Originally posted by pathdoc I bought it; I read it. It's not all that crash-hot in my opinion. It's entertaining to see the visual results with the various films the author tests out, but I was expecting far more information about each film than the author actually gives, especially when he spends the first part of the book describing the excruciatingly exacting testing process he put each film through. Next to that, the lack of detail in the text is disappointing and after a while the film descriptions become a bit repetitive. You can only say "Another great film from..." (insert company here) so many times before people begin to think you've run out of worthwhile things to say and you're padding out. This is especially the case when the images in question sometimes range from the OK to the "What on Earth is this abomination of a film?"
My short analysis: written by hipsters, for hipsters. Cruel, perhaps, but I had been reading "The Negative" earlier that evening and Ansel Adams' level of writing (never mind his photography) leaves it in the dust.
I give it two and a half out of five canisters of expired Kodachrome 25. Not recommended.
I would agree with most of the points in pathdoc's review. However, for $9.99, it will probably save me from trying some films out that I was interested in but now no longer am.
The ebook is organized by film speed. Within speed, the films are ordered alphabetically by manufacturer (whatever that means these days). So BW films appear along with color. And negative films are bundled with slide films. I would have preferred grouping by these categories to facilitate easier comparison within category.
What I find more useful are the head-to-head blog posts and videos out there. The good ones really do a deep-dive into the handful of films they cover. FLAVR tries to be comprehensive. But it ends up only scratching the surface of the films it covers.