Welcome to part two of my review of Luckyfilm’s NEW SHD 100 black and white negative film. This article describes the film shot at EI 25 and bracketed +/- 1 stop of under and over exposure.

For those of you who haven’t read part one yet, I highly recommend it so that you can see how the film behaves at box speed, as well as understand the distinction between Lucky Group Corporation (Lè Kǎi), who used to make and sell the OLD Lucky SHD 100 and Luckyfilm (Huá Gǎn), who make the new film.

Series structure

Part one, covered the 35mm version of Lucky New SHD 100 at EI 100 with +/- 1 stop brackets. This part covers EI 25 with the same bracketing system. Part three will cover the film shot at EI 400 and part four will cover the film developed in a black and white reversal development process.

You can find the currently published parts using the links below:

Here’s what’s covered in this article:


Shooting, development and scanning methodology

Camera

This roll was shot immediately after my EI 100 test roll. It was shot at EI 25 and bracketed in-camera by my Nikon F100, which was set to manual and in spot meter mode. The F100 counted a total of 38 frames shot.

Lens

I used my Nikkor AF-D 28-105 f/3.5-4.5 zoom/macro lens. For this roll, the lens was set to a constant f/5.6.

Development

The film was developed at 20c in Kodak HC-110 1+47 (dilution E) for 05:45. The film was agitated continuously for the first 60 seconds and then again for 10 seconds at the top of every minute thereafter. No pre-wash.

Ilford’s Ilfostop and Rapid Fixer were used at the manufacturer’s recommended dilutions for one minute and five minutes respectively. Finally, the film was soaked for one minute in Kodak Photoflo (2+1000ml) and then rinsed for five minutes in running water.

Scanning

As with the EI 100 roll, the film was left to hang to dry for 24 hours, cut and scanned using an Epson Perfection V750 Pro scanner in factory-shipped 35mm holders.
I scanned to TIFF at 1600dpi in Vuescan for speed (I hate scanning 35mm film), and a light unsharp mask was applied in Photoshop with no dust removal.

The files were exported to 1000px on the longest edge in Lightroom with a light hand on getting the file size down for web.


Samples

I have provided six scenes for review here and leave you to make up your own minds. Each of the galleries below shows the underexposed, correctly exposed (per meter) and overexposed images in that order. Click the thumbnails for a full-size view.
Weather conditions were fantastic. Blazing sun and low humidity. The subjects are mostly aspects of rice farms and paddy fields. Lots of reflective surfaces and plenty of green tones to capture.
 
Sample one


 
Sample two


 
Sample three


 
Sample four


 
Sample five


 
Sample six


Closing thoughts

As with the previous part of this series and strangely my Bergger Pancro tests, under exposure by a single stop seems to provide the most pleasing result. Now, this may be my light, it may be my subjects, it may even be my meter but having had that checked out – and more importantly, after using two separate external light meters for my Bergger Pancro – the “under expose for better results” hypothesis seems to bear out.
That’s not to say that the per meter results above are not pleasing however, they just play better to my eye and your results may vary.

I guess the real answer is would I purposely shoot this film one or even stops slower than box speed in real life? I think I’d likely pull it to EI 50 in very bright light and if I wanted to maintain a large-ish aperture but I’m not sure if I’d go out of my way to do so.

Still, my initial thoughts from part one of being able to eke out more tonality from the film seem to have borne out, even if on the lighter and not the darker end of the spectrum.

I’m looking forward to sharing the EI 400 tests with you next. For my money, they have the most character of the two examples so far. The results of the reversal development in part four are pretty special, too. That transparent base does wonders for the the tone of the film!

Thanks for reading and please leave your comments or questions below. If you’ve shot this film already, I would love to hear what you think and how your opinion compares with mine.

Before I go, I’d like to say another big thanks to Stian-René Espeland for helping me make contact with the folks at Luckyfilm. Go check out his Instagram account @sespela and while you’re there, go give @luckyfilm_china a follow – you can also find them on Twitter!

Keep shooting, folks,

~ EM

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2 responses to “Film stock review: Lucky New SHD 100 Part 2 – 35mm EI 25 (bracketed +/- 1 stop)”

  1. @luckyfilm_china love the puddles

 

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