[artrasa]

Hi all,

having shot regular, cheap (but still good) colour negative films with my Pentax Spotmatic for many years, I've been thinking about trying some entirely different film type for a change. I recently joined a photo club where I have access to the development equipment for black & white and colour films. I'm interested in long exposures and enjoy working with a tripod. Do you think very low ISO films would be perfect for me to experiment with this style of photography?


I found that Lomography produces some ISO 13 (Babylon Kino) and ISO 8 (Fantôme Kino) monochrome films that seem interesting. Film Photography Project has many low ISO films with speeds down ISO 0.8, but those might be unavailable as I don't live in the States.


Do you have any experience with very low ISO films? I'd be delighted to hear about them.

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Last edited by artrasa; 06-22-2021 at 01:21 AM. Reason: Typo fix

[Viking42]

I have had wonderful results with Ilford PanF developed in Perceptol. While it's box speed is 50, using Perceptol (a metol-only developer) diluted 1+1, causes a further loss in speed which is inherent to this developer. So I expose it at iso 25 but develop as if for iso 50 for a bit more punch, and find it gives lovely tonality and virtually no grain. My go-to landscape film-developer combination. At iso 25 and a colour filter to drop the exposure another stop, you can get some pretty long exposure times - enough for nice waterfall streamers, for example.

I have read that this film must be developed very soon (a few days) after shooting or it will start to lose it's latent image and the negs may come out thin. I have never had this problem as I shoot 120 roll film and develop reasonably promptly as a matter of course, but I thought you should know. If you are one to load a roll of 135-36 into your camera and then leave it there for 6 months before you finish it, then this film may not be the best for you :-)

Hope this helps.

[fs999]

I use Adox CMS 20. You can expose it at 6 ISO, or if needed, I add ND filters to have very long exposures.

[stevebrot]

One term comes to my mind in regards to low speed films..."reciprocity failure".


Steve

[AgentL]

I have a few rolls of Rollei 25, but I haven't figured out exactly how I want to use it.

[Qwntm]

I shot a lot of AGFA APX 25 back in the day. Developed in Rodinal 1:100 for 20 minutes. Lovely stuff.

[Apet-Sure]

I found that Lomography produces some ISO 13 (Babylon Kino) and ISO 8 (Fantôme Kino) monochrome films that seem interesting. Film Photography Project has many low ISO films with speeds down ISO 0.8

At speeds that low, wouldn't it be faster to get some paper and pencils and sketch the scene?

[Wheatfield]

At speeds that low, wouldn't it be faster to get some paper and pencils and sketch the scene?

Six stops slower than Panatomix X. Cool.
When I was shooting 4x5, I rated Pan F at ISO 6. Exposure times were rarely less than half a minute.

[clickclick]

I can't say I've worked with film as slow as you're talking about, but why not just go for it? You really don't have much to loose, and bet you'll enjoy it when done.

[DWS1]

I used to shoot a lot of ASA 25 back in the day. That's as low as I ever remember seeing. Don't remember the brand.

[disconnekt]

Since you're in Finland, I suggest checking out Analogue Wonderland, they have the Lomography & FPP films you mentioned for sale (Buy 35mm Film Online | Over 125 films Available | Analogue Wonderland), along with a wide variety of other films

[niels hansen]

Pollei 25 iis very familiaer to the discontinued Agfa pa 25. Rollei also has an ortocromaic film, extreme sharp. Look at Macodirect.de
Be aware that brexit may give taxes

[AgentL]

I shot a lot of AGFA APX 25 back in the day. Developed in Rodinal 1:100 for 20 minutes. Lovely stuff.

Interesting, that seems a short time for such diluted developer. It came out okay, though? Might give it a try.

[LesDMess]

Curious why slow film and very long exposures? Shooting during daylight and getting long exposures? What do you mean by long exposures - seconds, minutes, hours?

As an example, I shot this Fuji 100 color negative during the daytime at 4 seconds even though the meter suggested 1/15 - overexposed by 6 stops, knowing the film can handle the overexposure without requiring pull processing or much scan/post work because most all color film can handle a great deal of overexposure. I needed the long exposure for the water to "fill-in" since it wasn't flowing much that day. This makes this ISO100 fiilm essentially ISO1.5 . . .



When I say a great deal of overexposure, I mean I can overexpose Kodak Portra 400 +10 stops and still get usable results without compensating for it in film processing with only. As you can see below, I took that +10 overexposed frame and did minor levels and white balance.



At that time, I had just started using Kodak Ektar 100 and wasn't sure how much overexposure it could handle since it was supposed to be a more contrasty film so I didn't push it past +5. Since then I have found it can handle as much overexposure as Kodak Portra 400 and don't hesitate overexposing it as needed.

[Qwntm]

Interesting, that seems a short time for such diluted developer. It came out okay, though? Might give it a try.

Yes, it worked great for landscapes.