 What's up guys today? I'm gonna talk about the four main characteristics of film You really only need to know these four main things Then you're gonna go before I do that though I want to talk about what film actually is because you may be new to it and you might be wondering what is this magical thing that? Creates images without any digital information and here is a roll of film. Okay. The first part of film is just a thin plastic base That's what everything is going to be layered on top of after that you have a microscopically thin layer of Emulsion and that is basically a chemical compound of silver halide crystals suspended in gelatin And yeah, it's that gelatin film is not vegan Number three you have an anti-halation layer and number four you have a protective layer that protective layer is just gonna help Your film to not get scratched. Okay. What are the four main film? characteristics we have film speed we have grain we have tonal range and Lastly we have contrast so we'll talk about grain first Actually, we'll talk about film speed first because that's the most readily available information to you. It's on the box So film speed of 50 is often Considered a slow speed anything below that 50 and below a 100 to 200 range is sort of a medium speed film and a 400 end up is considered a fast speed Just like your ISO and your digital camera the higher the number the more sensitive the camera Sorry, the more sensitive the film will be too light Okay, number two is grain when you expose that piece of film the silver halide crystals are gonna form these black clumps called grain And that grain creates what's called a latent image. That means you can't actually see it It's not until you go through the chemical process of using developer fixer and all that that that image will start to appear So the size of the grain is actually relative to that film speed So the lower the film speed the finer the grain so you're gonna have more of a detailed higher resolution looking image If you want more leeway you want to go with the higher film speed So 400 and up will give you more leeway and also more grain So it is important to note that not all film speeds are gonna have the same grain There's different types of grain structure and it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. So one ISO 400 speed might have a very different looking grain or have more or less grain than another 400 speed So number three was tones tones which also by the way correlates to that film speed in general is The amount of grays you have from black to white a lower film speed is gonna have a greater tonal range a higher film speed We'll go from black to white more suddenly in other words You're gonna have more contrast and that was actually number four So that's pretty much everything you need to know about film. Let's go. Let's do a recap actually So we have your film speed you have your film grain you have tonal range and you have contrast It's all you need to know So that's it. Those are the four characteristics of film if that still feels a little overwhelming My advice would be to go and pick up a 400 speed I really like tri-axe because you have a lot of leeway. You can be developed as if it were a 1600 speed film I think that's kind of the limits of tri-axe personally I shoot tri-axe at 1250 and I develop it in diaphine and it comes out great I don't really shoot tri-axe at 400 because I mostly use diaphine. So I kind of keep it Consistent I don't really worry about pushing or pulling it. I just shoot it at 1250. That's like my standard So I hope this helped. I'll have another video tomorrow if you guys want to see more videos Like and subscribe. I guess you have to click a bell now. I don't know I don't really like YouTube. I don't really like being on video at all to be honest But I like helping people so I hope this is useful to you guys. I will see you in the video tomorrow