I rarely shoot one entire roll of 35mm film on one subject, but this was a special occasion: a new film review and a detailed study of my favourite building in my home Madrid neighbourhood.
I’ve been fascinated by this building since I was a child, it has been around since as long as I can remember and was always very visible from the highway turnoff we would take on the way home from school. It reminded me of the tetris game, with large blocks of cement making different parts of the building that were carefully arranged ontop of each other in layers. It wasn’t always made of glass, back in the 80s it was a distinct darker block. I remember it was disused for a long time and I suspect has since been purchased and refurbished. I still don’t know what it is called or who built it.
A bit more about the film
I’ve had a roll of Kosmo 100 film in the fridge for a while, waiting for enough light to shoot it handheld. Apparently this is re-branded film from existing stock. Whilst this makes die hard film fans upset, I am totally fine by it and honestly it is no different than a certain cereal maker providing the raw ingredients for supermarkets to sell under their own brand. As an added bonus the Kosmo Foto has a really cool box design - check it out here. Also importantly, this film is very affordable at just under five quid a roll.
According to Kosmo Foto:
Kosmo Foto Mono is a 100-ISO panchromatic black-and-white film, perfect for all 35mm cameras.
The film is an existing emulsion made by a European film producer. It is factory-fresh new stock.
This new batch of the film features new packaging featuring a black-and-white image of the Kosmo Foto cosmonaut at each end of the packaging.
Kosmo Foto Mono can be used on sunny days, overcast conditions or indoors with studio lighting, flash or natural light.
The film is a traditional black-and-white chemistry that can be developed with formulations such as Perceptol, Tetenal and Rodinal.
Please note – this film can not be developed by minilabs that only run C41 processing.
Kosmo Foto Mono can be pull-processed to ISO 50 or push-processed to ISO 400 with corresponding changes in development time.
About the photos
For the most part there is only one subject in this post: the so-called ‘Tetris building’. I actually shot a few of the residential block of flats around it too as they have some cool designs. As I said, I don’t usually shoot a scene exclusively with one roll of film. It is something I should probably do more of, looking for different angles and perspectives. In fact I decided to do this as I was walking over the bridge and saw the building on the other side (sometimes it pays to always have a camera and film on you!). All images shot on my Leica M2 camera with my 35mm Voigtlander f1.4 lens.
Given this post is all about the same building I have decided not to comment on each shot (saves me from individually uploading too - yay!), so here are my favourite shots of 1 roll of Kosmo 100 film.
Overall observations
I decided quite last minute to take a detour from walking across the bridge to take a good look at this building, so I am glad I had my camera and the Kosmo film with me. It was there and then I decided there was more than enough angles and perspectives to burn through the roll quite quickly. If anything I was surprised by how quickly I found so many different angles from a street perspective and not being able to go into the actual building grounds.
So I have heard rumours that Kosmo film is re-packaged and re-branded Fomapan 100 film. That may be the case, but it is quite different to the experience I have had with Fomapan 100 film before, it looks q bit different. That could be down to development and/or the lighting situation though. To be honest it doesn’t really matter, I suppose opening a new and funky film box gave me that extra push and interest to try out a new roll and get some good shots - that’s the most important thing.
I really like the shots that I got with the film and camera/lens setup, and really enjoyed exploring this iconic building in a lot of detail. As for the Kosmo film I would recommend giving it a try, if anything you will enjoy the design of the box! It performed really well in bright daylight and I liked the good contrast between bright and dark areas. Also a decent amount of detail and sharpness, certainly a film I will be trying again. I am also super supportive of all new stocks out there (even if they are openly re-branded from existing stocks).
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed this super interesting building as much as I did!
Neil
