Film in 2022: which Russian film is better to shoot on | Articles | Photo, video, optics

Pho­to labs open one by one, more and more peo­ple want to shoot on film. But 2022 is plung­ing into a new real­i­ty. Pho­to­graph­ic film becomes more expen­sive, deliv­er­ies of Kodak, Fuji and oth­er for­eign man­u­fac­tur­ers are ques­tion­able. We under­stand what the Russ­ian mar­ket is ready to offer to the ama­teur pho­tog­ra­ph­er: domes­tic pho­to­graph­ic films and every­thing you need to know about them.

TASMA

Image: tasma.ru

Kazan pro­duc­tion was found­ed in 1933. Enter­prise them. Kuiby­shev at var­i­ous times pro­duced aer­i­al film (for mil­i­tary pur­pos­es), film in response to the grow­ing demand from Sovi­et direc­tors, and even mag­net­ic tape for record­ing music. In 1974, the enter­prise was renamed Tas­ma (from Tatar Pho­to­sen­si­tive Mate­ri­als).

Tas­ma con­tin­ues to oper­ate and pro­duces var­i­ous film mate­ri­als from vac­u­um bags to radi­ograph­ic films and chem­i­cals. For pho­tog­ra­phers, there are sev­er­al options at once: buy film loaded into reels or pur­chase aer­i­al film. Tas­ma sells the lat­ter only in reels, but many pho­to labs and shops make bulk pur­chas­es and sell their own wind­ings.

1. Tasma NK‑2

Film type: black and white.
ISO: 100.
Process: D‑76.
Corn: high.
Con­trast: high.

Pros: high con­trast and good detail­ing at the lev­el of import­ed films.

Minus­es: sen­si­tive to over­ex­po­sure and under­ex­po­sure. Accord­ing­ly, it is bet­ter to pro­tect it from bright sun­ny days and the dark time of the day.

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: lafilledeer

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: bobrolov

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: flamin­goid

2. Tasma Type-42L

Film type: aer­i­al film.
ISO: nom­i­nal­ly stat­ed as 1000–1400, how­ev­er most shoot it as 400 with push/pull process­es dur­ing devel­op­ment.
Process: D‑76.
Corn: aver­age.
Con­trast: high.

Pros: more light sen­si­tive com­pared to 25L. Gives high-qual­i­ty detail, not infe­ri­or to import­ed films.

Minus­es: very pho­to­sen­si­tive, can give light on the first two frames. There­fore, it is rec­om­mend­ed to even charge in a dark room and store in a dark place. In addi­tion, the film has a very thin sub­strate, so it requires care­ful load­ing into the cam­era.

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: mma­li­na

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: gorics

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: facein­col­or

3.Tasma Type-25L

Film type: aer­i­al film.
ISO: adver­tised as 125, how­ev­er many peo­ple shoot it in the range of 100 to 800 fol­lowed by a push/pull process.
Process: D‑76.
Corn: pet­ty.
Con­trast: high.

Pros: despite the high con­trast, it gives good detail, very sharp.

Minus­es: very pho­to­sen­si­tive, can give light on the first two frames. There­fore, it is rec­om­mend­ed to even charge in a dark room and store in a dark place. In addi­tion, the film has a very thin sub­strate, so it requires care­ful load­ing into the cam­era.

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: ketiluft­waaffe

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: freemute

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: almast_a_kiss

SILBERRA

Pho­to: indiegogo.com

The com­pa­ny appeared on the Russ­ian mar­ket in 2017. Sil­ber­ra is a com­mu­ni­ty of pho­to enthu­si­asts who shoot on film them­selves, love ana­log pho­tog­ra­phy and have spent over 10 years work­ing with var­i­ous pho­to­graph­ic mate­ri­als to come up with the final prod­uct. The com­pa­ny pro­duces pho­to­graph­ic film, devel­op­ing reagents, pho­to­graph­ic paper for print­ing and oth­er relat­ed prod­ucts.

1. Silberra U200

Film type: black and white.
ISO: nom­i­nal­ly 200, but the man­u­fac­tur­er empha­sizes that the film can be exposed as 100, 200 or 400.
Process: D‑76.
Corn: pet­ty.
Con­trast: high.

Pros: a high-qual­i­ty domes­tic response to many Euro­pean films. Gives a con­trast­ing pic­ture with a small, mixed grain. Images are sharp with­out los­ing detail in the shad­ows. Due to the use of both “bulk” and “flat” crys­tals in the emul­sion, it has a pecu­liar char­ac­ter of the image.

Minus­es: The film has a spe­cial pro­tec­tive lay­er and is pro­duced on a thin sub­strate. This is fraught with light on the first two frames, so you only need to charge and store the Sil­ber­ra U200 in a dark room.

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: erwartung

Pho­to: d‑76.ru

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: nikita_skubelko

2.Silberra U400

Film type: black and white.
ISO: nom­i­nal­ly 400, but the man­u­fac­tur­er empha­sizes that the film can also be exposed as 200 or 800 fol­lowed by a push/pull process dur­ing devel­op­ment.
Process: D‑76.
Corn: high.
Con­trast: high.

Pros: despite the high con­trast, the film has high-qual­i­ty detail even in the shad­ow areas, and the mid­tones are sat­u­rat­ed. Pic­tures from the U400 do not hurt the eyes with both grain and high con­trast. Just in mod­er­a­tion. As pho­tog­ra­phers say: Ilford lev­el film.

Minus­es: The film has a spe­cial pro­tec­tive lay­er and is pro­duced on a thin sub­strate. This is fraught with light on the first two frames, so you only need to charge and store the Sil­ber­ra U400 in a dark room.

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: kirill_kern

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: men­no­zo

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: kirill_kern

3. Silberra Pan50

Film type: black and white.
ISO: fifty.
Process: D‑76.
Corn: excep­tion­al­ly low.
Con­trast: aver­age.

Pros: Due to extra-low grain and the use of emul­sion, which is used for video sur­veil­lance films, Pan50 has strong detail and pro­vides excel­lent repro­duc­tion of halftones in the image. In addi­tion, due to a spe­cial emul­sion, the film is able to pro­duce high-qual­i­ty results when shoot­ing in fog and at night. A ver­sa­tile option for street pho­tog­ra­phy, por­traits, land­scapes and archi­tec­ture.

Minus­es: The film is sen­si­tive to the red and infrared col­or spec­trum. In addi­tion, when shoot­ing with arti­fi­cial light­ing, it does not always give a guar­an­teed result. When work­ing with stu­dio sources, it requires a very care­ful approach to the tem­per­a­ture, pow­er and posi­tion of these sources.

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: vuori

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: abb­sound

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: art­house

4. Silberra Pan100

Film type: black and white.
ISO: 100.
Process: D‑76.
Corn: excep­tion­al­ly low.
Con­trast: aver­age.

Pros: a spe­cial emul­sion is used in the pro­duc­tion, which pro­vides rich mid­tones and strong detail in the images. As pho­tog­ra­phers note, due to the extreme­ly low grain, it can some­times give the impres­sion that the pic­ture was tak­en with a dig­i­tal cam­era. The film is uni­ver­sal: with all its char­ac­ter­is­tics, it is suit­able for almost any type of shoot­ing.

Minus­es: when shoot­ing with arti­fi­cial light­ing, it does not always give a guar­an­teed result. In a stu­dio envi­ron­ment, it requires a very care­ful approach to tem­per­a­ture, pow­er and the posi­tion of light sources. In addi­tion, the Pan100 has a very thin back­ing that can be torn if you’re not care­ful. Requires care­ful charg­ing into the cam­era and wind­ing into a coil.

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: vicu­na

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: nadi­ag­nr

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: mazarb

5.Silberra Pan160

Film type: black and white.
ISO: 160.
Process: D‑76.
Corn: excep­tion­al­ly low.
Con­trast: aver­age

Pros: the con­fi­dent con­trast, fine grain and emul­sion char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Pan series make this a ver­sa­tile film. Suit­able for por­traits, land­scapes, street and reportage.

Minus­es: in dif­fused light and cloudy weath­er, it can go into gray tones and lose the declared con­trast. Arti­fi­cial light also requires care­ful atten­tion, as the film is designed for nat­ur­al day­light.

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: malcolm_tremain

Pho­to: d‑76.ru

Pho­to: d‑76.ru

6. Silberra Color100

Film type: neg­a­tive col­or.
ISO: 100.
Process: C‑41.
Corn: pet­ty.
Con­trast: aver­age.

Pros: despite the mod­er­ate ISO, the film has suf­fi­cient con­trast and strong col­or repro­duc­tion (the film also lends itself well to push/pull process­es dur­ing devel­op­ment). The col­ors are warm, the col­ors are sat­u­rat­ed.

Minus­es: may go into cold shades, which will require adjust­ment of the col­or bal­ance after devel­op­ment. The best result will show only with suf­fi­cient nat­ur­al light.

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: rid­dix­pho­to

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: zhikova_da

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: wahi­ba

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: johbeil

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: men­no­zo

7.Silberra Color160

Film type: neg­a­tive col­or.
ISO: 160.
Process: C‑41.
Corn: pet­ty.
Con­trast: aver­age.

Pros: as pho­tog­ra­phers note, the com­bi­na­tion of all fac­tors makes this film sim­i­lar in palette to Kodak Por­tra and Kodak Gold200. Images are warm, soft, with medi­um con­trast and con­fi­dent detail.

Minus­es: Col­or 160 is avail­able on a thin sub­strate and with a spe­cial emul­sion. As the com­pa­ny notes, this may be fraught with light expo­sure of the first two frames. There­fore, load­ing the film into the cam­era requires extreme cau­tion: it is best to do this in a dark room.

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: aciano

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: solairerove

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: plugde­sign­er

TYPE D

Pho­to: foqusstore.com

A new film released by enthu­si­as­tic pho­tog­ra­phers from Moscow with the sup­port of Foqus pho­to lab in St. Peters­burg. This is a com­plete­ly Russ­ian pro­duc­tion, includ­ing water­ing with emul­sion. It’s no secret that a num­ber of domes­tic man­u­fac­tur­ers of pho­to­graph­ic mate­ri­als out­source this stage in Europe.

On the one hand, Russ­ian pro­duc­tion gives Type D film a sol­id rep­u­ta­tion as an afford­able prod­uct that you can con­tin­ue to shoot with. On the oth­er hand, such pro­duc­tion impos­es a num­ber of fea­tures, and it is still too ear­ly to put the film on a par with major world play­ers.

Film type: black and white.
ISO: 200.
Process: D‑76.
Corn: strong.
Con­trast: extreme­ly high.

Pros: low cost film. In addi­tion, you can note a good tonal range in the pic­tures. Under the right con­di­tions, you can get con­trast­ing, graph­ic images with good elab­o­ra­tion of lights and shad­ows.

Minus­es: the first is a thin sub­strate, which can be seen in many domes­tic films. With such mate­r­i­al you need to be care­ful. Sec­ond­ly, the man­u­fac­tur­er notes that dur­ing pro­duc­tion, the emul­sion is not always even­ly dis­trib­uted over the film. This can give chaot­ic “dots” in the pic­tures. They do not always meet, and they are work­ing on this prob­lem. The third minus of the film is also its speci­fici­ty: the images are high-con­trast and with notice­able grain. There­fore, “Type D” is def­i­nite­ly not one of the uni­ver­sal films for any type of shoot­ing.

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: ole­man

Pho­to: foqusstore.com

Pho­to: Lomography.com / User: ole­man

Pho­to: foqusstore.com