium format cameras}.
One of the best properties of film is that you can change the film emulsion you work with and get a unique look to your pictures.
DX Coded Film
Almost all new 35mm film sold these days has DX encoding on the canister. This lets electronically controlled cameras to automatically detect and set the ISO when the film canister is put in the camera.
The ISO (ASA) on the Olympus OM-10 Quartz is required to be selected manually. Which means that DX-coding does not make a difference.
Olympus OM-10 Quartz Resources
Where to Get 35mm Film Developed?
There are a handful of options for where to develop 35mm film. For a more comprehensive discussion of the options look at my guide on Where to Get Film Developed.
WARNING: Film is not developed locally at big box stores and pharmacies. They ship the film away to be processed by a separate company. As a result, you won’t be given your 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 what I would suggest doing if you are just beginning to shoot film is to ship your film to a photo lab to be processed and scanned. A disadvantage to this is that it will get very expensive if you are consistently using film.
There are a few actions that you are able to do to greatly reduce the expenses involved in shooting film, on condition that you’re going through a moderate to high volume of film.
Bulk Loading Film
Getting a roll of 100 feet of film and loading in into canisters yourself is certainly one of the most popular methods to get a better price.
A 100’ roll of film should fill around 18 canisters of film with 36 exposures. You should expect to save 20-30% based on your choice.
Keep in mind that you’re going to be limited to bulk rolls of black & white film. This is due to the fact black & white film is a lot easier and less expensive to process yourself.
Home Developing and Scanning
It’s easy to process and scan any film yourself. It is an excellent method to save money so that you can shoot more film with your Olympus OM-10 Quartz.
Black & white film is much less complicated to develop. Chemical temperature and development times are not as essential to get correct with black & white films as time and temperatures are for color negative or transparency film.