Achieving high resolution with film

reggie · Sep 11, 2007

Hi:

I am interested in finding what film\processing products are available for high resolution reproduction. I am currently trying to find out if I can get detail down to 1/100th of an inch or smaller. This should be doable with my modern lenses, but what do I need in terms of film\processing to achieve this (or even higher) resolution. I am looking at line reproduction and creating high contrast negatives.

I'd appreciate any advice. This gets into an area of photography that I haven't been that concerned with in the past.

Thanks.

-R

jim appleyard · Sep 11, 2007

What format did you have in mind? That's the first thing I'd go for; the bigger the negative, the better the image (sharpness, resolution, {they all get lumped together} etc.)

I'd then go for an accutance developer. FX-1 may be the sharpest one available (Photo Formulary or mix yourself). The Beutler Formula and Rodinal would be other good choices.

And none of this is any good without a tripod!

richard ide · Sep 11, 2007

Reggie,
Should not be a problem! But!! Can you provide some more information please. What are you photographing and what is your desired end result? There is more than one approach to this. I can then give advice about high contrast films and developers which will give you hard edge images with density over 4.0.

reggie · Sep 11, 2007

richard ide said:
Reggie,
Should not be a problem! But!! Can you provide some more information please. What are you photographing and what is your desired end result? There is more than one approach to this. I can then give advice about high contrast films and developers which will give you hard edge images with density over 4.0.

Right now, I will be making reproductions in the DR using a copy stand. I will be photographing line materials (printed material, flat art works, film negatives, etc.). In fact, I will start off photographing high-quality resolution charts to see what kind of resolution I can reproduce on film\developer. My desired end result is to achieve resolution of at least 1/100th of an inch and for the reproduction to be sharp corner to corner.

I will be shooting 5"x7" format (I can cut down sheet film), doing probably 1:1 reproduction, but I could go higher, maybe 3x or 4x. I have no plans on reducing, if that helps. I plan on using a Schneider G-Claron 305mm lens to start with.

I am a little concerned about alignment. I will probably mount a camera to a copy stand and align with a laser alignment tool. One of the benefits of shooting resolution charts is the check on alignment and focus.

I also have to find how to calculate correct lens to subject and lens to film plane distances in order to achieve precisely 1:1 reproduction.

I'd appreciate any advice on copy stands\equipment to do this (in addition to the film\dev materials). Hope it's not asking too much, but the hardware setup will have a big influence on the final product.

Thanks.

-R

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Sep 11, 2007

Reggie, I have a big Linhof copy stand that's tough enough for using a view camera with. Maybe that's something you already have; at any rate I'm located in Montréal.

Regarding film, I only know about super-high resolution films in 35mm. Adox CMS/SPUR/ortho can achieve amazing resolutions at high contrasts. In sheets, I suppose Ilford Ortho+ would be good for your purpose as well, as it's ortho and used a lot for copy work.

AgX · Sep 11, 2007

Detlef Ludwig from the german Gigabitfilm who, as others, offers 35mm Agfa Copex microfilms plus a tailored developer for pictorial work, has on his, rather enigmatic, website a version of this film in 4x5 on offer.

AgX · Sep 11, 2007

As you cut your sheet films yourselfs, you could also try to get hold on some meters of the Agfa Avitone P3p.

Ole · Sep 11, 2007

1/100th of an inch - that's about 20 lppm.

at 1:1 that should be no problem at all with any undamaged lens made in the last 120 years!

reggie · Sep 11, 2007

Ole said:
1/100th of an inch - that's about 20 lppm.

at 1:1 that should be no problem at all with any undamaged lens made in the last 120 years!

Understood. I was really trying to get help regarding film & film processing to achieve high resolution. I'd expect the optical system to be capable of 1/100th inch. I believe I've read that lenses are capable of about 4x that resolution, but I may be recalling inaccurately. I don't really know what film is capable of and how I'd have to process it to get at least 1/100th inch resolution. If I can do better than 1/100th that would be even better, 1/100th would be the bare minimum.

Any advice in the film\processing & equipment area would be appreciated.

Thanks, Ole.

-R

argus · Sep 11, 2007

Don't forget the optimal working aperture of your lens. Both taking and enlarging/reproduction lens!

G

gainer · Sep 11, 2007

I think FP4+ or even HP5+ will be capable of 1/100 mm. Do not depend on a high acutance developer. They depend on artificially induced edge effects for the production of apparent sharpness. These edge effects can cause adjacent lines in a fine grid to run together and very fine isolated lines to drop out or to spread according to whether they are light lines on dark or vice versa..

AgX · Sep 11, 2007

Spur (spur-photo.com) has a real interesting article on the high resolution issue. (But only in German.)

Gigabitfilm has a lot of articles, including the detailed description of an experimental factor 1000 pictorial enlargement. (Some of them are to be found in English too.)

gainer · Sep 11, 2007

An additional note: the resolving power of two or more optical systems in series, such as camera lens + film + enlarging lens + printing material, is often estimated by the same equation as used in computing the resistance of parallel resistors. 1/Rt = 1/R1 + 1/R2 + 1/R3 + 1/R4. If you want the resolving power of the lens and film together to be 100 line pairs per mm, each will have to be better than 200.

reggie · Sep 11, 2007

gainer said:
An additional note: the resolving power of two or more optical systems in series, such as camera lens + film + enlarging lens + printing material, is often estimated by the same equation as used in computing the resistance of parallel resistors. 1/Rt = 1/R1 + 1/R2 + 1/R3 + 1/R4. If you want the resolving power of the lens and film together to be 100 line pairs per mm, each will have to be better than 200.

Thanks! I had read this equation on the web somwhere (wikipedia, I think). I believe everything I own will achieve 200lppm or better.

-R

reggie · Sep 11, 2007

AgX said:
Spur (spur-photo.com) has a real interesting article on the high resolution issue. (But only in German.)

Gigabitfilm has a lot of articles, including the detailed description of an experimental factor 1000 pictorial enlargement. (Some of them are to be found in English too.)

I read about the Gigabit films:

"The Gigabitfilm achieves in its sheet film version (ISO 25/15°) a resolution of up to 900 line pairs per mm."

Holy cow, Batman!

Do you know if this film\developer combination is still for sale? I'd certainly like to try out some of it.

-R

AgX · Sep 11, 2007

Reggie,

To my knowledge the Gigabit material is still on the market. However, his developer is considered in some forums as a bit tricky.

You should also look at Spur. There you’ll find three 35mm films, each with a tailored developer.

The men behind both companies once sat together in a thinktank on highresolution photography. Out of that rose the idea to use common micro-films for pictorial use by processing them in a way that the yes/no behaviour to processing of those equal sensitive halide crystals is changed in a way that it reflects the different exposure they received.

But keep in mind that resolution is not everything. It’s about a combination of resolution and contrast. Keep in mind that these resolutions you indicated can never be achieved in pictorial photography with the common equipment. But these materials, processed with those tailored developers, will provide higher micro-contrast at those frequencies the optics yield, compared to common materials.

reggie · Sep 12, 2007

I just learned about Kodak Camera EL Film and Kodak Camera 2000 CPG Film. It shows on the web-site, under Graphics\Products\Film, that these are current products and are replacements for Kodalith. What I read seems encouraging, I am checking to see if I can get a local store to special order some. I'll search online store inventories, but I'd be surprised if anyone carried it.

I'll post updates on these film as I get them. I did search the forums(s) and found little info on them, none on the 'affordable' EL film.

-R

richard ide · Sep 13, 2007

Reggie
I have used the Kodak CPG film in the past. You will be able to get the results you want depending of course on what you are copying. With this or a very similar film, I could record about 12 microns from a backlit resolution target. IRRC you can get what is called a hard dot developer for this film. Using this would improve resolution. You did not say what you were photographing. PM me if I can be of further assistance. I specialized in high contrast reproduction for 20 years.

reggie · Sep 13, 2007

I called Kodak and they confirmed that these films are still being made. They gave me the contact information for a few resellers in my area.

Here is a link to product info on the Camera 2000 ortho films:

http://www.graphics1.kodak.com/documents/TI_Camera_2000_CGP.pdf

Anyone have any idea who might carry this in stock. I called Freestyle and they did not have and didn't know about it. I passed the links to product info and she said that she would pass it on to the buyers. Who knows if they'll stock it. I did order some EFKE and Arista APHS ortho film today.

I exchanged a few e-mails with Ludwig at Gigabitfilm and he said they are tweaking the emulsion formula and developer formulas right now. He claims:

"The next is, I am changing the chemistry and I am in the last weeks for exchanging old to new level, now with new research I can get a higher level (enhancing the overexposure-safety, enhancing processing stability against dirty tubes from silversludge, a problem of some "very sportive"
working photographers). "

He said that he will take orders in about 4 weeks, but warned that shipping film\chemistry from Germany would cost as much as the film\paper. He seemed like a very nice guy.

I'm posting this info for your future research reference and searching postings.

Keywords:

otrho orthochromatic Kodak Camera EL film 2000 CGP CPG7 CGPM

richard ide · Sep 13, 2007

Reggie
You will have better luck finding this at a supplier to the printing/graphic arts industry. If you are in Canada, I could point you in the right direction.

noseoil · Sep 13, 2007

Try Efke (Adox) 25 and pyrocat-hd with minimal agitation and a rock-solid tripod. This should give you good resolution, high contrast and good prints. tim

reggie · Sep 13, 2007

richard ide said:
Reggie
You will have better luck finding this at a supplier to the printing/graphic arts industry. If you are in Canada, I could point you in the right direction.

Hi:

I live a little south of Vancouver, B.C. Is there any place close to there?

Thanks.

-R

richard ide · Sep 14, 2007

Reggie

Sent you a PM

Fotohuis · Sep 14, 2007

Yes, SPUR Orthopan is the way to go: Theoretically over 800ln/mm

Here a test of these kind of films:
http://www.imx.nl/photo/film_2/the_modern_slow_speed_silve.html

and here the English data sheet:
http://www.spur-photo.com/dat_ort_ure.pdf

AgX · Sep 14, 2007

As these informations only seem to exist in German on the Spur website:

Spur offers three different film/developer combos.

Agfa Copex Rapid + SPUR Nanospeed Professional

ISO 25/15° panchromatic

resolution 800lp/mm (1000/1)

Granularity RMS 7-8

Exposure range 12-13 stops

Kodak Imagelink HQ + SPUR Imagespeed Professional

ISO 25/15° panchromatic

resolution 600lp/mm (1000/1)

( acutance and microcontrast better than the above combo)

Granularity RMS 5

Exposure range 5-6 stops

SPUR Orthopan UR + SPUR Nanospeed UR

ISO 16/13° up to ISO 20/14° orthopanchromatic

Resolution 800lp/mm (1000/1)

Granularity better than the above combos with still high acutance

Exposure range 10 stops

Achieving high resolution with film

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