120 Arista 400 Film test

I got some of the 120 Arista 400 film to check out.

I'm rotary processing in T-max developer.

Initial results show a relative speed about 1-and-a-third stops slower than Ilford Delta 400 and T-max 400.

Base + fog was in the 0.45 range.

Seems like its expired film but I wondered what kind of results others are getting.

I also got some Arista 100 in 4x5 and 8x10. I have not yet processed the control strips yet, but I'll post those separate.

Jobo Rotary in 1500 reels
T-max dev. 1:4
24 deg. C

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.167 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

I have not processed any of my 120 yet. But I just this morning processed some in HC110 diluted 1:49 for 6.5 minutes ay 68F. It was shot at box speed (400) and I must say I am happy with the results.

Sounds like Arista.EDU Ultra 400. That's about what my anecdotal assessment tells me about that film in XTOL, though not quite that slow. I'm getting good results with the film at 2/3 to 1 stop (E.I. 250 to 200) less than box speed under most lighting conditions. I can get 320 under very flat lighting by virtue of developing to a higher contrast index.

I use it quite a bit with HC110 Dil. B for the reccomended 6.5 minutes and seem to get good results at ISO 400 (although that's just my opinion). The only time i have trouble with it is pushing it to 1600+, and i've only done that a few times, so i'm still working out the kinks.

Isn't the reccomended time for T-MAX w/ rotary processing more like 7 minutes than 6? Or did you use the lower end of the reccomended time?

c.w. said:

Isn't the reccomended time for T-MAX w/ rotary processing more like 7 minutes than 6? Or did you use the lower end of the reccomended time?

Click to expand...

I did not post the gammas, but that 'first guess' time of 6 min gave 0.73 which is OK but the next rolls I'll give around 5.5 min as my goal is around 0.65 gamma. The Delta 400 in the graph above is processed to a gamma of 0.65 which works well for me.

I has previously used some Arista.edu 100 and it worked out to about one minute less than what the sheet indicated, so my first guess with the 400 was one min less than what the recommended time.

Thanks for the other comments everyone. My film base was 0.45, anyone reading anything this dense? As pointed out the film is Arista.Edu ULTRA 400.

I suspect PE might know more on the topic but my own empiric data suggest that fog decreases speed and decreases latitude. in this case and in other fogged films I have tested. I threw all the boxes away when shooting, maybe I can locate one to see if there is any date code.

Fog can either decrease speed or leave it unchanged depending on film design. Generally, the speed change occurs in the toe of the curve when fog affects the film, and I don't see that here. In fact, the higher Dmin is not all that evident. The latitude would decrease in tune with the speed decrease, if any.

That set of curves shows that the Ilford is a beautiful product, but the humps and bumps in the other one would suggest a rather sloppy blending of emlusions or some sort of an emulsion problem. Note that there are 3 distinct "segments" in the curve. If I knew it was a blend, I would say that there was a problem with the blend and that it consisted of 3 components. However, I have seen this as well with a single emulsion that had an odd size / frequency distribution.

PE

Photo Engineer said:

Fog can either decrease speed or leave it unchanged depending on film design. Generally, the speed change occurs in the toe of the curve when fog affects the film, and I don't see that here. In fact, the higher Dmin is not all that evident. The latitude would decrease in tune with the speed decrease, if any.

That set of curves shows that the Ilford is a beautiful product, but the humps and bumps in the other one would suggest a rather sloppy blending of emlusions or some sort of an emulsion problem. Note that there are 3 distinct "segments" in the curve. If I knew it was a blend, I would say that there was a problem with the blend and that it consisted of 3 components. However, I have seen this as well with a single emulsion that had an odd size / frequency distribution.

PE

Click to expand...

Since this was a speed test I subtract the fog from each curve,(both datasets start at zero). I'll see if I can post one with the fog in there. Basically it would raise the Arista curve up about 0.30 from the Delta 400. The shoulders would almost overlap and the detrimental effects to the toe should show up.

It would still be hard to tell if the fog caused the speed loss or if the speed was the inherent speed of the emulsion itself. If you assume the speed loss was fog induced, then the bumps in the curve tend to damp out when I do a mental realignment on it. So, there could be multiple sources of multiple problems. Sorry I cannot help more.

My advice - stick with the Delta. I like it too!

PE

Photo Engineer said:

It would still be hard to tell if the fog caused the speed loss or if the speed was the inherent speed of the emulsion itself. If you assume the speed loss was fog induced, then the bumps in the curve tend to damp out when I do a mental realignment on it. So, there could be multiple sources of multiple problems. Sorry I cannot help more.

My advice - stick with the Delta. I like it too!

PE

Click to expand...

Good point.