Svema 125 Color Film

by: Commiecam

Well, I bought a roll of Svema 125 Color with my first order and I just had it processed. (Don't laugh! The local drugstore has a Noritsu system and they actually maintain it properly.) I shot the film at 125 in my Canon Eos-1N, whose exposure system does almost as well as I might with a spot meter. The negatives look lovely to the eye and the prints have an overall greenish cast similar to but far stronger than what you used to see in absolutely fresh Kodachrome 25. The colour palette definitely is VERY different from ours, so much so that I think the dye intermediaries have got to be totally different from the standard Kodak/Fuji practice. Well, I was warned...

BUT!!! This film may require some filtration fiddling either in the darkjroom or in the software, but it is really interesting! I have not seen colour contrast or saturation like this since Kodak gave up C22 and Agfa conformed toii the C41 standard. The colours have PUNCH! And there really is BLACK in the shadows, enough so that you'd have to be careful with metering there.

It is, perhaps in some ways, a film from a bygone era. But that bygone era produced films with colour saturation and real he-man contrast and a bit of grain as well, that can be used to make great images. I am mainly interested in doing B&W, but when I am not shooting kids' birthday pictures, I am certain that I will return to this colour film.

BTW, though I have the equipment, I do not do colour develpoment or printing in the darkroom because I do not like handling expensive, short-lived and hazardous chemicals. Instead I use my Epson 4870 scanner and GIMP graphics software in conjunction with an Epaon Workforce 1100 printer. Gimp, by the way, is freeware and it's every bit as good as Photoshop.

Now to get onto the Svema 64. I still have two rolls (120&35mm) from 2005 that will now become display items.