Firstcall 400s: In search of a "dull day" film

A good partnership? Some more testing needed.

I don't mind using a tripod with medium or large format cameras but it just doesn't seem to fit very well with the whole 35mm ethic. Contax SLRs are at their best held in the hand both for spontaneity and for greater flexibility when it comes to choosing a viewpoint and working on the composition.

Since, as regular readers will know, I like shooting on dull days - dreich, as we say up here in Scotland - that means a fastish film is required. I had thought about HP5 Plus and tried it on a misty day developed in Spur's HRX developer. The flat lighting and normal development meant that grade 4.5 was needed to get any oomph into the pictures. Although the HP5 Plus/HRX combination normally produces fine grain, the need to print at a very hard grade really shows up whatever grain is there. The film goes from being nice and smooth to very gritty - too much for my taste.

The problem is that HP5 Plus isn't known for being a contrasty film so it starts off at a disadvantage from my point of view. Extended development would be one way of getting extra contrast on dull days but that increases grain as well. I've been thinking of trying to find a film that will give me some punch when developed normally, or reasonably so. Rollei Retro 400S has a reputation for being contrasty and, as many will know, it's that film that is being sold by Firstcall Photographic as their own 400S.

With the price of film apparently on some exponential curve, it's good to know that Firstcall 400s is the cheapest 35mm film on the UK market at £2.49 a roll. If you have £25 to spend, you can buy ten rolls of Firstcall's film or five of HP5 Plus. That's quite a difference although as a general purpose film I wouldn't imagine that 400S is quite as good as Ilford's classic. So I decided to give it a go to see if it would do the job.

The three-piece Firstcall canister. The tape holding the film onto
the spool is stickier than a politician's fingers.

It's another PET film base which means that it can't be torn. At the risk of being thrown out of the film developers' guild, I confess to being a bit of an animal in the changing bag. I can't be bothered with scissors and film can openers. I stick my fingers into the felt trap, wrench it apart and then snap the ends off once I've got a decent hold. I then rip the leader off the film and tear the end from the spool. After that, I roar my war cry and pound my chest a few times. Firstcall 400S makes this brutish method somewhat easier as the 35mm canister is reusable with an end that screws off and on - useful if you buy your film in bulk. However, I had to use scissors to trim the leader and snip the end off the spool as the tape proved resistant to my man fingers.

The photographs on this post were taken during what I like to call an "ASDA photo shoot". That's when I drop Cath off at the supermarket and disappear into the countryside just north of Dundee for an hour or so. There are a few scenes up there that are worth photographing and this particular day was damp and a little misty, perfect for my needs.

A couple of print scans (Multigrade IV RC) - here and above:
Contax 137 MA, 28mmm f2.8 Distagon, Firstcall 400s

developed in D76 1+1

Since there are few deep shadows in this kind of weather, there's usually no need to downrate a film or give extra exposure so I rated it at the box speed with the intention of extending development by around 20% in D76 1+1 - 13 minutes instead of the 10m 50s recommended by Firstcall. There were no problems with the photography side of things other than ripping my trousers on a barbed wire fence after climbing a wall to take the last pic on this page...

The development process wasn't without its challenges, though. The chemicals, temperature and timing were all fine but quite a few of the negatives had some very thin shadows. Metering is straightforward in dull conditions and there's no way I would have underexposed these shots by the 1.5-2 stops I reckon were missing. So I did some reading and, sure enough, many photographers have found that the true speed of Rollei Retro 400S is near 160 ISO.

There were enough negatives with sufficient shadow detail to get some OK scans but it's pretty clear that I'm never going to get anything approaching 400 ISO from this film. But what were the results actually like? They were quite good. In the negatives where there was reasonable shadow detail the highlights looked about right and the contrast was good. The negs still needed a hard grade 4 to print with enough contrast (it was a really dull day) but the results appeared less grainy than the HP5+/HRX combo. Sharpness was high and the negatives were vice-free with no drying marks or over-enthusiastic curliness. I was pleasantly surprised by Firstcall 400S. I think it goes to show that we shouldn't be put off because a film may be cheaper. Sometimes so-called lesser emulsions are a little trickier but Firstcall 400s looks like it will definitely reward the extra effort needed to master it.

I'll be shooting some more of this film and I'll bracket the shots at 100 and 200 ISO to see what's best. If I can squeeze 200 ISO out of it then it will still be a good option for dull days. At 100 ISO I'd be as well using a genuine 100 ISO film with extended development and taking advantage of inherently finer grain.

Below are the best of the negatives, all of which were scanned and given some levels adjustment and a little burning in of skies, etc, in Lightroom where my usual warm tone was also added.

This is an attempt at a Gothic atmosphere, helped in this case by the empty shadows in the gate pillar and wall. Duntrune House is quite a big pile that, I think, belongs to a local property developer I used to write about when I was a newspaper reporter. Just out of sight in front of the elevation you can see here of the house is a kids' trampoline that didn't do much for the spooky look I was after!

It was all the verticals that attracted me to this shot. An industrial scene, it includes one of Dundee's two wind turbines that were the largest in an urban setting in the world and maybe still are. They're hideous but that's another issue. Also in the picture just above the horizon on the left is a chimney that I think is from the Michelin tyre plant.

Here's a gentle pastoral scene just along the road from Duntrune House. The light mist is attractive and the only thing I'd like to have seen would have been a couple of cows at the water trough beneath the tree on the right.

I've posted a photograph of this pond before but this shot is nicer. It's at a small hamlet called Burnside of Duntrune. The pond is a mill dam fed by the Fithie Burn.

I had to climb a stone wall and hang onto a barbed wire fence standing on a ledge about eight inches wide to get this shot. Not sure if it was worth it! It's a private woodland that is quite nondescript but there was a nice haze in the treetops that was appealing.