It has been awhile since I’ve written anything and there are good reasons why. I won’t bore you with anything so let’s jump right into this.
Whenever a new film is introduced to the world most of us film shooters jump for joy. Not literally, but you know what I mean. Some are hell bent on using a certain film and nothing else, while others (like me) enjoy using a variety of films. It’s part of the fun. Well…recently CatLABS announced a new 120 film called CatLABS X Film 320 Pro. The EL ISO is 320 and they include recommendations on shooting it and developing it on their website.
With some funds available, I was able to pick up a few rolls. Btw…a roll of the 120 goes for under $7, which is a good deal in my opinion. Especially when you consider that film companies *cough cough Kodak, have been raising film prices quite a bit. So the question is what exactly is this film? There’s speculation for sure. Double-X, Fomapan, Shanghai, etc…Honesty, I don’t know.
Now to the fun part. All day I had been waiting to shoot my first roll. What camera? What lens? What developer? Honestly I had no clue but it sure helped pass the time at work. Once I got home, I just went with my Mamiya C330 with the 65mm lens. I loaded the camera with this film and headed outside with my 4 year old daughter. We did our quick photo session and called it a day.
I decided to shoot the film @250 and develop it in Xtol stock. I had a little bit left and wanted to get rid of it before it went bad. Negs looked fine and I just scanned the roll. I will be playing around with different developers to see what I can get and what works best…for me. So what do I think about the first roll I’ve shot? Well…first I want to give CatLABS credit for not using the cheap backing paper and tape like they do with the other 120 film they sell. The X Film 320 has good backing paper and good tape. That’s a start. Overall…I’m happy with the results. Good quality, good tones, rich blacks, and so on. I definitely recommend grabbing a few rolls to see if this film is for you. I’m going to share the photos from the entire roll. They’re not nothing to write home about but there are a couple that I really love.
