FILM: favorite emulsions and their characteristics

If you're going to shoot a film camera you need to consider which emulsions you'll be running through it. There are numerous options based on your creative intent. The below is a very brief breakdown of some of various emulsions and why and when one might choose to use them. One thing I'd encourage everyone to do is experiment. Choosing your film is possibly the first creative decision in the chain of creative decisions that will ultimately result in your photograph.

For me, "the look" I'm after is a moving target. I run just about everything through my F6, always hoping I've made the right call for the right shot, but usually wind up disappointed at first glance. After a while a few shots a roll settle in O.K., but it's uncommon I get something I'm immediately pleased with. Without getting into a discussion about indexicality, I think that each photograph is an interpretation of a scene. Therefore the tools with which one interprets the scene with will have a hand in directing the final representation of that scene. Some people I talk to "always shoot ___ film" – I understand why: processing, standardization of chemicals, developent times and tempertures, scanner settings, etc., but I've really enjoyed different emulsions that yield different interpretations of a scene.

Treat what you read here and elsewhere as input with which to make your own creative decisions and always remeber this is not an objective choice (one that has an absolute right or wrong answer), but a subjective choice (subject to what you prefer). [full disclosure: these images were made with a variety of Nikon cameras - including the Nikon F4S, Nikon F5 and Nikon F6 - and Nikkor lenses. Some images in the slide show above were made with the Mamiya RZ67 medium format film camera, on the same emulsions listed here].