The shipment came A LOT faster than I thought it was going to. It said Monday but it came 2 days earlier! I haven't used it yet but I've read a lot about this type of film and how sometimes you can have a cool leak going through your picture and that's exactlt what I want

Background: I am an amateur photographer (some paid gigs, but I don't make a living out of it) and wanted to do a more in depth review of this film. I shoot 35mm as a hobby and live in the bright sun of Arizona, so I wanted to see how this film worked primarily as an alternative to Kodak Gold 200, the other inexpensive film option. I do not actually shoot on Lomo cameras, and wanted to see how this would work in traditional 35mm SLR's and rangefinders. For this review I am testing the film with my Canon A1 and various lenses (20mm f2.8, 35mm f2, and 55mm f1.2) to see if it works as a general use film, and will update this review later using a Minolta Maxxum 7000 and Contax G1. Personally I do not have an interest in lots of grain, light leaks, or unpredictable results, and will be reviewing the film as it compares to other general use negative films.

Film overview: Lomography themselves do not actually make film. Instead, they rebrand other film types and sell them under their own brand. I have heard that these are usually expired films, which gives them their signature "look" (higher grain, color shifts, unpredictable exposures). The expiration date was labeled on the package as 1/2016. You can tell who the original manufacturer of the film is by checking the 6 digit serial number below the barcode. Mine was 114034, making it a repackage of the Italian film Solaris by Ferrania. That makes this film quite a value, as rolls of that type are normally $7 each, and this package gets you 3 rolls for $8. I will compare this lomo repackage to Ektar 100, Kodak Gold 200, and lastly samples of Solaris 100 that I have found on the web.

Film Performance for Prints:
For my developing and prints I use Costco. Great prices and generally good results. The print quality of this film was surprisingly good. There were no lightleaks that I saw (there was one at the beginning of the roll, but that's an issue with my camera), and the colors were quite good. Reds, greens, and blues are strong, with yellows being slightly muted and oranges seem optimized for skin tones. Overall colors aren't too saturated (though not as much as Ektar), and contrast is strong but with good dynamic range. You get great skintones even when shot at the golden hour, which is nice. Most of my shots had a Skylight filter on them which softened the orange, but they looked great without as well. There is minimal grain that showed up in my shots, much less than with other cheap films I've used. For more saturated prints I recommend underexposing slightly (about 1/3rd to 1/2 stops), as overexposure seems to make colors less saturated. For true to life prints, this film is very good. Very little grain visible, no light leaks, great realistic colors (if not super saturated), good contrast, and predictable exposures. I'm very impressed.

Film Performance Scanned: For scanning the film I used an Epson v500 with the standard scanning utility. The settings I used were 3200DPI, low grain reduction, low unsharpening mask, and high digital ICE. The rest of the settings were default. The saved TIF files were then processed in Lightroom 5 with the prints as a reference for how I want the colors to look, though with some variations in WB and exposure. Scans came out pretty flat (low contrast and saturation), though with very high exposure lattitude. This is good, because it means you can adjust them to your liking. Perhaps the colors don't pop right away as Ektar does, but they are easier to dial in with just contrast and saturation and not extensive white balance and hue adjustments. Even scanned there is very little grain, and here I would say it looks every bit as sharp and detailed at Ektar does. That's very impressive to me, and I am quite happy with the way these scan.

FilmPerformance vs other brands:
I would say that this film is quite a bit better than standard Kodak Gold or Fuji Superia branded 200 film. Although it is a stop slower (advantageous in my case), the prints look nicer and the scans are fantastic as well. Colors are much more accurate here, with oranges in particular being more true to life. I wouldn't say the colors are more saturated, but they have a much nicer look in my opinion. The contrast is similar, but the shadows and highlights have more detail overall (but still good contrasts). Grains are very minimal in comparison to Gold and Superia. The Lomo film scans much better, with less grain and easier to edit colors.

The big competition here is Ektar, to which I would say I still prefer Ektar for prints, because the colors from Ektar are quite a bit more interesting. Think of this Lomo film as more of a Porta 160. Scans though they go pretty close, and if you are creative enough you can get them to be just as good as Ektar. Samples online from Solaris look identical, meaning that this film is just a rebrand and not an expired version of that film.

Pros:
Lowest price film I've found
100 speed is great for bright scenes and wider apertures
36 shots a roll vs 24 normally
DX coded for digital 35mm cameras, automatically sets film speed
Very true to life colors, great primary colors and skin tones
Prints look great, very good contrast and exposures
Scans extremely well, almost equal to Ektar

Cons:
For the price, none
Less saturated than other 100 speed films

Side Notes:
For a higher saturated look, manually set your film speed to 125 or 160. This will make the colors pop a bit more, and give you deeper blacks

Conclusion: Overall at this price point I can't fault this film at all. It has bested my expectations, and I will certainly be ordering more in the future. This is the best consumer grade film I've used, and also the cheapest. I much prefer 100 film over 200 because of the sunny conditions I typically shoot in, and it certainly beats out both Kodak Gold 200 and Fuji Superia 200. Overall I think Ektar is still a better film and my personal favorite, but at current prices (~$10 a roll) this Lomo film comes in at less than a third of the price. If you were ever hesitant on ordering this film because of the Lomo name, I would suggest you give it a try and be pleasantly surprised.

I will update this review when used with Contax and Minolta Maxxum glass, but for Canon FD I am thoroughly impressed and will be using this film much more in the future.

This is wonderful film for a fish eye camera, but you need to make sure that you know what you're doing before you insert the film into a camera. I wish the instructions were a bit easier to follow. If you insert it before knowing what you're doing, you could end up rewinding the entire roll before you even use it. Make sure you know what you're doing first!

I bought this film with the purpose of using it with a Diana Mini camera, a lot of people discouraged me of buying it because it's ISO 100 (slow type of film), but since I live in a place where is bright and sunny at least 300 days of the year I decided to give it a try. I was not dissapointed at all, the pictures had vivid colors and there where no grainy photos whatsoever!

I must highlight that this film is best suited for bright and sunny days where it works best, if your intention is to take shots at night without a tripod go with ISO 800 or higher, or if you pretend to take pictures indoors and outdoors use the ISO 400.

I need to start off by cautioning that I used this film with a Canon AE-1, not a lomography camera, so I didn't get to experience any funky colors yet. But my pictures turned out great--the film is slow so you want to use it in bright light outdoors for best results. The colors weren't necessarily as rich as what I've gotten from Kodak Gold before, but the film is a great deal at 36 exposures per roll. If you're going to be doing anything outdoors, this film is worth a try.