Any clue as to what Aurora 800 actually is or wil be?

[Roger Cole]

Portra 800 is $17.95 at B&H. I've shot quite a bit of it and, claims to the contrary notwithstanding, found it does better at 800 than shooting Portra 400 at 800. It is kind of "barely 800" though. I never tried push processing and underexposure isn't, um, recommended. But then I routinely expose all color neg at 1/3 to 1/2 stop slower than box speed.

I'd pay $18 for real Kodak, real-made-for-C41 pro film before I'd pay $23 for "guess the film."

 

[brbo]

I'd pay $18 for real Kodak, real-made-for-C41 pro film before I'd pay $23 for "guess the film."

It's 22. Canadian dollars. That store sells Portra 800 for 31 CAD.

 

[nwayne]

Portra 800 is $17.95 at B&H. I've shot quite a bit of it and, claims to the contrary notwithstanding, found it does better at 800 than shooting Portra 400 at 800. It is kind of "barely 800" though. I never tried push processing and underexposure isn't, um, recommended. But then I routinely expose all color neg at 1/3 to 1/2 stop slower than box speed.

I'd pay $18 for real Kodak, real-made-for-C41 pro film before I'd pay $23 for "guess the film."

First of all, this is made by Kodak, just packaged and distributed by a third party.

Also, here in Canada, Portra 800 is hard to come by. My local photo store has it priced at $34. So a $22 CAD roll of 800 iso daylight balanced 35mm film is very impressive. Hope other people update this post with some actual results.

 

[Roger Cole]

First of all, this is made by Kodak, just packaged and distributed by a third party.

Also, here in Canada, Portra 800 is hard to come by. My local photo store has it priced at $34. So a $22 CAD roll of 800 iso daylight balanced 35mm film is very impressive. Hope other people update this post with some actual results.

Sure it's made by Kodak. But we don't know exactly what it is. We DO know what we're getting with Portra 800. But if you either can't get it or it's way higher priced, which seems to be the case, of course that's different.

 

[brbo]

I'll bet it's just Kodak GT-800-5. The samples seem to suggest it's a perfectly boring fine grained modern 800 iso film. How crazy would it be if Kodak was coating 3 different 800 films...

 

[koraks]

a perfectly boring fine grained modern 800 iso film

I'd love that. If so, I hope it'll become available at an affordable price in the EU as well.

 

[Agulliver]

I am all for any reasonably priced "boring modern" ISO 800 C41 film.

 

[Fatih Ayoglu]

Does anyone have any clue what this film is, have we figured out that yet? The only other daylight balanced 800 film I know is Portra and as far as I can see, Cinestill 800 C41 is tungsten balanced.

I’ll be very happy with a decent 800film (even if it is ISO800 version of UltraMax400) which can be also pushed to 1600 like BW films I use…

 

[koraks]

Cinestill 800 C41 is tungsten balanced.

It's also not a C41 film. It's ECN2 Vision3 500D - so it's actually not a 800 film, either.

 

[Fatih Ayoglu]

It's also not a C41 film. It's ECN2 Vision3 500D - so it's actually not a 800 film, either.

Or maybe something like Lomo800? But then it has 120film version as well with some quality issues. If this Aurora 800 is Kodak 800GT, would that mean it is an old and expired stock?

 

[koraks]

If this Aurora 800 is Kodak 800GT, would that mean it is an old and expired stock?

If you read back, there's some mention of it being the same film that goes into disposable cameras. It's still being produced. And no, I don't expect this to be some kind of old/expired stock; we would have seen more of it popping up here and there over the years if it was. I think it's reasonable to assume this is a freshly made Kodak product that already sees use in other market segments.

 

[Fatih Ayoglu]

So this is good news and I’ve just watched a YouTube video reviewing the film, pushed images do not look half bad at all

 

[brbo]

I found this bit of text about Flic Film Aurora 800 on the Nik & Trick website:

It is a film made for use in stills cameras, it has with a comparatively fine grain, high sharpness, and natural skin tones, Aurora 800 is very well-suited to photographing moving subjects and working in low-light conditions while maintaining true colour reproduction….


So, this pretty much confirms that Aurora is Kodak GT 800-5 and it's a good buy if you can get it at less than Lomo 800 (same film) or Portra 800.

 

[Fatih Ayoglu]

Yes I have had seen that as well. I bought 10 rolls and going through them. It is well cheaper than both of the ISO800 films, at least here in UK.

 

[loccdor]

You will like it if you like UltraMax, and dislike it if you don't. The colors look the same, and there's something about them I just can't stand.

 

[Fatih Ayoglu]

It’s like some of the family members, you can’t stand but you have to live with them.

Sadly Portra is way too expensive for casual shooting at 35mm, Fujifilms are not easy to find at all. So UltraMax and this new film are the only solutions. For MF and LF, obviously we have to use Portra/Ektar.

Also I do RA4 prints so I can tweak the colours at a degree…

 

[cmacd123]

FWIW, my first roll came back from the lab, and as expected there are absolutely no edge markings. Mask seems to match the colour of the Gold 400 (ultramax) I sent in to the lab on the same batch. the lab makes prints from scans so the fact that the images resenbled the gold 400 (I did shoot the Flic stuff at 800, and the Unktra max at 400) are consistent with the theory that this is basically the same stock as Kodak 800 film for one time use Cameras. what ever it is Dave in Longview AB is not going to tell us more. (kodak might be testing him to see if he can keep quiet)

 

[Fatih Ayoglu]

FWIW, my first roll came back from the lab, and as expected there are absolutely no edge markings. Mask seems to match the colour of the Gold 400 (ultramax) I sent in to the lab on the same batch. the lab makes prints from scans so the fact that the images resenbled the gold 400 (I did shoot the Flic stuff at 800, and the Unktra max at 400) are consistent with the theory that this is basically the same stock as Kodak 800 film for one time use Cameras. what ever it is Dave in Longview AB is not going to tell us more. (kodak might be testing him to see if he can keep quiet)

Thanks for letting us know, and how are the prints, do you think the film is close to iso800? I usually shoot it somewhere between 400-640

 

[cmacd123]

Thanks for letting us know, and how are the prints, do you think the film is close to iso800? I usually shoot it somewhere between 400-640

they are just some pictures of the flowers in my yard, so hard to see anything to judge. looked similar to the Kodak Ultramax that was the other roll in the batch, BUT My colour vision is not that great, and the lab scanned to print with a Noritsu dry system.

 

[MultiFormat Shooter]

FWIW, my first roll came back from the lab, and as expected there are absolutely no edge markings.

This is unfortunate; I found it out "the hard way," too. I know Flic Film is under a non-disclosure agreement (per one of their own Youtube videos), but I thought that they would at least have edge markings of "Aurora 800" and frame numbers applied. That wouldn't tell anyone anything confidential, and it would be easier to properly orient/sequence your film for printing/scanning/storage.

 

[cmacd123]

Flic may have a mold to make their own Cartridges, (which DO look like some from China, BUT the mold may have come from there.) But they up till now are basically an industrial scale Bulk loading operation. they declare on their web site that the UltraPan is from Foma, and the film also is blank on the edges.

Likewise the Arista EDU Ultra film that says "Made in Canada" (circumstanial evendence that Dave has touched it) also has blank edges. {he did have some "the reel end ultrapan on the film experience web site, and unless I mixed up the rolls one of those I got did actually say FomaPan} I suspect that those will not be available after the film experience site closes down.

in one of the Videos Dave said he helped "one of the Majors" with 60,000 cassettes, but that video was edited a day later to omit that claim. it would be consistant with the fact that FOMA seems to be unable to make Metal cassettes at the moment, with the last couple of rolls of Fomapan coming in a box that said "plastic casettes" and you will recall the "fomapan Set" of one roll in a screw top plastic cassette, and 5 rolls on just a spool in Taped Light Tight cans.

from the video tour of Kodak from the "smarter every day" folks, it is implied that the film placed into Cassettes/cartriges at Kodak is in peforated pancakes, but the markings are put on as part of the Kodak loading process. so Kodak would have perforated pancakes with no edge markings Amusing that that is the source of the mysterious film.

I do not like to play guessing games, but I guess that comes with the game.