Comparing Film Purchased on AliExpress
Collection of film with a Fed 3 camera
Some months back I decided to finally make use of my 35 mm cameras and take photos. However, being that the cameras I had were both built in Ukraine SSR, I decided that I should pick up film from AliExpress and use that. This whole process ended up becoming an ordeal because I eventually had to drop the use of my Fed 3 camera due to the fact that its lens plus a lens I stole from a Fed 5 I also owned (which has now become my mother’s) had a problem.
My “new” Nikon F60 just after purchase
Nonetheless, I persisted thanks to a purchase of a new-to-me Nikon F60 and took a number of photos with an assortment of film purchased from the Internet’s bargain store. Most of the photos were taken during a single weekend where I watched my softball team play in our year-end tournament–sadly without me playing due to an ongoing knee injury.
It had been since 1997 or 1998 since I got any film developed because I never really developed an interest in photography until I was in university in the 2000s. Please ignore how ignorant I am about film as I learnt everything on digital first.
CHINA LUCKY SHD100
Cost: C$14.48 Exposures: 36 ISO: 100 Cost per exp.: C$0.40
This is the only roll I used on my Fed 3. Now, you may be wondering, how did I know that the lens was scratched before getting it developed? Prior to placing this roll into this camera, I got some film shot on Ilford stock and it disappointingly had some rather unusual marks on the lens.
Now a Fed 3 and Fed 5 both use an M39 mount for the lens, so you might think that I could have done that with the Fed 5 I was going to give away and you’re right. However, I did take photos with the other camera as well and it too had some weird scratches.
Chalk that up to buying cameras on eBay and not testing the lenses, but alas. I did at least get some shots which contain the scratch pattern you see here.
Image showing some leaves on a tree in late-July
As evident here, it’s a bit grainy but overall not too bad. The contrast is quite apparent and you can tell the leaves apart. However, you might notice the middle of the image is blurry and that is not the fault of the film.
Teammate up to bat with the lens scratch in the middle
It seems to struggle with the sharpness in the shot, but I honestly think it is just me not having the image at all in focus properly, which is a problem when you’re trying to use a rangefinder for the first time after being used to using a DSLR. That scratch is super apparent and the one on the other lens is not much better.
Moving forward, all photos were taken with a Nikon F60 which does not at all have any problems with its lens–even if it did, I have other lenses anyway.
35mm Color Print Film Professional Wide Exposure Range ECN 2 Process Colour
Cost: C$6.44 Exposures: 8* ISO: 200 Cost per exp.: C$0.81
Oh boy. Where to begin? This film may never be developed for a variety of reasons.
First off, in its description, it cannot decide between the American spelling and the spelling of “colour” we in the rest of the English-speaking world use. However, that is really a minor nitpick here because you might have noticed an asterisk on exposures.
It says it does eight, but my camera only got two images out of it. The autorewind kicked in after two shots and that was that. Maybe it had to do with the short roll, but that was only part one of two with my experiences here.
Image of the roll compared to a similar-looking Kodak one
When I took the roll to be developed, the clerk at the counter was rather perplexed by it. First of all, she initially thought it was a Kodak roll which of course in the above image you can clearly see it tries to mimick. In fact, it looks like a Kodak roll I later used as a “control” for a lack of a better word here.
To add to this, the film process was something unfamiliar to me: ECN-2.
When speaking to a friend online about it later, she remarked that this film is coated with an extra layer atop that when processed as any other roll would gum up the processes. This was something she had first-hand experience with and it’s apparently not super common.
The clerk had to refuse the roll as a result. Of course, when reviewing the listing, this stood out.
- Universal to Use: 35mm color print film is also suitable for portrait and fast action photography. Suitable for 135 cameras.
“Universal to Use” is taking quite a bit of a stretch because while it worked fine in my camera, it’s quite a pain in the ass to get it developed by anyone reasonable.
Now, I did not go and take this sitting down so I went to see if anyone local would get it done. Looking around, it seems like nobody does it locally and I would have to learn to develop this film by hand. I do not have that confidence yet and considering that if I do find someone to process the film, it might not be worth it for just two exposures.
Having seen what photos taken with ECN-2 look like, I can sure tell you that this is disappointing because where it is used is for motion pictures it makes some rather stand-out photos.
35mm Black and White Print Film
Cost: C$10.18 Exposures: 8 ISO: 200 Cost per exp.: C$1.27
I have since seen “My Heart” available for sale in some gift shops locally. It is the most expensive per-exposure film I have gotten developed, but the quality did not look too bad.
Teammates coming in after an inning is over
It is lost on me why there is a ghosting pattern on the right as it does not appear in other shots, but I have to wonder if this film was actually ISO 200. I was taking a photo from a shaded area which might have produced a darker image, but it wasn’t that dark when thinking back to the time of day.
Teammate pitching the ball
When the lighting cooperates, the detail on the jersey comes out quite decent considering I was maybe eight to ten metres from the woman throwing ball. The ball itself looks fairly static but it is evident that it itself is moving fairly fast–maybe 40 KM/h at this point, we’re in the second-lowest level for this league after all.
However, at this price point and number of exposures, the film overall is underwhelming.
So the way I ordered it off of AliExpress, it was super confusing because at C$10 for the roll, it was easily the most expensive not only as a standalone roll, but by exposure, but the page itself was super misleading because was it eight rolls when indicating “pieces” or were they just using “pieces” to mean exposure?
In any event, this is something I am noticing when ordering film on AliExpress so just bear that in mind if you’re going on a photo adventure with strange film from abroad.
VIBE 400 Black & White film
Cost: C$5.97 Exposures: 36 ISO: 400 Cost per exp.: C$0.17
Is this a European or Asian brand? Well, it’s the only one I can find about on Wikipedia and it’s probably my favourite out of the four I purchased.
Plants on my window sill at home
This image is sharp and the grain adds to the photo instead of subtracting like I have seen before. Even in the shaded areas, you can still make out detail.
Shot of teammates on the field with one running and one waiting, and a player from an opposing team looking upwards.
I believe that the banding on the left might have to do with the the development process as it shows up in the negatives, but that aside, you can see so many details in this one shot. The player on the right is moving quite fast (she is a fairly speedy runner) and even though it is quite sunny, the gravel on the softball diamond is still showing its texture.
Kodak Gold 200
Cost: C$21.26 Exposures: 36 ISO: 200 Cost per exp.: C$0.59
This was purchased from a local retailer due to my running out of film. Kodak Gold 200 is pretty standard film to come by in Canada and is perfect for sunny days and softball tournaments.
Player after having hit a ball and initiating running towards first base
One of the things I noticed that gets lost in colour photography is that sometimes little details just get washed out. I mentioned with the Vibe 400 film that you can make out detail in the gravel around the diamond, but in this shot and the one after, it is just washed out by the light. This could be a consequence of the ISO I must admit, but even then I think it would still be clearer if this shot were to have been taken on non-colour film.
Softball player having just hit a ball
This was only shared as a “control” so to speak just to confirm that yes, my camera was working fine.
Conclusion
Collection of rolls of film plus some bonus ones that are not the main focus of this post
This was a silly exercise and taught me a lot about film and its differences. One big thing I didn’t anticipate is how some rolls of film have something called DX encoding which tells a camera everything from its speed (ISO), length, and exposure tolerances.
Of course, with the Fed 3 and 5 cameras, there is no need to worry about this because there are no digital parts on the cameras to read it so you have to do thsi sort of work manually. However, my F60 understands this encoding and would refuse to take photos if said bars were not there. I had stickers to force the camera to use the film fortunately, but one of the rolls only had it printed on instead of having a metal coating.
I wish I had made note of which one it was but it might have been the funny ECN-2 one, which might explain why it only got two shots out of it, but I digress.
If I were to buy any of these rolls of film again, I absolutely would buy the Vibe again. They’re fairly inexpensive and cheaper than the Ilford I’ve used in the past, and I’d argue that they’re slightly better quality. However, if I were to go through this exercise again, I’d definitely try different film and stay away from anything that requires a weird development process.
Should you be one of my friends reading this and are interested in trying out ECN-2 developing, let me know and I’ll be happy to send the roll your way to find out what the two shots ended up looking like.
Lastly, I will be sharing more photography stuff on this blog in the future. Taking photos with 35 mm film has been an enjoyable hobby so far and is unlikely to ever be polluted further by technology the way we have seen with digital cameras today. They’re as pure as you can get for technology-based hobbies and I hope that it remains that way.