What's the Deal with Film Washi X? | Review & Discussion

In this video, I discuss the beautiful 35mm color film; Film Washi X. This film is distributed by the world's smallest photographic film manufacturer, and boasts a gorgeous color profile and incredible detail!
But...who really makes this film?
I'll delve into the history of Film Washi & the profile of this filmstock. I provide example photos throughout the video, to give you a good idea of whats possible with this product!
Find me on Instagram and Grainery @Yhanson_Photography

[@albarca5084]

One of my favourite stocks ever. Film photography may still be niche and expensive, I'm so glad to live in a time when pationnates enrich the medium with initiatives like what Lomig and many others are doing.

[@alxmtncstudio2066]

"may still be niche"?? bro it's all we had back in the days 😂, you mean "coming back as a niche" right?

[@Vandal42]

The reflected / double exposed shot of times sq reminds me of old TWA posters from the 60s/70s - SO COOL! Love your street photos!

[@YvonneHansonPhotography]

Thank you so much! That's my favourite shot of the roll I think, it realllllly captures times square in a way I wasn't expecting when I took it 😅

[@demitemudrin163]

seeing your vid I just purchased 3 Rolls. Over here in Switzerland a Roll ist CHF 15. Looking forward to be rollin with it. thx 4 the tip and your dope vids.

[@coryajonesvideo]

Excellent video, Yvonne. I love the amount of research you did for this. I've been curious about film Washi for a few years, but haven't picked any of their products. I'm definitely going to check this out at some point, the color and contrast is beautiful. Hope you have fun in L.A! Cheers!

[@YvonneHansonPhotography]

Thank you for watching! I hope that you get a chance to shoot with this, because it really is a beautiful stock!

[@stefanocarini8117]

I have one to try! Can’t wait to :)

[@alexwishmaker4567]

thank you for this video! just processed mine in e6 and oh, they look so overexposed, but thanks to your review I have 2nd roll to try for C41!

[@boredgrass]

Cultural studies taught us that culture is shared meaning. Now, when analogue photography had become a niche, les and less "shared", it has become it's "digital refugium" of all places, that discovers and shares photography as shared history. Social media at it's best!

[@nightsbeatswitchgood]

wow, that shot at 4:35 is gorgeous!

[@YvonneHansonPhotography]

Aye thank you! Taken at NYFW!

[@remylherault8292]

Damn those results are soooooo good!

[@YvonneHansonPhotography]

Aye thank you so much!!

[@alxmtncstudio2066]

About the sponsor "6francs" pronounced "6fran" (French pronunciation, not English, also the 'x' is pronounced like an 's') and it is "Verlan" (the modern french dialect that spawned in 19th century French prisons as a code and popularized in the 90s as a part of the French hip-pop culture emerging in "banlieues") for "Francis", his name. Tadaa.

[@Lawman212]

Having been a photographer in the late nineties, I miss terribly the excellent films and papers available back then. A wide variety of films had been developed to a high level of excellence, leading to a versatility our current arty films can't achieve. One film in particular was Kodak 4x5 Ektachrome 64t. The T implied a color balance suitable for tungsten lights. But the large format version of the film (not 35mm) had another critical function absent from today's marketplace. The film was designed for exposures between one second and thirty seconds. You could try to use daylight films, but you had to compensate for long exposures. A 5 second daylight metered daylight film exposure might actually mean 12 seconds in the field. So 64t got rid of all the voodoo exposures. These long exposures were vital for the use of 4x5 cameras in natural light. Most 4x5 cameras under natural light or continuous light frequently use exposures of 15, 20 seconds at f22 in order to keep most of the scene in focus. You can filter the film for daylight by adding a amber filter and adding a stop of exposure. Long story short, the lack of a large format 64t film means that much 4x5 gear just gathers dust. No one makes a color film with a predictable exposure curve for 4x5 use. It was beautiful stuff, marvelously sharp. Perfect for large interiors that could not be lit with flash. I wish someone would resurrect it.

[@mizgovfx]

Beautiful photos Yvonne with truly pleasing colors resulting from the combination of subject, lighting, film stock, and your post-processing efforts :) I appreciate the dedication you put into creating these videos :) To delve into the question "Why do color negative films have an orange mask?" we need to understand the process at a high-level overview. Film records a black and white image - the intensity of light. If you have emulsion sensitized to the entire visible spectrum and add filters, you can capture light of a specific color (the color that passes through that filter). Sounds simple, right? Just add filters for all colors? Not quite, because that would filter out all the light. In digital cameras, we have a Bayer mask or an X-Trans mask on individual pixels, along with debayering algorithms in image processing. Film, however, must perform all these processes optically & chemically. Light must be accurately recorded in specific layers and filtered in a precise sequence to reach individual layers when viewed. Black and white images of individual channels are of no use to us without computer-based color mixing to create a color image. We need to convert that set of negative black and white images into a set of negative color images - Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow layers (subtractive mixing of light). In theory, this is the process. The opposite colors to CMY are Red, Green, and Blue. After inversion, whether digitally or by recording it on color photo paper (RA4 process) and developing it, we get the negative of the negative = positive. And here's where it gets interesting: these color dyes (CMY) must be formed during the development process after all the light is recorded in the film emulsion (additive light mixing - RGB). If you don't understand why, bear with me and accept it as a fact. In short, while recording the image, we need different dyes to be present as sensitizers for different colors. It's a highly complex chemical process, and it's challenging to form "pure" cyan and magenta dyes while development take place, that only allow the specific light they should pass through while also meeting other chemical requirements for this to work. The yellow dye is the best and absorbs very little unwanted light color. The cyan layer allows a bit of green light to pass, and magenta (the opposite of green) is added to remove it. The magenta layer permits a bit of blue light, and the yellow mask (opposite of blue) is added to eliminate it. These magenta and yellow masks together form the "orange" mask. Ta-da! :D An important aspect to grasp is that to form the dye, we use something called a coupler. I won't delve into the details here, but the result is that the amount of mask is inversely proportional to the amount of any dye formed in a given area. That's why the mask is particularly prominent in unexposed areas, such as around sprocket holes. If you subtract the full mask value picked from this area during negative inversion (as in white balancing a raw scan in the Negative Lab Pro workflow), it's not the same as if the film were produced without the mask, because the mask does not have the same "strength" or an even mixture of magenta and yellow in exposed area. In conclusion, it's accurate to say that the orange mask is designed to aid darkroom printing. However, it's not entirely accurate to assume it's useless in a scanning or digitizing workflow. Inversion software or you as the editor will have less work in achieving "correct" colors from that film stock if it was designed with the need for an orange mask and is still produced with it. Each stock may have a slightly different mask to complement its dyes. I'm completely open to corrections from individuals with more knowledge on this topic. It's possible that I might be misremembering something, or there could be mistakes in my English, as it's not my native language. I studied photography and cinematography in the Slovak language, but this should be more or less accurate.

[@YvonneHansonPhotography]

Thank you so much for this detailed response! I feel like this answers most of the questions I had about the orange mask, and definitely explains it well! I hope others who are curious scroll down to see this haha

[@mizgovfx]

No problem. I am happy to share the knowledge :) I edited the post little bit to make one part bit more clear. Maybe someone else will read it :D If not, you will pass this knowledge further ;)@@YvonneHansonPhotography

[@alexbernatzky5646]

Washi X is the least interesting Washi film (but still beautiful and one of my favourite films) imo being just another aerocolor hand roll effort. I really recommend trying Washi Y, W or V. They have a very unique look and texture that comes from being hand coated on Japanese paper rather than acetate (processing can be hard and I recommend hand processing because I have had labs mangle multiple rolls. Washi R also sounds fun but I never managed to get my hands on a roll :( edited to add I love your new hair colour

[@YvonneHansonPhotography]

I'm definitely going to try W at some point, the OG Washi product is very enticing to me! And thank you for the hair complement :D hopefully it lasts more than a few weeks hahaha

[@shang-hsienyang1284]

Kodak 2460 is easily my favorite color negative. I love it more than Portra 160 or Ektar 100. It's so much easier to DSLR scan these films than to bother myself with film scanners and SilverFast/Vuescan. I really wish that Kodak would make an ISO800 counterpart to the 2460.

[@YvonneHansonPhotography]

Ooooo an 800 iso counterpart would be amazing. Even a 400 iso version would be great, I find 100 iso kind of limiting in a lot of ways

[@Devdev009]

You introduced me to Reflx labs pro 100, and I just noticed that they now sell it in 120 and 220

[@YvonneHansonPhotography]

I didn't know they had a 120 version! That's exciting! Reflx labs is getting some good hype now because of the Cinestill controversy, I'm hoping they have a chance to grow a bit

[@Devdev009]

@@YvonneHansonPhotography I hope they can grow too, cause they have been delivering things that others have not like 120 Aerocolor. And from what I’ve heard, Cinestill has failed to deliver on some kickstarter promises they made. I plan on getting more from them in the future and cannot wait to try out my 35mm Pro 100 roll. Just waiting for the leaves to change to bring out the reds…and for it to not be gray and cloudy

[@YvonneHansonPhotography]

@@Devdev009 given the recent cinestill controversy, I highly recommend opting for the alternatives!

[@jaycee___]

The Russian company could be Tasma--they currently produce aerial photography film under the name "TYPE 42L" in English, or originally "АЭРОФОТОПЛЕНКА ТИП 42Л"

[@YvonneHansonPhotography]

Aye thank you!!! That's a good lead!

[@RedStarRogue]

Blah my local camera shop had Film Washi in stock some years back, but I never bought any of them, maybe a mistake.

[@lukabinks1388]

Yeah fffiiinneee you get a sub🙄🙄🙄🙄

[@YvonneHansonPhotography]

Ayeee I'll take it thank you 😘

[@lukabinks1388]

@@YvonneHansonPhotography any time. good to see someone other than a guy in a carhartt beanie taking photos on film :^)