Oh boy, he’s finally here! Welcoming little Street Candy ATM400 to the world…! It mesures 35mm, weight 21 grams and mommy is fine Yes that’s right, there’s a newborn in the Black & White Film family.
Over the past few months I’ve been working on making this new film a reality and it’s finally available!
What is Street Candy ?
Now you are probably wondering what’s so special about this film…so let me tell you more about it.
In my journey in bringing a new film out, I wanted to find something that wasn’t currently sold in 35mm rolls. I didn’t see the point of just respooling a film that we could get easily and it had to a little more spicy than that. After talking to some people around me, I found a roll of an former security surveillance film that for sure, no-one was selling.
This film was mostly used in ATM cameras to take pictures of anyone who would withdraw money. You can tell that’s not a standard film because of its film base that’s thinner than a standard one* (65 μm VS 100 μm for regular 35mm film). The reason behind, is that they had to save a maximum of space in those machines while being able to capture a maximum of portraits. By reducing the film base they manage to almost double the amounts of pictures taken on a single load of film.
*Since 2019, we have upgraded to a standard 100 μm film base which feel more sturdy and is easier to load in camera or developing reels. The emulsion remains identical though.
Another interesting characteristic of this film is its contrast. If you are into soft and flat looking black and white, then you may want to look elsewhere. ATM400 is a high contrast film that almost looks like you have been using a yellow or even red filter in some situations. The picture below is a great example of what you can expect from this film.
How to develop Street Candy ATM400?
With the film, didn’t come much information about how it should be processed so
we had to run a few tests and what gave us the most satisfying results was using the development method of Ilford HP5. Depending on the developer you are using this may need to be adjusted slightly but this should give you some good starting base to get the most out of your ATM400.
Since then we have gathered more information and more processing information can be found on the ATM400 Datasheet.
You may also if it can be pushed but (yes, there’s a “but”) you have to be gentle with it. This isn’t the kind of film that can be ridiculously pushed like I did recently with Kodak TX400 at ISO 6400.
Here we recommend pushing up to one stop. Even though we got pictures to look at after pushing it 2 stops at ISO 1600, the contrast increases a lot and results in loss of shadow details.. By playing a little with curves in post production we were able to bring the images back to life but that may not be ideal if you’re planing on doing prints from your negatives. Just keep that in mind.
To Conclude
I’d like to thank everyone who’s been supporting this project until now. The feedback received from you guys has been amazing and this is another great demonstration that the film community is made of people who really care about the future of film.
Hopefully this is the beginning of a new adventure and we hope to bring you more exotic film to shoot with in the future!
By the way, you are also welcome to join us on Instagram @StreetCandyFilm.
Comments