SantaFilm

SantaColor100 is an interesting stock, not only for its unique properties as a surveillance film but also due to its scanning requirements. Because of the clearer base, some scanners get confused and produce a very red image. This is easily corrected when home scanning or by a good lab. For this reason, camera scanning is one of the best ways to get the most out of this lovely stock!

Arild Båsmo (@arilbaas), founder and head of @valoi.co, is a big SantaColor100 enthusiast. Today we are sharing some of his scans as well as notes on why he enjoys SantaColor100.

SantaColor 100 quickly became a staple in his camera bag because it offered a lot of things he enjoys about color film: Punchy colors, deep greens, solid contrast but with good highlight retention, and fine grain. For him, there just aren’t any other color films that provide all that. Most of his shots were either metered at 100, or at 160-200 and pushed one development step.

Mastering the art of scanning with VALOI became crucial for him. He found that scanning the film at home tends to yield better results than most labs can produce, partly due to its different base compared to most colour negative films. Controlling the amount of magenta, especially visible in the shadows, became an essential aspect of scanning this film well. Tools like Negative Lab Pro, known for being quite film agnostic, greatly aided in achieving optimal results.