Verdict first: I am going to buy twenty rolls of this. That tells you most of what you need to know.
Kentmere Pan 200 is the newest member of the Kentmere line (the budget black and white films made by Ilford in the UK). It joins the existing Kentmere Pan 100 and Pan 400, slotting into the obvious gap in the middle at 200 ISO. The film has real character (a bit contrasty, slightly limited exposure latitude, rich blacks, gorgeous upper mid-tones), and it costs significantly less than FP4. For me, that combination is a winner.
This is not me being polite because they sent me free rolls. The conclusion would be the same if I had bought them at retail, which is what I am about to do anyway.
What it is and what it costs
Kentmere is Ilford’s budget black and white line. The Kentmere films are real black and white emulsions made in the UK to genuinely high standards. They are not novelty stocks and they are not a different beast from FP4 or HP5. They are simply a different price tier from the same manufacturer.
Pricing in the UK at retail, roughly:
- Kentmere Pan 200 at around £5 per 120 roll
- Ilford FP4 Plus at around £8 per 120 roll
That is a £3 difference per roll, which adds up fast if you shoot a lot of film. Twenty rolls of Kentmere is £100. Twenty rolls of FP4 is £160. That is a real saving for someone who buys in those kinds of batches, which I do.
The price gap is not the only reason to consider Kentmere, but it is the reason to take the rest seriously. If the only thing on offer was “FP4 but 30% cheaper,” that would be enough reason for many film shooters to switch.
The methodology, for once
I have a confession. Normally when I get a new film to test I shoot all of it across various subjects, develop it, and then wish I had shot one roll first to learn from before shooting the others. This time I actually remembered to do that. Pretty chuffed with myself.
Three rolls, in sequence:
Roll one: walking around Toronto with my friend Clay. Bronica GS1 (a camera I will properly cover on the channel soon). Mostly daylight, mostly portraits and street scenes. Developed before shooting the next roll.
Roll two: self-portraits in a hotel room with the Rolleiflex SLX and a Neewer Z2 Pro S flash. Three lenses: 80mm, 150mm, then 50mm. Tested different aperture and flash combinations.
Roll three: the shores of Lake Ontario. SLX again. Daylight landscape work.
The first roll told me what the film does. Rolls two and three gave me a chance to use that knowledge instead of fumbling.
What I learned from the first roll
Kentmere Pan 200 has a distinct character that is worth understanding before you shoot it.
It is a bit contrasty. Punchier than FP4 across most scenes. Not extreme, but noticeable. Shadows go deep, highlights climb fast.
The exposure latitude is narrower than FP4. This is the consequence of the contrast: there is less margin for error in your metering, and overexposed highlights blow out quickly with not much rolloff to recover. If you usually shoot with a bit of casual sloppiness on the exposure side, like I do, Kentmere will punish that more than FP4 would.
The blacks are rich. This is a real strength. Deep, properly black blacks with detail. Whether this is a chemistry thing or an emulsion thing or both, the prints have visible depth in the shadows.
The grain is impressive for the price. I expected a clearly grainier image than FP4 and got something closer than I expected. Visible grain when you go in close (it is a 200 ISO film, not Acros) but well controlled and aesthetically pleasing. Not at all clumpy or muddy.
The upper mid-tones are beautiful. This is the finding that made me sit up. Kentmere renders the upper part of the mid-tone range with a particular kind of glow. Faces specifically sit in this range, and the upper mid-tone behaviour means skin tones in portraits come out really well: alive, dimensional, not flat. The Clay portraits from the first roll were where I noticed this.
The combination is interesting. A film with limited latitude, deep blacks, fast-blowing highlights, and beautiful upper mid-tones is a film with a particular sweet spot. You meter for the upper mids, you let the highlights look after themselves (or you control them with composition and lighting), and you take advantage of the rich blacks. That is a different way of working than the FP4 approach of “expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights, trust the latitude to handle the rest.”
![PLACEHOLDER: a portrait of Clay from the first roll, showing the upper mid-tone rendering on skin]
Where it fits
This is the bit I want to think out loud about. Where does Kentmere Pan 200 sit alongside FP4 and the other films I shoot regularly?
FP4 is still the best film I shoot. I want to be clear about that. FP4 is a technically more capable film than Kentmere 200 by any objective measure. Wider latitude, finer grain, more forgiving of metering, more flexible across subject types. If I was forced to pick one black and white film for everything I do, it would still be FP4.
But Kentmere 200 fills a real gap. My current camera stable is mostly clean and precise: Rolleiflex 6006, Rolleiflex SLX, Fuji GSW690iii, Bronica ETRS. These are well-engineered cameras that produce very clean images. The Bronica S2A is the one in my collection with strong inherent character, and shooting FP4 in the S2A gives you a clean film through a character camera, which works.
But shooting FP4 through a clean camera gives you clean-on-clean, and sometimes I want some grit. Pairing Kentmere 200 with one of the clean cameras gives me grit through precision. Specifically: Kentmere through the Fuji GSW690iii sounds genuinely interesting. The GSW is one of the cleanest, most clinical cameras I own. Putting a film with some bite into it could be a really productive pairing. That is the kind of experiment I want to do.
So Kentmere does not replace FP4. It complements it. Different tool for a different intent.
![PLACEHOLDER: a landscape from the Lake Ontario roll, showing the deep blacks and the contrast handling]
Who should buy it
If you are new to black and white film and you want to start somewhere cheap that is not a novelty stock, Kentmere Pan 200 is an easy recommendation. It is a real, high-quality emulsion at a price that means you can shoot a lot of it without bankrupting yourself.
If you already shoot FP4 or HP5 regularly and you are wondering if Kentmere is “just the cheaper version”, the answer is: not exactly. It is a different film with its own character, not a budget version of the same thing. The character it has (contrast, mid-tones, blacks) is a real character, not a deficiency.
If you shoot portraits, this is especially worth a roll or two. The upper mid-tone rendering on skin is genuinely lovely.
If you shoot in tricky high-contrast light, you might find the narrow latitude more annoying than rewarding. Stick with FP4 for those situations and pull out the Kentmere when the light is more even.
The bottom line
I am going back to the UK and putting in an order for 20 rolls. That is the simplest possible expression of what I think of this film. There is no test that matters more than “am I going to buy more of this with my own money,” and I am.
Big thanks to Ilford for the test rolls. Genuinely one of the best new film stocks I have tried in the last few years.