Lomography Babylon Kino 13

jackdeso96
Apr 11, 2022
3 min read

Updated: Apr 12, 2022

Back in 2020, Lomography announced two ultra-slow black and white films: Fantome Kino 8 and Babylon Kino 13. How slow are they? Most film shooters seem to shoot medium-speed ISO 400 films. At ISO 13, Babylon Kino is approximately five stops slower, or five times less sensitive to light than your favorite Portra, HP5 or Tri-X. These new films seemed completely impractical to me until I read Orrin Heath's article over on Emulsive, where they used Babylon 13 to capture long exposures of Japanese waterfalls. Inspired by the creative possibilities, I bought a roll and kept it chilled in the fridge until I visited parent's place last December.

It should go without saying that you'll need a lot of light for this film. While its wide latitude makes it possible to shoot handheld, in most situations you'll likely want a tripod and cable release to get good exposure while avoiding any unwanted motion. Once you've set focus and exposure, switch on your camera's mirror lockup to further reduce any shakiness. I shot my test roll on a Nikon FM2, which lacks a mirror lockup. This shot of a covered bridge was also taken handheld. If you look closely, you'll see it's not quite as sharp as other examples I'm sharing.

Shot Handheld — Covered Bridge - Devil's Hopyard

What I like about Babylon Kino is that it is sharp, detailed, and renders punchy black and white tones. When my exposure was spot on, I only had to give a couple nudges in post to get them where I wanted. It does have a wide latitude as advertised, but I still found myself crushing or blowing out the extreme ends of my exposures in mixed lighting situations. When in doubt, I made sure to bracket.

You might notice some snowy artifacts on many of the photos. I had the same issue on a roll of Lomography's Lomochrome Purple last year. I'm not sure if it's a manufacturing issue or if I kept these films in storage for too long. Whatever the cause, it's a shame they're as numerous as they are. Babylon Kino is such a clean film otherwise, and it would be a waste of time to clone out each spot in post.

You could send me every article, exposure chart or formula there exists for calculating perfect long exposures, but experience tells me they simply come down to luck. With this roll, I'd to shoot at the smallest aperture (f/22) then bracket my shutter speed for 4, 8, and 30 seconds. To be honest, the only long exposure on the roll I'm happy with is this little stream deep in the Devil's Hopyard trail. To be honest, I drove out there to get a good exposure of the main waterfall, but I just didn't get an exposure I liked. It's not the worst thing in the world. There are plenty of photos of those falls on the internet already.

East Haddam, CT — Runoff - Devil's Hopyard

While Lomography Babylon Kino 13 is not an every day film for most shooters, it is one I plan on shooting again. When exposed correctly, the tones I got were practically perfect. My hope is that my next roll will not be plagued with blemishes, and that I'll have better luck creating long exposures.