Back in July last year, the Kosmo Foto website announced they were releasing their first range of film: a monochromatic 35mm 100ISO film named Kosmo Foto Mono. The film was released in September last year and I was really excited about shooting a brand new range of film so I made sure I got my hands on a couple of rolls. I held onto it for a little while to save it for a special occasion, and between Christmas and New Year we had a big downfall of snow, so I loaded a roll into my Olympus om10 and drove to a nearby country park: Bradgate Park in Leicestershire.
I'd never been before but I'd seen photos on Instagram from friends who had traveled there and it looked like a really good place to test drive something photography-wise. It didn't disappoint! There was a lot of interesting things to photograph made even more photogenic by the snow.
The black and white tone of the film lended itself well to snow covered landscapes and made for some really impressive photos, even if it was pretty difficult to climb up and down snow covered hills and mountains! It was also really, really cold! But it was worth it, right at the top of the largest hill was a really huge war memorial, so I got a few photos of that.
There was also an old tower that was a mock windmill, on a hill that was adjacent, but I literally had to stand there for about half hour to get a photo without any people (or dogs!) in the shot.
The Kosmo Foto film has a really nice tone. I've shot a handful of black and white films and it's not as contrasting as Ilford XP2 super but more of a range in shades than Ilford HP5 Plus, maybe closer to Kodak Tri-X. I rated the film at 100 ISO as suggested and it was a very bright and sunny day when I took the photos which delivered really good results. I'm looking forward to shooting a roll in a slightly less sophisticated camera to see what results that yields. I'm by no stretch a developer so I trusted the folks at AG Photo Lab to develop and scan my film for me. I've uploaded virtually the whole roll of film to Flickr, you can see the photos by clicking this little bit of text.