The Best 35mm Film in 2024
Film is back, and with its booming popularity, there are a lot of options to try. These are our top picks for the best 35mm film you can find today for a range of use cases.
Film is back, and with its booming popularity, there are a lot of options to try. These are our top picks for the best 35mm film you can find today for a range of use cases.
Once a staple of photography for the general populace, disposable (or “single-use”) cameras have become something of a niche -- most people who never stopped shooting film or those younger audiences who are coming to it for the first time choose to use an affordable SLR or point and shoot camera. The image quality is quite superior and a single roll of film is less expensive (though typically not by much) than a disposable camera.
Photogenic Supply is offering pint glasses that feature a genuine 35mm film canister permanently embedded into the glass. The company's founder Pano Kalo says he collects the discarded cassettes from local film labs and then recycles them into what he calls "beautiful, durable hand-made pint glasses that celebrate a passion for film photography."
Ilford Photo has announced a new Pop-Up Darkroom that gives film photographers the opportunity to develop their prints on-the-go or in any indoor space without needing to convert it.
Ilford Imaging is jumping back into the production of disposable cameras with the announcement of its Ilfocolor Rapid Retro Edition Single Use Camera. The brightly-colored camera supposedly pays homage to Ilford's past with its range of Ilfocolor negative films.
Harman Technologies, the company that manufactures Ilford-brand film, has announced the EZ-35 camera in what appears to be a nod to the days of film point-and-shoots.
Since 1928 Ilford has produced film photography products from its factory in Mobberley, England, though the company itself is much older. In this 18-minute video from Exploredinary, you can get a close, extended view of how the film is made and hear from the scientists and workers who make it happen.
Ilford is reportedly set to release a revival of the 1960s-era Sprite 35 in the $35 Sprite 35-II. Reportedly coming in January, the Sprite 35-II is a reusable point-and-shoot 35mm film camera.
Over the past seven months, Ilford has been publishing a set of helpful "Darkroom Guides" to the How To playlist on the company YouTube channel. The series was created to help film photographers take their "next steps in your black and white darkroom printing journey." If that describes you, then this is one you'll want to bookmark.
The folks running NASCAR's social media accounts gave photographers a good chuckle this week. In a post announcing a big victory by one of its drivers, they mocked up some "contact sheets" of positive color images that look like they were taken with Ilford HP5 Plus black and white film. Oops...
Yesterday, UK-based film manufacturer Ilford released an official company statement regarding its handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic. And while the statement covered all of the important updates, Ilford also took the opportunity to strike a cheeky, lighthearted note.
Harman Technology today announced a number of new products, including ILFORD Ortho Plus film in 35mm and 120 formats, the 5th generation of its popular MULTIGRADE RC paper, and more.
UK-based film and photo paper manufacturer ILFORD Photo has released a new short film titled "Behind the Film" that takes you inside the HARMAN technology factory in the village of Mobberley, England, where all of the ILFORD and Kentmere B&W film, photographic paper and chemicals are made.
ILFORD PHOTO just released this 15-minute short film that looks at the work of Brendan Barry, a large format photographer, lecturer, and camera builder who does unusual work with cameras and photography. It's titled, "The Camera Maker."
If you're looking to get into shooting medium format film but aren't sure which film stock to start with, check out this helpful 16-minute video by The Slanted Lens. Photographer Jay P. Morgan purchased all the B&W and color 120 film rolls he could get his hands on and did a shootout to compare the different looks and qualities.
Ilford recently released a popular 8-minute video on how to process black-and-white film yourself, and now the film company is back again with another helpful crash course on how to make a black-and-white print in a darkroom. If you've never worked in a darkroom before, this intro is a great way to see what it's all about.
If you've never tried your hand at black-and-white film photography before but would like to learn the basics of developing your own film at home, here's a great 8-minute primer that'll get you up to speed.
Back in February, we shared a simple animation made by the film brand Ilford that shows how a film SLR works. It turns out that video was the first in a series of many animations in a playlist titled "Introduction to film photography."
Here's a neat little animation from Harman Technologt, the folks behind the Ilford brand of film, that breaks down exactly how a basic film photography SLR (single lens reflex) camera works.
We all know a knockoff when we see it. Fake Rolexes, certain Russian motorcycles, and pretty much anything bought off of a street cart in Hong Kong, these poor quality imitators just can’t match their real deal counterparts. It’s no different in the world of film. And one film in particular has garnered a reputation for being just such a cheap copy—Ilford HP5 Plus.
If you enjoy injecting analog warmth into your digital photographs, then you may want to check out the new RNI Films app for iOS. Developed by Really Nice Images, the application allows mobile photographers to apply realistic film simulations to their images with a few taps. Similar to the company’s film pack for Lightroom, RNI Films comes with a collection of real negative, slide, instant, vintage, and monochrome film stocks for you to simulate.
Ilford, a company known for their high quality black and white photographic films, has announced that they will begin to manufacture once again their Harman Direct Positive Fiber Paper.
The paper had disappeared from the market in 2013 when the emulsion used to craft the paper had become no longer available due to a sale of one of Ilford’s Switzerland-based factories. The direct positive fiber paper, which is used for pinhole photography, is now back due to demand and being manufactured at the company’s Mobberley plant in England.
The debate between analog and digital may never end, but there can be a happy medium. One of the reasons that analog continues to live on is due to the wondrous ‘color profiles’ that one can find in different packages of film, along with their unique grain profiles. VSCO, a company that designs presets for Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop, has released their latest collection “VSCO FILM 07” - the eclectic films package.
Last month we shared a news segment that explored the renaissance that appears to be happening in the world of analog photography. Now a new poll is backing that idea up with statistics.
Nearly a third of film photographers are younger than 35 years of age, and "support for traditional film is growing," says Ilford Photo. The company, best known for its analog photo products, reported these findings after doing an international survey of film users.
Earlier this week, when stumbled across this two-hour presentation by iconic portrait photographer Greg Heisler, it took all the will power we had not to share it with you right away. In our world, being the "first" to report on a story is often very important, and it's an impulse we often have to resist because we're intent on getting the story right.
In this case, however, it had nothing to do with getting the story right and everything to do with sharing it at a time when we felt the majority of our readers would have enough time to watch the video from start to finish. Two hours is a long time to listen to one photographer speak, but in the case of Gregory Heisler, we think you'll find it's not nearly long enough.
Good news isn't always easy to come by in the world of film; more often than not, the stories we run have to do with film being discontinued. But that's not always the case, and the most recent news out of Ilford should give film lovers something to smile about.
Thanks to the prevalence of digital photography and the fact that camera stores seem to be closing left and right, it can be hard enough to find film in the first place these days. But if you shoot with ultra large or specialty format films, your job is even more difficult. Thankfully, Ilford is here to help.
Harman technologies Inc. -- the folks behind the manufacture of Ilford film -- are opening their annual window during which photographers can order as much custom-manufactured specialty film as their hearts desire.
The camera film industry may be struggling, but there are certain segments that are still profitable. One such niche is the one-time-use disposable film camera market, and Ilford Photo wants a piece of the pie. The company, which makes widely used films, papers, and chemicals, announced two new black & white disposable cameras today.
Since 2005, photographer and photography lecturer Robert Burley has been documenting the demise of film photography through film photographs. He has traveled around the world with his 4x5 field camera in tow, capturing the demolition of buildings, the equipment that once powered a giant industry, and the desolation of factories that were once teeming with workers.
The photograph above shows a crowd watching the implosions of buildings 65 and 69 at Kodak Park in Rochester, New York on October 6, 2007.
Film usually comes in pretty boring boxes, but what if you could reuse those boxes as a pinhole camera? Designer Linna Xu won the Packaging category of the 2010 Adobe Design Achievement Awards with this concept, creating these awesome boxes for Ilford medium format film that double as pinhole cameras resembling old school twin-lens reflex cameras. Each box allows users to explore the world of medium format photography without even having a medium format camera!