Buying Analog Film: Which Film, Which ISO, Which Format

In the film photography world, we can argue endlessly about the color and grain of individual stocks. For your first purchase, a different question matters more: which film family a film belongs to, meaning color negative, black and white, slide or motion picture film. That decides whether a lab will take it at all. Motion picture film, for example, has a layer of carbon black on its back that contaminates a standard processing machine, which is why many labs won’t accept it.

To start with, I’d simply pick an ordinary color negative film, whatever the brand. Every lab will take it, and it forgives you when a good deal too much light hits the film. For film speed, ISO 400 is the all-rounder that will get you through almost any day. Comparing different stocks only pays off after your first few rolls. Before that, all it measures is your own mistakes.

One thing up front, so you know where we’re coming from: we make accessories for film cameras, namely battery adapters, film holders and small parts. We only carry a small selection of film, just two stocks, meant to go along with a camera rather than as somewhere to stock up. If you need ten rolls, you’ll pay less at a specialist online retailer; we’d rather tell you that ourselves than have you find out later. Wherever else we have a stake in something, we say so right there.

Cover photo: Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Contents

1. The four film families and what they look like
2. What ISO 100, 400 and 800 mean in everyday shooting
3. The numbers on the box: 135-36, DX, the degree sign
4. Other formats: 120, 110, Minox and sheet film
5. The process decides who can develop your film
6. What film costs and where to buy it
7. Does a bulk loader pay off?
8. Developing: at home or at the lab?

The four film families and what they look like

Everything you can buy falls into one of four groups. The difference between the groups is bigger than the difference between any two films in the same group: mix up color negative and slide film, and you don’t get a slightly different picture, you get a lab that won’t take your film.

The short answer is an ordinary C-41 color negative film: If you’re just starting out, the decision has already been made for you. Pick up a regular color negative film, whether that’s Kodak Gold, ColorPlus, Fujifilm or whatever happens to be on the shelf. There are three reasons, and all three matter more than any debate about looks: it’s available everywhere, it forgives exposure mistakes like nothing else, and every lab can develop it, so there’s no hunting around, no asking, no waiting. Everything else in this guide answers one question: when you might want to do something different.

Four films, four subjects, all real photos, nothing simulated. If you want to see the same scene on different films, the video further down does that better than any gallery could.

Color negative is what most people mean when they say “film”. It’s the most forgiving type there is: give it a stop too much light and you’ll still get a usable picture, and often even at two stops over. For anything unpredictable (travel, family, street), that’s exactly why beginners should start here. It’s developed in C-41, which every lab can handle.

Black and white is the second big family, and the only one you can easily develop yourself at home. The look is a matter of taste, but the practical side isn’t: black-and-white film is cheaper to buy, more tolerant of exposure mistakes than slide film, and frees you from depending on a lab. If you shoot a lot, you’ll end up here sooner or later.

Slide film (reversal film, E-6 process) gives you the finished image right there on the strip: hold it up to the light and you can see straight away what you shot. The colors are punchier and the resolution is higher, and the price for all that is that it shows no mercy: half a stop too much light and your highlights are gone. Brilliant for landscapes with a tripod and a light meter, but an expensive, nerve-racking choice for a stroll around town.

Cine film is the special case. Kodak’s Vision3 stock is what feature films are shot on, and for a few years now you’ve been able to buy it respooled for still cameras, as CineStill or from smaller suppliers. The look is soft and very cinematic, and the speed is often high. The catch is in the developing, and it’s a big enough catch to get its own section.

Three Kodak color films put through their paces on the same subjects: Portra, Gold and Ultramax side by side. Exactly the kind of comparison that individual sample shots can’t give you. Video: fotofreunde.

Start with two films, not ten: one inexpensive black-and-white film and one ISO 400 color negative, a few rolls of each. Only once you know how your camera exposes and how your lab scans does comparing different emulsions tell you anything at all; until then, you’re just measuring the noise of your own mistakes.

What ISO 100, 400 and 800 mean in everyday shooting

Photo: Dnalor 01, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT via Wikimedia Commons

The ISO number tells you how much light the film needs. Double the number and you need half as much light, and in practice that’s the difference between “I can get the shot” and “I can’t”.

ISO 100 needs sunshine. Outdoors in bright weather, it’s the finest-grained, cleanest film you can get. In the shade things get tight, and indoors without a tripod you’re out of luck.

ISO 400 is the all-rounder, which is why it’s the best-selling speed. Sun, cloud, early evening, indoors by a window: it’ll get you through almost any day without having to think about shutter speeds. If you only take one film, make it this one.

ISO 800 and up is for evenings, indoors and concerts. You pay for it with clearly more grain and, with colour, a noticeable premium: high-speed colour films are the most expensive ones on the shelf.

Grain is worth putting in perspective, because many beginners dread it as if it were a flaw. It isn’t. Grain is the structure of the film itself, and in black and white it’s often exactly what gives a picture its appeal. A grainy film that’s properly exposed looks better than a fine-grained one that came out too dark.

Sunny 16 as your emergency light meter: If the meter gives up or the camera doesn’t have one, the Sunny 16 rule will see you through: in bright sunshine, set f/16 and use a shutter speed of 1 over the ISO number. So at ISO 400 that’s f/16 and 1/400, or 1/500 if that’s what your camera offers. In light cloud, open up one stop; when it’s overcast, two. It sounds like a makeshift hack, yet it’s surprisingly reliable, and negative film forgives the rest.

The numbers on the box: 135-36, DX and the degree sign

Photo: Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

This one cassette tells you everything you need to know. From top to bottom:

• 135 is the format code for what everyone calls 35mm: the perforated strip of film, 35 mm wide, in a metal cassette, with a 24 × 36 mm frame. The number isn’t a size but a type number from Kodak’s catalogue, which is why medium format film is called 120 and is still wider.
• 36 is the number of exposures. The usual counts are 36 and 24; with bulk film you decide for yourself how many you get. So 135-36 simply means 35mm, 36 exposures.
• 200 is the ISO speed. The marking 200/24° gives the same value twice: first as the arithmetic ISO figure, then in degrees on the old DIN scale. You’ll still find the degree values on German cameras from the seventies.
• DX is the checkerboard pattern on the cassette. Cameras from around the mid-eighties onwards read the film speed from it and set themselves accordingly. Older cameras ignore it, so you set the ISO dial by hand, and that’s the most common source of mistakes when changing film, full stop.
• Process C-41 is the most important marking if you’re handing the film in for developing. It tells the lab which machine it goes in. Fuji also prints CN-16, which is simply Fuji’s own name for the same process.

The ISO dial on your camera is the silent culprit: you load a 400 film, the camera is still set to 100 from last time, and the meter happily carries on calculating with the wrong value. Two stops off, for the whole roll. With negative film, the film’s latitude will often still save you; with slide film it won’t. Make it a habit: load the film, set the ISO, and only then close the back.

120, 110, Minox and sheet film too

Photo: Thomas Wydra, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

35mm is the norm, but it isn't the only format. If you've inherited a camera and find yourself stumped at the shop counter, it almost always comes down to one of these formats.

120 (medium format) is the wide roll film without a cassette: the film is wound on a spool, protected only by black backing paper. The number of exposures isn't fixed; it depends on the frame size your camera shoots: 16 frames at 4.5 × 6, twelve at 6 × 6, eight at 6 × 9. That's exactly what's printed on the backing paper in the photo above. The negative is several times the size of a 35mm frame, so you get correspondingly more detail, and you get through a roll correspondingly faster.

110 (pocket film) comes in a flat plastic cartridge and is still being made, though the choice is slim. If you want to bring one of those little pocket cameras from the seventies back to life, this is where you'll find film for it. We've written up how to cut, load and develop 110 yourself in our 110 pocket film guide.

Minox 8x11 is subminiature, the film for those classic spy cameras. Ready-made film is hard to come by, so it's cut down from 35mm stock. How to get there is covered in the Minox guide.

Sheet film (4×5 inches and larger) doesn't come on a roll; it's individual sheets that you load into film holders. Large format is a world of its own with its own pace; if you end up there, you usually already know why. For developing at home, we've compared the methods for 4×5.

The same goes for all the specialty formats: regular camera shops rarely carry the full range, but specialist online retailers almost always do. And the cost per frame is noticeably higher than with 35mm.

The process decides who can develop your film

Photo: BastienM, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

This is the part most buying guides leave out, and it's why people end up with a roll that's been developed but is unusable. Every film needs a specific process, and not every lab offers every one.

C-41 is the process for color negative film, which makes it the standard. Every lab runs it, it's done by machine, and it's cheap. If you want color to be hassle-free, buy C-41 film.

Black and white doesn't follow a single recipe but combinations of developer, dilution, time and temperature. That sounds more complicated than it is, and it's the reason black and white is the film type for people who develop their own: you get to steer the result instead of handing it off. Watch out for the chromogenic exceptions: films like Ilford XP2 look like black and white but are processed in C-41.

E-6 is the slide process. Fewer labs offer it, it costs more, and turnaround is often longer because E-6 films are held back until there are enough for a batch.

ECN-2 is the motion picture film process, and this is where it gets interesting. Classic Vision3 stock has a carbon black layer on the back, known as remjet, which protects the film from scratches and static. It has to be mechanically washed off before color development; in a normal C-41 machine it would come loose and contaminate the chemistry and the films that follow. That's why many labs won't accept ECN-2 film, and why Kodak has since brought out a new generation without remjet, in which the layer dissolves chemically. What that means for you: check before you buy whether your lab offers the process, and whether it expects the film with or without remjet.

Never hand motion picture film to a regular lab without a word: Vision3 with remjet in a C-41 machine isn't a small mistake but an expensive one: the carbon layer contaminates the chemistry and can take other customers' films down with it. Some labs will develop motion picture film in C-41 as a substitute, but they do it deliberately and with altered color rendering. Ask first rather than trying it and seeing.

What film costs and where to buy it

Photo: Artyom Svetlov, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The price range on the 35mm shelf is wider than most people expect. Here are a few reference points as of August 2026, each for a single roll of 135-36 from German mail-order specialists:

Single-roll prices at Fotoimpex as of August 2026. They fluctuate, but the gaps between the films stay much the same.

What stands out: the professional color film costs more than three times as much as the cheapest black-and-white film. A Portra works out to around 55 cents per frame, a Fomapan to 17. If you practice on the most expensive film, you’ll hold back on pressing the shutter, and you’ll learn more slowly. When you’re starting out, the cheap film is the better choice.

There are four ways to buy film, and they differ more than you might think. Your local shop is the only place where you can ask questions; if you’re buying 120 for the first time, you’ll save yourself a lot of costly lessons there. Mail-order specialists have a wider selection, often better prices and cold storage, but shipping only pays off once you order several rolls. Drugstores and electronics chains usually stock a single color film at the highest price on the market; fine as an emergency fix on a Saturday, but not as a regular source. And classifieds are a special case: that’s where expired film turns up, and it can be wonderful or junk. What matters isn’t the date but how it was stored.

A word about ourselves, since this is the place for it: we carry two films ourselves, Fomapan 200 and Kodak Gold 200. They’re there for people who want to pick up a roll along with a camera or adapter, not as a place to stock up. If you need ten rolls at once, a mail-order specialist is the right place to go, and the prices in the table above are theirs, not ours.

Film belongs in the fridge: Stored cool and dark, film stays usable for years past its expiration date, and black-and-white film all the more so. That’s why ordering several rolls at once pays off twice: the shipping cost per roll comes down to cents rather than euros, and your stash barely ages in the fridge. Let it come up to room temperature for an hour before loading, or condensation will form on the emulsion. The same rule works the other way round when you buy: a shop with high turnover has fresher stock than one where the same box has been sitting in a sunny shop window for two years.

Our shop directory shows you where you can still buy film near you. We’ve gathered the analog shops and specialist mail-order retailers across the German-speaking countries and put them on a map, with a radius search by postcode and filters by product range. It’s free, and there are no paid listings.

Is a bulk loader worth it?

Photo: Gmhofmann, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Film doesn’t only come in cassettes. You can also buy it in bulk: a 30.5-metre roll that you use to load your own cassettes. The gadget for this is called a bulk loader, or bulk film loader. You load the roll into it once in the dark, and from then on you can fill cassettes in daylight.

The appeal is obvious: it’s cheaper per roll, and you decide how long each roll is. Twelve frames for a quick test, say, instead of 36 that sit in the camera for three months. Whether it actually pays off is simple arithmetic, and it works out like this:

Prices from macodirect and Fotoimpex, August 2026. Used loaders turn up regularly for a fraction of the price, and then you break even a lot sooner.

Thirty-eight rolls. If you shoot two rolls a year, it’ll take you twenty years to get there, so it’s not worth it for you. If you get through two or three a month, you’ll be in the black after a year and a half, and from then on your film costs stay a third lower for good. So the honest reason to buy a bulk loader is rarely just the money. It’s the freedom to load whatever length you like and not having to rely on what’s on the shop shelf.

The whole process on the loader, from putting in the bulk roll to a finished cassette. Video: Rolf Duchene.

Which loader to get is a separate question: the models differ in how much stress they put on the film as it winds off the roll. We’ve compared the common bulk loaders, including the scratching problems with designs that use a velvet light trap.

Label your reloaded cassettes right away: A cassette you’ve loaded yourself looks like any other and tells you nothing about what’s inside. Put a sticker on it with the film name, ISO and number of exposures as soon as you load it, or three months later you’ll be staring at an anonymous metal can and guessing. We make film canisters with writable lids for exactly this; a strip of masking tape works just as well.

Developing: at home or at the lab?

Photo: Joost J. Bakker, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The usual rule of thumb goes: develop black and white yourself, send color to the lab. It holds up, just not for the reason you usually hear.

Black and white at home really is the easiest way in, and cheaper than most people think. A starter kit with a developing tank, two reels, a thermometer, measuring beakers, developer and fixer costs just under €40; add a changing bag if you don’t have a room you can get truly pitch black. The real beauty of it is what the chemistry costs after that: a refill pack for around €20 is good for about 50 rolls, which works out to roughly 40 cents of development per roll.

Technically, black and white is so forgiving because the temperature doesn’t have to be spot on to the degree: if you’re off by one or two degrees, you compensate with the development time, and every manufacturer publishes charts for that. The bigger win isn’t the money anyway, it’s the short turnaround: film out of the camera, half an hour in the bathroom, negatives hanging up to dry. No shipping, no waiting, and by the next roll you already know what you want to do differently.

A first black and white roll from the tank to dry negatives, worked through with a starter kit. Video: Shutter Speed.

Color at home is doable too, and people often make more of a drama of it than it deserves. C-41 runs at 38 °C, and unlike black and white, the temperature has to be held tightly; one degree off visibly shifts the colors. A water bath, an aquarium heater and a thermometer will handle that, but it takes attention. The real stumbling block is something else: mixed C-41 chemistry only keeps for a limited time and needs to be used up. A kit pays off if you put ten or more rolls through it within a few weeks, and turns into a money-loser if you only have three rolls spread over six months.

A first go at C-41, including temperature control and what can go wrong along the way. Video: Michael Schartner.

The lab is therefore almost always the more sensible route for color, and cheaper than its reputation: developing only, a 35mm C-41 roll starts at about €4. What makes it expensive is the scan: development plus scanning runs around €17 to €27 per roll, depending on resolution. This is exactly where the numbers change for a lot of people: if you scan yourself, you only pay the lab the small amount.

Over 100 labs in German-speaking countries, sortable by process and shipping: our lab directory. Which one suits your film is covered in the guide Finding the right photo lab.

One more disclosure about scanning at home: we make film holders and scanning accessories, and they’re part of our range. So we do have a stake in the answer “just scan it yourself.” The numbers above still add up, and they add up just as well if you use a flatbed scanner you dug out of the attic.

Practical tip: your first roll goes to the lab, even if you want to develop yourself If you have an unfamiliar camera and you’re also developing for the first time, a blank negative won’t tell you what went wrong: shutter, exposure, chemistry or loading the reel. A first roll from the lab neatly separates the possible causes. After that you know the camera works, and you can take your time dialing in your own development.

Further reading from the community

We’re not the only source, and for plenty of topics there are better ones. Here’s where we look things up ourselves when a question goes beyond what we sell:

• analoge-fotografie.net, the most thorough German-language overview of films currently on the market, with sample images and an assessment of each emulsion. If you want to dig deeper after this guide, start there.
• 35mmc, an English-language community blog with hands-on reviews of practically every film and every 35mm camera, written by people who actually use the stuff.
• APHOG forum, the German-language meeting place for serious film photography. Questions about developer combinations or rare film stocks end up with people here who have been doing this for decades.
• Photrio, the big international forum, especially strong on darkroom work, chemistry and large format.
• r/AnalogCommunity, quick and easygoing for “is this normal?” questions. A photo of the negative is usually all it takes.
• Lomography Magazine on bulk film, a well-illustrated guide to loading your own cassettes, if the video above moves too fast for you.

And the other way round: if you know a shop that’s missing from our directory, or you spot a mistake, the comments section at the bottom of the shop directory page is the quickest way to let us know. No sign-up needed, listings stay free, and there are no paid placements.