Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/07
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]"Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com> wrote: >It's interesting that I don't recall ever hearing Europeans talk about stocking up on film before going to the U.S. I take my own film to the USA, but managed to run out of Kodachrome in a small town in central Florida. Eventually I found a small photo store - looked like a Maw & Paw business. The young lady behind the counter offered me Fuji - the only slide film they carried. I loaded it into my M6, and headed out of the store. "Hold on", says she. "Fuji's a different speed to Kodachrome. That's a Leica M6 - you need to set the film speed on the little dial at the back." Smart girl! One problem with always using the same film is that one forgets that sort of thing. It's also due to a touch of anno domini (Last month I forgot that when you use the slow speeds on a Leica III -- something I hadn't done for 30-odd years -- you must set the main speed dial to the slow-speed position.) >Now you know why I like the big city. I prefer to live in a small village, but the big city is definitely the place to buy film. >I've heard advice from some that it's best not to trust anything that doesn't come from Kodak or Fuji (or Kodak and Ilford, for black and white). The logic being that R&D is so expensive for film that only these three companies can really afford to do it right and keep up with technology. True - those older 1950s colour films all had their strengths and weaknesses, and part of the fun was matching the film to the subject. For example, the colour rendering of 64ASA Ansco was far from faithful, but it gave pictures an "old master" look - a bit like an oil painting. I remember watching Charleton Heston in "The War Lord" and thinking that the movie has an Ansco look to it. The end credits showed that it has indeed been shot on Ansco! Agfachrome was a generally dependable film, but has the great weakness that it couldn't handle some shades of red and orange very well. The Forth rail bridge near Edinburgh is painted with red-lead paint, but came out chocolate brown on Agfachrome. Ferraniacolour was superb at reproducing shiney black surfaces. And good old Kodachrome was only 25ASA, and had a colour rendering that positively shouted at the viewer - brilliant saturated colours. But poor old Ilford never got its colour act together... >I've also heard really bad things about a film company in Seattle that sells surplus movie film as ordinary photo film, but I have no direct experience with them so I don't really know. A search through the LUG Archive will produce lots of postings on that subject! Regards, Doug Richardson - ------------------------------