North American Analog Photographers: we need your help!

Help us with our lists and you might find your own name in our analog photography book!

If you listened to any of the last ten (or likely many more) episodes of any of our podcasts, you can’t have missed our book writing process. It’s now just a few days until we will finally hold the result in our own hands and we are very excited.

We have also started to work on the translation to English. Or rather, the translator has.

Translating a book is more than just saying the same things in a different language. It’s more than trying to hit the same tone that the book had in its original language. Translating a book also requires a lot of localization. Measurements for example. We weigh in grams, the US weighs in ounces. We measure in centimeters, the US measures in inches. But film is sometimes measured in millimeters (35mm anyone?) no matter where you are, and at other times in inches (4×5″) – again, independent of where you live.

There’s quite a bit of research that has to go into this process. But it gets even more involved when we look at availability of certain products.

An example: in the book we write about the home-brew Caffenol, which is a coffee-based developer. The washing soda that you add has a different consistency here than it has in the US.

But here is our biggest issue right now – and this is where we’re asking you for your help: our book features several lists of films: black and white films, color negative films, slide films, specialized films. And some of them are not readily available in the US, so we can’t prominently include them.

If you’re a film photographer in North America, please help us identify the films that you can’t easily buy and some current ones that we might be missing on this list.

The black-and-white film list – pt 1:
bw_film_list_1

Black-and-white film list – pt 2:
bw_film_list_1

Slide films:
slide_films

Color negative films – pt 1:
color_neg_1

Color negative films – pt 2:
color_neg_2

Specialized films and remaining stock:
specialized_films

If you have any info to enlighten us, please leave a comment below or send a mail to [email protected] – if you can help us, we might even be able to get your name into the book 😉

What we’re specifically looking for:

– which of the films on this list are available in the US under different names? (e.g. we need a new table with matches)

– do you know any of the films on the specialist list and where to get them in the US?

– do you know of any importers who might carry the Euro films?

Thanks!!

Author: Chris Marquardt

Chris Marquardt is an educator and podcaster. He wrote Wide-Angle Photography and is the co-author of The Film Photography Handbook and Absolut analog. He's the host of this podcast and a few others. Chris teaches photography all over the world. He is a regular on the TWiT Network.