One of our staff used to joke that combining a Holga with a red filter and a roll of Ilford SFX was like shooting fish in a barrel - you couldn't miss. While that sentiment is perhaps a little hyperbolic it is not too far off the mark.

Ilford SFX is an ISO 200 black and white film that is both panchromatic as well as sensitive to the infrared spectrum of light. This means the film can be shot just like any other black and white film and you will get the expected results. But put a red 25 or infrared filter on SFX and wonderful things start to happen. Ilford SFX has been around for sometime but has long been viewed as a niche product in Ilford’s catalog. In fact, it was discontinued for a short while in the early 2000s while Ilford restructured their business financially. Once the company emerged from that period SFX was brought back from the dead. So it is a zombie film, making it an appropriate film for the Halloween holiday. Also, SFX is available in both 35mm and 120 - a multiple format film - which always scores points in our book.

As mentioned above SFX is superpanchromatic. While it can be used as a normal B&W film, SFX’s big appeal comes when you pair it up with a heavy red filter and start to eliminate some of that visible light, allowing the infrared exposure to show up more in the resulting images. SFX combined with a red filter is a quick way to some dramatic pictures. Used in the landscape, SFX can produce deep, nearly black skies that hang ominously over the viewer. Put to use in portraiture, SFX can create striking portraits where subjects have glowing, white skin and deep, dark eyes. Either way, SFX is a fun film to work with.

SFX is wonderful at creating dramatic landscapes. Shot in a Holga with a Red 25 filter.

So if the best way to success with SFX is through filtering, let’s dig into those filters a bit more. By far the most popular filter to use with this film is the Red 25. This filter has several benefits. It is easy to find and not as expensive as more specialized infrared filters. You only need to compensate exposure by about 2 stops. You can see through the filter for focusing, composition and metering. If you are an SFX first timer, a Red 25 is the filter we would recommend starting with. As an added benefit, that red filter also works well on all other panchromatic black and white films for contrast increase and tonal separation.

But there are more options. A Red 29 is sometimes cited as the preferred filter. Basically, a Red 29 is just a slightly deeper red than the 25. It requires slightly (about an extra 1/2 stop) more exposure compensation and delivers a slightly more dramatically infrared look. The differences are fairly slight though, so if you find a Red 29, great! But there is no need to spend a ton of time hunting one down if you can lay hands on a Red 25 that much more easily.

Holga, Ilford SFX and a Red 25 filter once again. A former staff member once remarked that this combination was like shooting fish in a barrel, it was so easy to get dramatic results.

Technically, SFX is what you would call a “near-infrared” film. This means that it is sensitive to the near-infrared end of the spectrum of light. This spectrum runs from about 750nm out to about 1400nm (the red end of the visible spectrum ends around 700-750nm. This means that all infrared films are actually near-infrared. Even the famed Kodak HIE infrared film had a sensitivity only out to 900nm. But what this “near-infrared” designation sometimes leads to is confusion that Ilford SFX is not capable of true infrared images. Quite to the contrary, paired with the right infrared filter, you can produce some remarkable infrared images with SFX. While you do have to be careful at which wavelength the filters you buy cut off, if you choose wisely, the results will work out quite well. Our favorite infrared filter to use with SFX is the R72 which cuts off most light below 700nm, thereby eliminating almost all the visible exposure and allowing SFX to operate nearly entirely in the infrared spectrum.

The trick with such a filter though is exposing, composing and focusing.

In regards to exposure, some testing might be required for you to pin down the right exposure in various situations. But we can tell you that typically we bracket our exposures shot through R72 filters at 6 stops and 8 stops with the 6 stop exposure typically looking really good. But infrared light can be tricky to gauge, so having that extra exposure with an extra two stops over is a nice insurance policy.

Composing and focusing can also be tricky since it is nearly impossible to see through these filters. You’ll likely be working on a tripod, so simply compose before putting the filter on, then apply the filter once everything is all set up. Focusing is similarly easy if you are shooting at middle or small apertures, but if you like to shoot wide open (think f2.8, f2 or wider) be careful as light in the IR spectrum focuses a bit differently than visible light. Typically you have to focus a hair closer than you would normally. In fact, many lenses have little red IR marks on the focusing barrels to help you adjust for infrared photography.

Holga, Ilford SFX and an R72 Infrared filter. With such a deep IR filter SFX can in fact produce the snowy vegetation known as the “wood effect”.

So our main argument for this film really distills down to how fun it is to see the world in a different spectrum of light. Ilford SFX will show you a strange, new world. Places can be dramatic, people can look eerie. It’s all a ton of fun. SFX is one of those films that once you have tried it and experienced how it renders the world, you’ll wonder why it took you so long to pick up that first roll.

We do have one last quick note to make about this film. It is super grainy. Like really, really grainy. It is grainier than ISO 400 films. If ISO 800 B&W films were a thing, it’d be grainier than them too most likely. So we are making that note here. We don’t know if SFX’s grain is a good thing or a bad thing. In a lot of ways its both. There are times we really like the grain and grittiness of SFX. Overall, we love film grain. But there are times that the grain can be a bit strong. If you love grit, then this is one more reason to love SFX. If you love smoothness, then approach SFX with some caution.

And now a quick recap as to why SFX is awesome.

It can see light that is invisible to our eyes. How cool is that?
Paired with the right filter it creates some dramatic images full of mood and character.
It is available in both 35mm and 120. Yay! We even cut some down once for Minox.
It is easy to work with. It does not have to be loaded in darkness and develops like any other black and white film.
It’s Ilford and we love Ilford.

If all this is enough to convince you to buy a roll, here is a link to the goods on our website.

And if that wasn’t enough to convince you, here are a couple more sample images.

Hasselblad, Ilford SFX and an R72 filter. This image shows how even without anything jumping out in the infrared, the film still has a moody quality to it. This image also helps you see just how grainy a film SFX is.

Film Friday - May 10th, 2024. Ilford SFX 200