Alas, all we find is an old roll of film.

But if we’re lucky, that roll of film is Panatomic X, because unlike old, expired color film, Panatomic X is often usable (and able to make excellent photos) even fifty years after its date of expiry!

Kodak Panatomic X was first created in 1933 as an ASA (ISO) 25 sheet film for making photos in which a high level of detail was required (aerial photography, professional editorial, scientific applications, etc.). It was designed to be a fine-grained, extremely sharp panchromatic black-and-white film for making extremely large prints.

Later, its sensitivity would be increased slightly to ASA 32. Even at this higher sensitivity, Panatomic X remained the slowest of the Kodak X series of black-and-white films, slower than the faster Plus X, Super XX, and Tri X.

The film was discontinued at some point in the 1940s, only for Kodak to bring it back in the late 1950s. After that, Panatomic X would remain in production for decades, until in the late 1980s or early ’90s, it was definitively discontinued.

Making the Photos

It was in just such a dusty camera bag that I found one old roll of Kodak Panatomic X. The box was stamped with an expiration date of 1970, which placed my roll’s age somewhere around 55 years. I held the film for a moment and wondered.

In late 2019, I’d stumbled upon a similarly aged roll of Kodak Plus X Pan in much the same way. That roll of film was forty-or-so years old, and yet it had made pretty good pictures. My experience with that roll of film even resulted in a well-loved article, an article as interested in film photography as it was in pets, kids, life, and living it.

Would this slower, older film make decent pictures, too?

The camera bag in which I’d found my new old roll of film contained a number of other things. Notably, a Canon EOS Elan II, one of the best, most advanced 35mm film cameras that Canon ever developed. Which is not what I would have expected.

How, I wondered, did this roll of film end up with a Canon EOS camera made sometime between 1995 and 2000? Even then, this roll of film was almost 30 years old.

Weird. But then, the whole world is weird.

It can be easy to fall into the trap of perceiving that old things are precious. I might have looked at this fifty-year-old roll of film and said, “No. Not today. Today is not special. I must await a special moment.”

Perhaps that’s how this roll of film survived to the 2020s. Who knows.

But things are meant to be enjoyed, or at least experienced, and on the very day that I unpacked my new old Canon EOS Elan II and discovered the barnacle of film clinging to its underside, I knew its days as an unexposed emulsion were over. Later that morning, my kids and wife and I went for a walk. The Canon went with me, loaded with a fifty-year-old roll of film.

The waterfront at Plymouth, Massachusetts is a funny place. Superficial wisdom would have us think that it’s where the United States was born, where the Mayflower sidled up to the coast, and where The Pilgrims first set foot on American land in 1620.

Plymouth Rock, the rock upon which the Pilgrims placed their wiggly toes upon first disembarkation, is cradled within a majestic granite monument, which probably cost millions of dollars to make. There’s a towering statue of a Native American (which, I add without comment, was erected by a white’s only, men only club known as the Improved Order of Red Men), and an exact replica of the Mayflower which can be toured for $18 a person.

There’s a Hawaiian-themed smoothie bar. There’s a guy who endlessly plays a flute, but the only song he knows is Under the Sea from Disney’s The Little Mermaid. There’s a cupcake shop sitting within the perpetual stinking miasma of the active commercial fish pier. On the day that I most recently visited, there was a sword-fighting instructor conducting classes upon one of the many small park spaces. He had a two-handed broadsword and what appeared to be hockey pads, and he was being repeatedly and noncommittally slashed by his apprentices, one of which was wearing a Naruto t-shirt and cargo shorts.

See? Funny place.

I’m just here to take pictures.

Kodak Panatomic X is slow. At ISO 32, it’s going to need a lot of light, and since my roll of film is fifty years old with an expiration date of—

Uh oh! Hold on. Am I about to mention the expired film rule? The decades? The exposure compensation? Am I, really?

Yes. I am. But only to once again lambast it as being nearly as absurd as brandishing a broadsword in a public park on a sunny Sunday morning. The “over-expose by one stop for every decade past expiration” rule needs to die.

Think about it. I need to set my exposure compensation on an ASA 32 roll of film to plus 5. That’s what the rule says. Plus 5? Do the people who spout this nonsense know what an image made at +5 looks like? Because I’ve included one in this review. And here it is.

For results like this, remember to definitely adjust your exposure +1 for every decade that your expired film has aged.

The truth about shooting expired film is this. It’s very simple. To shoot expired film, any expired film, over-expose the film by one stop. Just one. A single stop, regardless of when the film expired. Set the exposure compensation dial to +1, or do it manually. After that, just meter normally, shoot normally, develop normally, and expect the worst.

I mounted a 28mm Canon EF lens to the EOS Elan II. It’s a fast prime lens with a wide focal length that I enjoy shooting. It’s modern, with excellent optical coatings, all-encompassing depth of field, and a fast aperture for use in low light. Great lens, great camera, old film – a nice combination.

I spent the day walking about with my kids and wife. We went into some shops. Touched some plants. Ate and drank some sensible yet delicious refreshments. I even found a Nikon film camera for sale in an antique shop for just $25.

Wow. What a day. The only thing that could ruin it is if I botched developing the film.

Developing the Film

Much as I’m repulsed by the expired film over-exposure rule, so too do I reject over-thinking film development.

I don’t imply that those careful, meticulous photographers who can recognize the difference between a negative developed at 78 degrees versus one developed at 74 degrees are wrong to be so meticulous and careful. I’m only admitting that I’m not among them.

My development process with this film was identical to my development process with any film (black and white). I look at Kodak’s data sheet (archived here by the ever-generous Mike Eckman), I look at Massive Dev Chart’s site, I take their recommendations for time (if available – if not, as was the case here, I default to my randomly-selected and largely uneducated guess time of 9 minutes), add about a minute when developing expired film, use whatever developer I find under my bathroom sink, and I develop the film.

In this case, I developed with Ilford Ilfosol 3, mixed 9:1 with water that felt as warm as the air in my bathroom. I developed for about ten minutes with agitation for the first thirty seconds of the first minute, and then further agitation for just fifteen seconds every minute afterward. I rinsed and fixed at 9:1, for five minutes.

After that, I use Lightroom to edit (read: ruin) every picture I make.

Those meticulous and careful photographers that I mentioned earlier might look at my images and fret that the highlights are blown out, or that the shadow detail is lacking. But for me, the resulting images are better than I could expect from a fifty-year-old film.

Not bad, Kodak. Not bad.

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Until now, the only Ferrania film that’s come to fruition has been their historic panchromatic 80 ISO black-and-white film known as Ferrania P30 (in 35mm and, most recently, 120 format). But this year on the 29th of March, Ferrania announced its second product. Called Ferrania Orto, the new film is an orthochromatic 50 ISO black-and-white film. 

Not without pride and, dare I say, a pinch of defiance, Ferrania presents its newborn film stock, telling us that “the past century’s problems are today’s features!” To unobtrusively allude to the creative potential of Orto, the company describes it as “P30’s quirky cousin.” A film which simply can’t see red light. So, knowing already the distinctive features of P30, one would expect the new Orto as well to render virtually the same high contrast and low grain images, though with very dark reds.

But what is Orto actually all about?

A Bit of Context

As a matter of fact, orthochromatic film isn’t new. It’s been around since the late 19th century, and introducing a modern orthochromatic emulsion today may seem a bit nostalgic, even anachronistic.

Back in the day, orthochromatic film was the only available option, and it posed a lot of problems for the production of motion pictures. For one thing, due to its reduced sensitivity to the light spectrum, this early blue- and green-sensitive emulsion wasn’t particularly good at rendering skin tones. Thus, only the extension of its spectral sensitivity to the red light enabled a more accurate representation of the colors on the light spectrum. This deficiency of early emulsions may partly explain why there are only a few orthochromatic film stocks still available today. 

Arguably the most popular, or at least the most commonly available orthochromatic film stocks here in Europe, are Ilford Ortho+ 80 and Rollei Ortho 25, making the new Ferrania Orto fit roughly in the middle between them with its declared sensitivity of 50 ISO. The same is also true for the price of Orto, which lies somewhere between Ferrania’s main competitors. Here in Italy you can usually find it for about €11,5. [In the USA it costs $11.99, a dollar more than Ilford Ortho+ and about the same as Rollei’s ortho film.]

However, Ferrania, unlike Ilford and Rollei, is known to be shy about revealing any technical information about their film. Thus, apart from its nominal sensitivity and some published development recommendations, we don’t have much data to consider.

We may however expect Orto to have a similar spectral sensitivity curve, and therefore similar performance to that of Rollei Ortho and Ilford Ortho+. It is an orthochromatic film, after all. But having no experience with either of its competitors, I won’t speculate any further on the possible similarities between them and Ferrania Orto. Instead, I’m going to write about my thoughts on the latter after shooting and developing at home two rolls of this new film stock. 

Dungeness Architecture Shot with a Yashica Mat and Ilford Ortho Plus

"Don't go to Dungeness, it's bleak as hell and everyone lives in sheds." Despite the warning, I went, and shot the place on film...

Before Orto

For the last six months or so I’ve been almost exclusively shooting black-and-white film, mostly Fomapan 100 in 35mm. What started at first as a choice of convenience (on this side of the Atlantic the prices of film have been going crazy) soon became my loyal companion for everyday casual shooting. I’ve gradually grew quite fond of Fomapan’s grainy and unpretentious look, which makes it well suited for taking gritty images on the street. Besides, the low price and widespread availability of Fomapan makes it a great black-and-white film to get started with film photography.

However, I must admit that Fomapan 100 is by no means a perfect film. It is too grainy for such a slow emulsion, it often struggles to accurately record high contrast scenes, and it has a pretty nasty glowing effect around strong light sources. Couple this list of imperfections with the fact that Fomapan is actually a panchromatic film, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a more distinct film stock to Ferrania’s Orto. That’s why, when I my trusted local film store happened to receive a fresh batch of Ferrania Orto, I jumped at the opportunity to take a break from Fomapan and try something completely different.

I haven’t shot all the black-and-white film on the market; not even close. Except for Fomapan, I’ve only shot Agfa APX in both 100 and 400 ISO, and had some rather sporadic experience of shooting the widely praised  and long gone Fuji Acros II, but only in medium format. Needless to say, I’m not going to directly compare Ferrania Orto to the long list of black-and-white films, though I may mention a couple of instances where it stands out. 

My Experience with Ferrania Orto 

Bearing in mind all the peculiarities and quirks of Orto, I thought it would be interesting to see how it performs in a number of different settings. Most importantly, I was curious to see how it renders reds compared to other colors. So, I waited for a sunny day to feed a fresh roll of Ferrania Orto into my trusty Nikon FM2, and set off on the quest for red-colored subjects. 

Even though Ferrania doesn’t recommend using Orto for street photography because of its relatively slow speed, I found out that with enough light and reasonably steady hands I could still make rather decent pictures on the move. It applies not only to still objects like road signs, buildings and flowers on a windless day, but also to such erratic subjects as dogs. I could even freeze a flying bird’s wings right in the air.

Moving on to colors, the reds, as expected, turned out pretty dark. For instance, they are almost indistinguishable from originally black lettering on the road signs. I even attempted to take a picture of a red flower on a kitchen table using my tripod to avoid any camera shake. Even being hit with a strong beam of light, the red flower’s petals are still rendered by Orto almost like their own deep black shadow. 

The blues and greens, on the other hand, tend to be over-exposed, and I should’ve considered it before photographing seascapes. Unfortunately, since I was going to develop both of my rolls at once after I had shot them, I couldn’t see the negatives beforehand and correct my exposure accordingly. As a result, it’s almost impossible to see the horizon line between the sky and the water in the seascape shot that I made. Overall, skies on Orto are lacking tonal gradation, and are often rendered as very bright blank spaces. 

Finally, being aware of the limits of Orto, I took only a couple of portraits to see how it renders caucasian skin tones. I wasn’t expecting too much from those photos, but I kind of liked the results, since they have that early-cinema look to them. That being said, I don’t think I will take portraits on Orto if I ever get my hands on it again. Instead, I’d rather go shoot some more landscapes where this film could really shine.

[Words and images in this article are kindly provided by Daler Fergani, whose photography can be seen here.]

Ferrania P30 Alpha Film Profile, plus we chat with FILM Ferrania US Director David Bias

FILM Ferrania is a unique company with a unique product. The Italian cinema film maker reached their peak of influence in the mid-twentieth century, and their first new product since a 2014 resurrection is a 35mm stills film with roots in a hand-written formula dating to 1958. Ferrania P30 Alpha is a fine grain, ISO […]

Development charts

Although for the time being there’s no datasheet available for Orto, Ferrania was kind enough to provide us with some recommended development practices for this film stock. As a side note, they are virtually the same of P30, to which Orto “is chemically similar.”

After consulting the chart, I decided to develop both rolls at once in Rodinal 1:50 diluition at 20°C for 14 minutes. Then, I digitized all the negatives using my mirrorless Fujifilm camera and an adapted lens, the same Voigtländer 40mm f/2 with which I took almost all the photos for this article.

What is there for a Casual Photographer?

Felix Bielser, CEO of an Italian film retailer Punto Foto Group, told in his recent interview that bringing back an old orthochromatic film is to offer something different, something that stands out from the rest of the film photography industry. And I have to admit it, he’s got a point. The reduced light sensitivity to the red spectrum of Ferrania Orto does offer us a distinct new / old look. I believe that many of us would go for this different look. You may like it or not, but Ferrania Orto has its own character, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s definitely worth a try.

But even more importantly, and I guess it may sound a bit odd, for me the experience of shooting Orto was more about learning to care about colors. The knowledge about this film’s blindness to the red color prompted me to deliberately look out for it while I was shooting. The awareness of the idiosyncrasies of Orto made me slow down and opt for a more mindful shooting workflow. 

I understand that our film community hasn’t been pampered lately by film manufacturers, and some of us may have become a bit impatient, especially when having to deal with all the inconvenience of this odd hobby of ours. I’m sure that we’ve all been there, trying to be patient and not give up hope in the future of film photography. But the fact that after all these years a small company such as Ferrania has managed to make available another film emulsion should help us to be a little bit more hopeful and to keep making pictures.

If there’s something at all that I’ve learned since I got into film photography, it’s that it takes a hell lot of time to see the results of your work, and it defenitely leaves no room for impatience. So, if I have to wait for another three years to try out a new film emulsion, I’ll do it. Because, in the meantime, I’ll still be able to shoot my good old Fomapan.

Buy Film Ferrania Orto from B&H Photo

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Daler Fergani is a full time shutterbug and a language fiend who never leaves home without a film camera and a good old paper book. In between photographic escapades, Daler tries to work on PhD research in Linguistics. To enjoy more of Daler’s images, please visit Instagram here.

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One day Matt would do his brotherly duty of driving me to elementary school while blaring some rap song about how he doesn’t need her. And then the next day he would slam my bedroom door shut and tell me to not go into the living room under any circumstances.

But the landline rang. Picking up a call in the kitchen wouldn’t count. After all, what if it was mom off work early and in the McDonald’s drive-through? Or what if some overseas prince needed our financial help?

“Hello?”

“Yeah, can I speak to Matt?”

I was the obedient type. What can I say?

I took off running… with the phone still in my hand. As I turned the corner to the living room, the phone box ripped from the wall. The loud crash interrupted their fervent make-out session, and we all shared what felt like an eternity’s worth of eye contact.

We never got another landline.

Robert Adams photographed with intention. He said “Beauty for me is a word for wholeness. So as a photographer, I am looking for the places where all the pieces fit together.”

But what about those phone lines? Sure, they are graphically pleasing. Neatly maintained and terminating behind the Frontier sign. But they are firmly out of Adams’ authority as the photographer.

He controls the shutter. Maybe at the time of the shutter snap, a piece of audio was frozen into the wire of a young Colorado Springs high school student recounting his day to his girlfriend across time. Had he waited a few more seconds before clicking the shutter, possibly we would catch her reply. Different pieces of the puzzle are both connected and separated by time — the tool of Adams’ authority.

I don’t think Adams would mind the charge. He was a leader of the New Topographics movement, which was a crew of photographers who hoped to photograph formally without the earmarks and baggage of “style.”

So what voice gives a work authenticity? And what can the power of a voice mean to a photographer who aims to be devoid of style?

Some things seem certain, at least under the supposition that Adams wasn’t a photo-realistic painter, didn’t have access to a computer with 3D graphics, and abided by his own pledge of photographic honesty. We know from the caption that this photo was taken at Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1969. We can presume it is a Frontie gas station due to the large sign.

Our presumption would be wrong. Frontie gas stations didn’t exist. Of course, a grasp of English could have led you to the final “r,” which is beyond the edge of the frame, to complete the brand name Frontier. The authenticity and truth of the image remain firm due to lived experience and knowledge. But to a non-American viewer, authenticity could quickly shift to deception, and Adams’ choice to not take ten steps back becomes not only a matter of style but a conflict of story and motive. Perhaps authenticity isn’t only rooted in the decisions of the documentarian but also in the knowledge and predisposition of the viewer.

My brother? He never heard the phone ring. He thought the whole incident was my failed attempt at meddling in his business. In the end, both were true. But whose responsibility is the truth?

Adams felt a responsibility to the natural land we occupy. He aimed to be a stenographer of its demise as a cost of humanity’s progress.

The photograph begs for silence. It begs for care. If we drive by quietly, the gas station will stay there. The phone lines won’t move. The people won’t get back in their cars, press the gas pedal, and spray more exhaust into our air.

Adams puts it like this: “What will America be? Will it accord with the stillness of sunlight?”

Adams gives his documentary work the responsibility of asking the question. Who answers? In this case, progress.

That gas station isn’t there anymore from what I can find, and my cell phone takes my voice to space.

Our guest posts are submitted by amazing photographers and writers all over the world.

Today’s Guest Post was submitted by…

Lukas Flippo is a first-generation low-income student at Yale University from rural Mississippi. Lukas is a photojournalist, with work appearing in the New York Times, TIME, IndyStar, and the Sun Herald. Lukas’ work, including a series on found photos, can be seen at Lukas’ website.

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Similarly when Cinestill released their black and white cinema film, BwXX (Double X), in medium format (it had previously only been available in 35mm) the film world went bonkers! Or, at the very least, I went bonkers!

Cinestill BwXX has been one of my favorite black and white films since I first shot it in my Canonet two years ago. I fell in love with the way it rendered blacks and the impressive contrast it was able to provide. Now that I was able to shoot this stock at three times the size, I was ecstatic. After the announcement, I immediately placed an order.

When the film arrived I was in Wildwood, NJ, slinging hoagies at a deli. When I ripped open the package, I immediately felt an excitement similar to what I felt when I’d shot medium format for the very first time, an experience I wrote about in an earlier article.

I only ordered one roll, funny enough. Like I said, I was slinging hoagies at a deli, I wasn’t Vanderbilt. And it took me a while to find the time to shoot that roll. When the time came I was in Brooklyn, NY. I had moved to the city two months earlier. I was trying to seek out the same feeling I received when I shot Cinestill BwXX in 35mm.

The weekend after I’d first shot BwXX in 35mm, I loaded two exposed rolls into a dev tank and then used Cinestill’s own monobath chemicals to develop them. I was mostly testing the monobath. In reality, I would never put anything too important through those chemicals. But the pictures that came through the other side are some I refer back to often when wanting to recapture a certain feeling of nostalgia.

With those two rolls I’d documented my high school graduation and the beginning of COVID. The fine grain and enhanced contrast, compared to flat stocks like Ilford HP5, seemed to offer me a look of pure documentation. It made the pictures of rather ordinary subjects look serious, as if they were from a different time. Perhaps it was the way the stock rendered blacks. Not too stark and hard to look at. 

As I powered through 35mm rolls of this new addition to my film fridge, I found that BwXX rendered low light like no other. I’ve shot other ISO 200 black and white film stocks in my day. None have impressed me as much. In low light, other black and white films result in washed out photos, flat and grey, that can only be fixed with intense editing in Negative Lab Pro. Indoors or outside at night time, I was continually impressed by BwXX.

The most scientific explanation I have for my findings is that BwXX was made to be a range ISO type of stock. Cinestill’s black and white creation can be shot anywhere from 200 ISO to 800 ISO without having to change development times. Having my scans converted in Adobe Lightroom, I found an incredibly dynamic histogram, showing even peaks stretching themselves from blacks to white and highlights to shadows. The latitude and strength of its dynamic range allowed me to pull details from shadows which other films would render totally black.

I think the biggest revelation that I experienced with this film would be when printing my work. I picked up some nice, high quality paper and loaded it into a gorgeous Canon printer I found on my school’s New York City campus. As I adjusted the image size in photoshop, I was eager, ready to hit print. There was something about tangibly holding my work that I couldn’t get out of my head. I haven’t felt that giddy since I developed film for the first time. The printer slid out the monochromatic image and I was in awe at the depth and stunning resolution.

Now that I was able to see my images up close and personal, I saw incredibly fine grain which really speaks to my anecdotal notion that this film has a “look” that screams documentation. Maybe it’s the connotation behind the word documentation, but Cinestill BwXX just feels fit to capture life.

There are so many subjects that I feel go extremely well with the grain and tone combination this stock offers. The contrast, which almost never needs to be edited, on top of the true to life shadows and gorgeous grain structure, makes for an extremely compelling image. Keeping a roll of BwXX by my side in 35mm could be a scenario where “taking” pictures is appropriate. A quick shot fired off to remember the cool looking street corner on Central and Dekalb? Totally worth the exposure!

But BwXX in medium format is a film for when I want to “make” rather than “take.” I take my time to “make” pictures. I’ll slow down, plan out a shoot, set up my tripod, meter for midtones, and even patiently wait until my subject is poised just the way I like. This becomes increasingly difficult in NYC street photography. But, to get the most from a film that has impressed me as much as BwXX, my new go to black and white stock, I’m okay with taking the extra time.

I have plans for this film. I’ve never really done that before. I’ve never tested out a film and loved it so much that I conceptually planned its future use. Have I thought like that before? Of course, I’m a film photographer! But that had to do with a vision, an idea, a certain lighting situation, or maybe a return to Central and Dekalb. Never have I been so passionate about a single film.

I blame the upgrade from 35mm to medium format. Perhaps the fact that I was slowly fed this look, small to medium, enhanced my love for it. It reminds me of the argument whether streaming services should release television episodes weekly, like normal cable, or continue to release seasons all at once, allowing subscribers to binge it all in one day. With Cinestill BwXX at least, I think I prefer the weekly release. “Weekly’ here meaning “two years” – that’s how long it took to get this stuff in 120.

I’ve gone off the rails. To continue with my “plans,” I feel prepared enough to take this film into the studio. With its range ISO and the latitude present in Lightroom’s histograms, I feel comfortable enough to not be intimidated by professional lights. Maybe, now that I’ve fallen in love with a colorless stock, I can finally execute my black and white bare back series, or my close up portrait series. Before, I just snapped photos. I grabbed the films I liked, those that pleased me. Now, I realize what more can be offered if I simply just allow myself to slow down and analyze what a film has to offer.

As I type this, I sit next to a photobook of mine. When I scanned my negatives and fell in love with the look, I thought this film was a perfect fit to tell a story I’ve been wanting to tell. I used Cinestill’s BwXX to make my photo book Navigating, Alone, a book that told the story of me living on my own for the first time. Perhaps I’m saying this to offer a satisfying conclusion to my observations with tangible prints. Or, perhaps, that’s a story for another time.

In brief, Cinestill BwXX impressed me, and continues to do so. It offers gorgeous blacks, impressive contrast, fine grain, and always usable results. Looking for something new? BwXX? Need a go-to black and white film for your medium format camera? BwXX. Cinestill BwXX, especially in medium format, is a film that I would recommend to anyone.

Want to try Cinestill BwXX in 120?

Get it at B&H Photo

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Some time later I’ve shot a second roll and I’m finally ready to put fingers to keys in this quasi-review.

What is Lomo Fantome

Lomography Fantome Kino is a panchromatic black and white film repurposed from ORWO film repackaged and sold by Lomography for 35mm film cameras. It’s a part of Lomography’s Kino collection, which are supposed to provide a look reminiscent of classic cinema films.

Fantome’s look is contrasty and punchy – perfect, Lomo says, for striking portraits, cinematic shots and a “film noir” look. It’s ultra low ISO of 8 ensures almost zero grain.

The film canister does not include DX coding, so the film is best shot in a camera which allows the user to manually set the ISO.

Developing and Handling

I developed my rolls of Lomo Fantome the same as all of my films – using whatever method the manufacturer recommends. I don’t mess around with pushing or pulling, and with an ISO 8 film I’m not sure anyone should.

Developing went fine. No surprises. However when I pulled the film off of my development spools I was simply stunned at how difficult to manage the film strips were. They curled worse than any film I’ve ever used. Once dried, the film was just as curly as ever which made scanning more cumbersome than other films.

Images and My Experience

I shot my first roll of Fantome in mid-summer under bright sunlight and blue skies. A time of year in Massachusetts, unlike now, in which life is worth living. I was able to hand-hold my camera for all of these shots, despite the extremely low sensitivity of Fantome. I shot it through my Leica R5, which effectively metered and auto-exposed every shot.

My second roll was shot on a snowy day under grey skies and in miserable cold. For this roll I used a tripod for quite a few shots, which helped quite a bit at minimizing blur and camera shake. This roll was shot through a Canon EOS 1V, an amazing camera that metered and exposed things perfectly.

My takeaway, regarding cameras, make sure your camera has a manual ISO adjustment, and make sure you’re using one which can meter and (preferably) auto-expose in semi-auto or full program exposure modes. This film is just too picky with its exposure latitude to be shooting in full manual. At least that’s the case if you value your time and money. If you don’t, by all means, shoot Fantome all loosey goosey – who cares?

Images from this film, true to Lomography’s press copy, are punchy and high in contrast. The low ISO means that plenty of shots will appear under-exposed or dark. But if you have a good metering camera and auto-exposure mode, coupled with a tripod and nice light, it’s certainly easy to get balanced photos (though highlights will blow out quicker than more balanced films).

The film needs a lot of light – no surprise there, right? And so I really must recommend long exposures and using a tripod. Otherwise, shots are too blurry or too under-exposed. Plenty of the shots used in this review were made from 20 and 30 second exposures.

For me, the film’s biggest asset is its smoothness. There’s just no grain, and I sort of love that. I know grain is a film shooter’s best friend, but sometimes black and white shots just look gorgeous with that sleek, grain-free look.

Then again, if we’re looking for smooth black and white shots, maybe I should just be shooting digital.

Final Thoughts

My opinion of the film now is mostly unchanged from when I’d shot that first roll. Lomo Fantome is a finicky beast. And there are other films (and even digital cameras) which will give us all of the perceived upsides of shooting Lomo Fantome without any of the liabilities. Ultra fine grain, high contrast, moody shots – we can get all of these easily from other, much easier-to-use imaging sources. Fuji Acros or my Nikon Z5 and a nice sit-down with Adobe Lightroom come to mind as simple alternatives.

It’s probable that, in the right hands and in the right conditions, this film could become a photographer’s favorite. In my hands, however, it’s just too difficult. I’m not good enough to hamper my efforts with such a challenging film. Whether that’s a strike against the film or my own ability, well, I think I know the answer. I’m just not that good. But maybe you are.

And hey, I’m happy that Lomography is still making things for us film nerds. That’s at least worth buying a couple of rolls.

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Document films also have some fascinating characteristics. Troop and Anchell, in The Film Developing Cookbook, say they produce ‘the finest grain and highest sharpness the photographic process is capable of.’

At this point you’re probably thinking, ‘There’s gotta be a catch.’ And you would be right (in fact, there are several). So, are document films like Nanotomic-X best left to their original purpose: making microscopic copies of physical documents? Or can they also be used for ordinary ‘pictorial’ photography?

Two quick disclaimers before we start.

First, I didn’t pay for my roll of Nanotomic-X. Foto R3, a Spanish film shop/lab, kindly sent it to me as a test roll (along with some other films which I did pay for). But of course, in my review I have tried to be as accurate and objective as I can.

Second, Nanotomic-X and other document films are meant to be used with specialised developers (more on this later). I developed my roll in plain old Ilford ID-11 1+1. The downside is that I’m possibly not using the film to its utmost potential. The upside is that you can see how it performs with a cheap and widely-available developer, and decide if it’s something you’d like to try for yourself.

[Image Sources: Microfilm camera: The US National Archives, public domain. Microfilm roll: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Microfilm reader: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.]

A Brief History of Microfilm

Microfilm is a type of fine-grain, high-contrast film, primarily designed for copying documents, drawings and other such matter. Copies are typically made at a greatly reduced scale for compact storage and distribution.

The technology is surprisingly old. John Benjamin Dancer, a British scientist, began producing microphotographs in 1839 – first as daguerreotypes and then with wet collodion. But it took a while to catch on. In 1858, the Dictionary of Photography dismissed it as ‘a process which must strike any reasonable person as somewhat trifling and childish, when he considers how many valuable applications of photography remain yet to be worked out.’

Americans were more optimistic. ‘To what use might not this mode of photographing be put,’ enthused an article in the 1859 American Journal of Photography. ‘The whole archives of a nation might be packed away in a snuff-box. Had the art been known in the time of Omar, the destruction of the Alexandrian library would not have been a final loss.’

During the siege of Paris in 1870–71, the Prussian army cut the telegraph cables, and postmen were captured and shot. The only way the rest of France could communicate with Paris was by carrier pigeon. The despatch would be photographed on microfilm, a whole page reduced to just 11×6 mm. This was inserted in the quill of a goose or crow, which in turn was attached to the pigeon’s tail feather. In this way, a single pigeon was able to carry up to 20 microfilms at a time.

More prosaic uses of microfilm include the copying of books, manuscripts and newspapers for preservation, much like how digitisation is used today. Indeed, with the rise of digital technology, microfilm seems almost amusingly retro (YouTube has a compilation of ‘hot chicks looking at microfilm in horror movies’). But properly stored microfilm lasts half a millennium, and can be read without complex hardware or software. This is why institutions like the Smithsonian are still using the technology well into the 21st century.

Nanotomic-X: Origin and Availability

16mm microfilm is generally used for documents and other printed matter, and 35mm unperforated film for engineering drawings. But 35mm perforated document film also exists, including Argenti Nanotomic-X, the subject of this review. I understand from Foto-R3, who sent me the test roll, that Nanotomic-X is basically Agfa Copex Rapid sold under the Argenti brand name. (Historically, there were other variants such as Copex Ortho and Copex HDP13, but in this article, when I say ‘Copex’ I mean Copex Rapid.)

I am not actually sure when Agfa Copex was first produced, or in what format. A Google Books search returns hits from 1945 (possibly even earlier), but Agfa’s 1941 catalogue has no mention of Copex film. At least one forum post claims that Copex was even used by the KGB. Troop and Anchell say that Copex was one of the ‘document films of choice for making continuous tone pictures’ in the 1960s, and that it continued to be manufactured until about 2019. It has also been sold under other brand names. A Popular Mechanics article from Jan 1973, part of which is reproduced below, says that H&W Control VTE Pan is rebranded Agfa Copex.

Today, Copex is sold with the Agfa brand name, in both 35mm and 120 format, by a few retailers in Europe and North America. It is also sold under other names such as Rollei Copex Rapid, Spur DSX, and of course, Argenti Nanotomic-X (35mm only).

Nanotomic-X in Special Developers

Films with bigger grain, as everyone knows, are generally faster. This is simply because larger grains are more likely to ‘catch’ a photon of light, in the same way that you’re more likely to catch a raindrop with a bucket than with a thimble. Conversely, slow films have smaller grain.

Document films have grain which is not just smaller, but also more uniform in size (‘monodisperse’, to use a technical term). In his report on Nanotomic-X (PDF in Spanish), Xosé Gago says that the largest grains in a document film are only around 10–20x the size of the smallest grains (compared to 75–200x for normal 25–125 ISO films).

If you’re using document film for pictorial (as opposed to copy) purposes, the highly monodisperse grain poses a problem in development. Here’s why. Imagine you have a spoonful of sugar crystals of varying size – some small, some not-so-small. If you dissolve it in water, the smaller crystals go into solution quickly; the bigger ones take more time.

But if you have a spoonful of small, homogeneous sugar crystals, they dissolve a lot more quickly. This is what happens when you try to develop document film. The silver halide crystals which have reacted to light are very quickly reduced by the developer, causing a rapid density rise in highlight areas (in a regular film, the more heterogeneous grain structure would slow down the development of highlight areas, allowing the midtones to ‘catch up’). For this reason, document films have inherently higher contrast than regular films of similar speed.

The high contrast is perfect for copying things like text and line drawings – the purpose for which document films were originally devised. But for pictorial use – unless you want the high-contrast look – a document film like Nanotomic-X (Agfa Copex) is not ideal.

Erwin Puts writes it off altogether: ‘The Copex Rapid micro film from Agfa-Gevaert is just not suitable for pictorial use.’ Never say never, Mr. Puts. One solution, it turns out, is to use special developers. Here’s Troop and Anchell again: ‘In the 1960s it was discovered that these monodisperse films could be used for continuous tone pictorial photography when developed in special low contrast developers.’

Special, in this case, means really special. One of the developers they recommend is POTA, formulated in 1967 by US chemist Marilyn Levy. Apparently, POTA was originally designed to record nuclear explosions on conventional films, and is capable of recording light over a 20-stop range. (Another site says POTA was developed for aerial reconnaissance photography, but I like Troop and Anchell’s nuclear explosion backstory.) POTA can be homebrewed, or purchased from places like Photographers’ Formulary. 

Troop and Anchell suggest various other alternatives, but it’s also worth mentioning Spur Dokuspeed SL-N and Spur Modular UR, which are supposedly optimised for Agfa Copex (Nanotomic-X).

 [Portrait of Marilyn Levy: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.]

Nanotomic-X in a Regular Developer

Now I don’t mix developers at home, and nor did I want to spend money on a special developer, like the Spur formulas, for a film which I might never use again. So I decided to use what I always use, namely the incredibly versatile Ilford ID-11 diluted 1+1 (sometimes I use Kodak’s D-76, but they are basically identical).

Was this wise? My sources did not think so. Steve Anchell, in The Darkroom Cookbook, writes that unless they are developed in ‘extreme low contrast developers’, document films are ‘extremely high in contrast exhibiting little or no mid-tones.’ Likewise, in his article on high resolution photography (PDF), Heribert Schain says document films ‘are not suitable for pictorial photography if normal developers are used’ because they ‘cannot render differentiated grey scale values’ – only black and white. Instead, Schain recommends the Spur developers which, as a photo engineer at Spur, he was instrumental in formulating.

The development charts on the Foto-R3 website (PDF) and Digital Truth were more promising, listing times for ID-11 stock (5 mins when the film is rated at EI 25). Now I had rated it at EI 32, as recommended on the packaging. Moreover, I wanted to use ID-11 1+1 (rather than stock) because that’s what I always use, and I because thought – whether rightly or wrongly I don’t know – that the dilution might help tame the contrast. With some back-of-the-envelope calculations (too tedious to recount here, but if you’re interested, let me know in the comments), I estimated 5.5 mins in ID-11 1+1 for EI 32.

Thankfully, contrary to the warnings, I did not get ‘only black and white’ with no midtones. The negatives look nice, as you can see below. The top-left frame was deliberately overexposed for the latitude test described in the next section. For the other frames, I simply relied on the TTL meter of my Minolta X-370s, set to ISO 32 and aperture priority.

Contrast and Latitude

Whatever I say in this section only applies to the development regime which I used. With other developers or times, you might – probably will – get different results. In particular, special developers like Spur will probably produce a more conventional contrast curve.

I shot all or most of the roll in low to medium-contrast situations (it was winter, and that’s just how the light was). Under these conditions, I got decent shadow and highlight detail. Midtones are a bit compressed, but nothing too extreme.

If you shoot Nanotomic-X in high-contrast conditions, you might lose a bit of shadow detail, but highlights should be fine. If in doubt, overexpose by one stop – or better still, bracket.

I say ‘highlights should be fine’ because the film clearly has some latitude for overexposure, as you can see in the tests below. The six comparison shots were scanned at the same settings. I then edited the two extreme frames (−2 and +3 stops) to try and salvage what I could.

The +3 in particular is surprisingly usable. On that evidence, you could expose the film at, say, EI 25 or even EI 16, and develop it as I did. This would give you more shadow detail, and the highlights would probably still be recoverable in post (or in the darkroom, with burning).

As with most negative films, there is less latitude for underexposure. You can see this in the first two photos below (again, scanned at the same settings). For both photos, I relied on the camera’s TTL meter. Since there’s more sky in Photo 2, the camera underexposed by one stop (ideally I should have used AE lock feature or exposure compensation). With some films, you can get away with a bit of underexposure, but not so much with Nanotomic-X. The third photo is just an edited version of Photo 2; I brought out some shadow detail, but it still doesn’t have the tonal range of Photo 1.

I noticed that the highlights on this film (at least, as I developed it) sometimes have a sort of ‘creamy’ look. I can’t think of a more accurate way to describe it, but maybe you can see what I mean from some of the photos – especially on noses and cheeks where bright reflections transition to darker areas of the face. I quite like the look; it’s not something I’ve seen on other films. But if you don’t, it might be something to watch out for.

It’s also possible that the creamy highlights were caused (or exacerbated) by overfixing. I fixed the film for 3 mins in Ilford Rapid Fixer like I usually do (Ilford recommends 2–5 mins). But I later read that document films should be fixed for a bare minimum time (please see the ‘precautions’ section near the end).

Prints

I made darkroom prints of two of my photos from this roll. The fern printed nicely at Grade 2 with minimal fuss. The photo of the two kids has rather thin shadows. I printed it at Grade 0 to tease out the shadows, and then burned in some of the highlight detail. To my eyes, the smooth tones and ultra-fine grain give the prints an almost medium-format look.

I’ve shot just one roll of Nanotomic-X so far, but for more photo samples, you can explore Instagram, as well as Flickr tags for Nanotomic-X and Copex. For more reviews, see Kowska (Spanish), SFLab and Random Camera Blog.

ISO and Reciprocity Failure

ISO 32 might seem too slow for general use, but I shot the entire roll in available light and – aside from the reciprocity tests below – without a tripod. In bright light, the sunny 16 rule with an ISO 32 film gives you f/16 and 1/30, which is already usable if you have steady hands or a wide-angle lens. If you want faster speeds, just open up a few stops.

Slow film is useful for creative applications which require slow shutter speeds, like panning and motion blur. It also lets you take shallow depth-of-field portraits in bright light, whereas with faster film, you’d have to use an ND filter or stop down.

The Agfa Copex datasheet (PDF) does not have reciprocity data. According to my tests, the reciprocity formula for Ilford FP4 appears to work well for Nanotomic-X. The formula is m^1.26 (where m is the metered time). For example, if your metered time is 10 secs, the reciprocity-adjusted time will be 10^1.26=18 secs.

The three photos below show (a) a fast exposure (1/60 sec) where reciprocity was not in play, (b) an exposure at the same aperture but with a 10-stop ND filter, using a 10 stops slower shutter speed (17 secs), and (c) an exposure at the same aperture, 10-stop ND filter and reciprocity adjustment (17^1.26=36 secs). I scanned all three images at the same settings.

The two long exposures have slight camera-shake, because I forgot to bring my shutter-release cable and was manually pressing the shutter-release for the whole duration. But overall, you can see that (a) and (c) have similar exposures, while (b) is underexposed.

Film Base and Grain

Nanotomic-X has a clear polyester base. Most 35mm films for still photography, like Kodak Tri-X and Ilford HP5, have a triacetate base. Polyester film is stronger, stabler and more durable. But its strength can pose a practical problem: if the film-advance mechanism jams and you force it, triacetate film will break, while polyester film can damage the camera itself.

The clear base looks nice on a light table, and makes the film easy to scan. The flip side is that dust particles, water marks and scratches are more visible. If you don’t like such imperfections in your photos, practice good film hygiene (mine is not the best) or resign yourself to a lot of spotting.

The film has an anti-halation layer to prevent internal reflections. The base is 0.130mm thick (similar to Ilford FP4 Plus: 0.125mm). I had no trouble loading it in my development tank. The processed negatives have no more than the usual amount of curl. Nanotomic-X has frame numbers – rather faint, but helpful for sleeving and archiving – but no other edge markings.

Even for a slow film, the grain is extremely fine. When making 8×10″ darkroom prints, even with a grain focuser, I struggled to see grain. In scans, the grain is essentially invisible. By magnifying a ridiculously small area (the yellow rectangle in the photo below), I think I can see a hint of grain. But at this level of enlargement, I am frankly not sure if it’s film grain, or noise from my DSLR ‘scan’. To put things in perspective, that area is less than 3mm wide on the negative.

Resolution

This is the big one – the reason why many photographers are drawn to document film in the first place, and why they put up with its various idiosyncrasies. As it happens, I personally can’t get too excited about resolution, whether for film or for lenses (my last article was about a toy camera with a plastic lens). Maybe I’m the wrong person to review a document film? Anyway, here we are, so I’ll try my best to talk about resolution, for the benefit of those who are interested.

I made a table comparing the resolution of Copex Rapid/Nanotomic-X versus Kodak T-Max 100, which is marketed as having ‘extremely high sharpness, extremely fine grain, and very high resolving power’ (quote from Kodak’s PDF datasheet). The figures are compiled from various sources, which I’ve indicated below.

* Schain (PDF), using Spur developer.

** Serger, using fine-grain, high-resolution developers like Spur developer (for Copex Rapid) and Microdol X (for T-Max 100).

*** Kodak datasheet (PDF), developed in D-76.

Resolution was traditionally measured in lp/mm, i.e. line pairs per millimetre (the terms ‘lines per millimetre’ and ‘line pairs per millimetre’ are interchangeable). More recently, the industry has shifted to using modulation transfer function (MTF), but I haven’t been able to find MTF charts for Agfa Copex. Norman Koren, the founder of Imatest, has a great technical article on MTF, and how it relates to lp/mm and sharpness.

Lp/mm can be measured at different contrast levels. As you would expect, when lines have high contrast (e.g. 1000:1), they are easier to resolve, and consequently lp/mm figures are higher. Copex appears to outresolve T-Max 100 at both high and medium contrast levels (and probably at low contrast too, though I wasn’t able to find data).

Does the higher resolution make a practical difference? I’ll say a bit more about it in the ‘Final thoughts’ section at the end, but frankly, I don’t know. What does seem certain is that, at least for some specialised applications, there is no real substitute for document films. Troop and Anchell say ‘these are the films to use for 40x enlargements.’ For context, a 40x enlargement from a 35mm negative is a 140×96 cm print – nearly 5 feet on the long edge! This is not something I’ve ever attempted, nor do I plan to. But I think it’s cool.

But to get there, you need a correspondingly exacting workflow. Film flatness, eliminating camera shake, high-quality lenses (for both camera and enlarger) used at optimal aperture, special developers, perfect enlarger alignment and sundry other precautions are recommended, if not essential, to get the most out of these high-resolution films.

Colour Sensitivity

Most modern black-and-white films are panchromatic, which means they are sensitive to more or less the whole range of the visible spectrum. Datasheets released by film manufacturers often include spectral sensitivity curves, showing how the emulsion responds to different wavelengths of light. I couldn’t find such a chart for Nanotomic-X/Copex, but there’s a basic test I do to check this for myself.

I won’t go into the details (topic for a future article), but in short, I take a test-shot of a colour chart (see below), in controlled conditions, for the film I’m testing. I then compare it to the same test-shot on HP5, which is a classic panchromatic emulsion and therefore a good benchmark.

What I’m looking at is the order of the coloured bands from light to dark, as they appear on film. I’m less concerned with the fact that, say, Red looks a bit darker than Yellow on one film, and a lot darker on another. These are differences in band contrast, which could be influenced by how I develop and scan the film. But developing and scanning won’t affect the band order, so that’s what I focus on.

The main difference here is that Blue is slightly lighter than Green on HP5, but significantly darker than green on Nanotomic-X. This suggests that Nanotomic-X is less sensitive to blue light. Interestingly, the Naked Photographer also found lower blue sensitivity in his test of Agfa Copex.

I looked for further confirmation in the form of spectral sensitivity curves, but as I said, I couldn’t find one for Nanotomic-X/Copex. I did however find one for Adox CMS 20 (PDF) – another document film which is advertised as having even higher resolution. I’ve shown a comparison between the HP5 and Adox curves above. As you can see, HP5 is more plateau-shaped, whereas the Adox has a ‘valley’ in the blue-cyan region. If Nanotomic-X is similar to the Adox, we can see how it would be less sensitive to blue.

All this might seem quite technical, but it does have an impact on photos. For example, I would expect a blue sky with clouds to look more contrasty on Nanotomic-X than on HP5, which is quite sensitive to blue and therefore renders it as a fairly light shade. Unfortunately I didn’t take any blue-sky photos on this roll, but it would be interesting to try.

Film reviews tend to focus on grain and contrast, but these factors are heavily dependent on how a film is exposed and developed. Colour response, on the other hand, is rarely discussed. Nevertheless, it is an intrinsic feature of black-and-white film. Each emulsion has a distinct spectral sensitivity profile, which subtly defines its ‘look’.

Precautions

Films with a clear base can be susceptible to light piping. The Agfa Copex datasheet (PDF) reassures us that the anti-halation layer ‘facilitates daylight loading’. On the other hand, some retailers warn that the film ‘has to be loaded and unloaded in subdued light’ and that exposed film should be stored in a light-tight container. I think it’s safer to follow this recommendation, just in case.

When it comes to processing, Troop and Anchell warn that ‘overfixing must particularly be avoided with document films’. They recommend moving to a water rinse with agitation immediately after fixing, or better yet, using an alkaline fixer. The datasheet for Adox CMS 20 (PDF), another high-resolution document film, has a similar warning: ‘Because of the small, fine grains Adox CMS 20 needs only 30 to 60 seconds of fixing in regularily diluted fixers at 20°C. If you overfix the film your highlights (in the negative) will burn out.’ Presumably, this applies to Nanotomic-X too. If in doubt, just drop the cut film leader in a jug of fixer, see how long it takes to clear, and use double that time for fixing the film.

Final Thoughts

You know how some digital photographers love to argue about the relative merits of sensors? CCD versus CMOS, X-Trans versus Bayer, Sony reds versus Fuji greens. For me, one of the joys of film photography is having an instantly interchangeable ‘sensor’. Each emulsion has its own individual characteristics, limitations and advantages.

With document film, the obvious advantages are fine grain and incredible resolving power. The grain is indeed fine, almost invisible. The resolving power, too, is much higher than conventional films. When scientists wanted to study microscopic tapeworm organs or bird chromosomes, they used Agfa Copex. But does such extraordinary resolution make a practical difference to ordinary photographers like me?

Some – not just people like Schain who are involved in the marketing of document films and developers, but also independent authorities like Troop and Anchell – seem to think it does. Others, such as Erwin Puts, assert otherwise. Who is right? I have no idea. I honestly don’t want to go down the rabbit-hole of trying to read, understand and evaluate the various conflicting arguments, and I have little interest in doing my own tests.

I enjoy films like Argenti Nanotomic-X in the same spirit in which I enjoy some high-end lenses. Even if I don’t use them to their full potential – which I almost certainly don’t – I can appreciate them purely for the technical marvel that they are.

I also like trying unusual films, and Nanotomic-X checks that box. It certainly helps that it’s just €4.79 for a 36-exposure roll, a real bargain for such a specialist film.

And finally, I like its tonal characteristics and unique look. Let me quote Troop and Anchell one last time: ‘What we find most exciting about working with document films is not the ability to make huge enlargements. (…) For us, what makes working with document films so rewarding is their ability to produce unusual tonalities through unusual characteristic curve shapes. They add to our palette.’ Amen to that.

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