Let this giant medium format film comparison help you find your favourite

Everybody seems to be getting into film photography these days. New photographers are discovering it for the first time, and many who made the switch from film to digital are now adding it back into the mix. But the film choices today aren’t quite the same as they were in film’s heyday. In this video, Jay P Morgan compares a whole bunch of 120 medium format colour and black & white films from Ilford, Kodak, Fujifilm and CineStill.

There doesn’t seem to be much point including Fujifilm in this list, given that they’re on a mission to kill off all their film stocks. In fact, the Acros 100 shown in the video already seems to have been discontinued.

The video’s broken up into a whole bunch of sections so here’s the breakdown.

• 2:14 – Low ISO Black and White
  • 2:19 – Fujifilm Acros 100
  • 3:30 – Ilford Delta 100
  • 3:50 – Ilford FP4+ 125
  • 4:30 – Kodak TMAX 100
• 5:21 – Medium ISO Black and White
  • 5:25 – Ilford Delta 400
  • 5:52 – Ilford HP5+ 400
  • 7:01 – Ilford XP2 Super 400
  • 7:44 – Kodak TMAX 400
  • 8:16 – Kodak Tri-X 400
• 9:41 – High ISO Black and White
  • 9:46 – Ilford Delta 3200
• 10:20 – Low ISO Color
  • 10:26 – Kodak Portra 160
  • 10:50 – Kodak Ektar 100
  • 11:27 – CineStill 50D
• 12:08 – Medium ISO Color
  • 12:11 – Fujifilm Pro 400H
  • 12:19 – Kodak Portra 400
• 13:08 – High ISO Color
  • 13:14 – Kodak Portra 800
  • 13:25 – CineStill 800 Tungsten

As you can see, it’s a pretty comprehensive list. Although it is by no means complete. There’s no mention of Bergger Pancro 400 or JCH StreetPan 400, for example. And they’re not the only ones. But there’s only so many hours in the day, and these are the most popular and readily available around the world.

Although certain films offer obvious advantages in different situations, a lot will boil down to personal preference. For example, with black and white I prefer Ilford FP4+ 125 over Ilford Delta 100. I also like to use Kodak Tri-X 400 over both Ilford HP5+ 400 and Delta 400. I just like the look more of FP4+ and Tri-X.

Which will be right for you will depend on what you like the look of and fits your technical needs.

For colour, I’ll stick with digital.