Anybody know about this Tasma film?

[srs5694]

I was just checking out eBay when I ran across the following auctions:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7609975083
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7609973998

Both are for some Russian Tasma film, with a speed of GOST (roughly ISO) 6 -- yes, 6. The ads claim it was manufactured in 1990 and 1992 and that it's B&W positive film. I don't know if getting positives would require special processing, or if the film could be used as negative film with conventional processing, and if so what its characteristics would be (contrast, speed, etc.). I'm posting partly because I'm curious about this and might buy some of the film, but want to know if anybody has any experience with it; and in part to let anybody else who might be interested in what appears to be an exotic emulsion (at least in the West) know that there's some available. (The seller has 678 rolls between these two auctions. FWIW, I've dealt with him before and he's reliable. Other than my previous dealings with him, I have no affiliation with the seller.)

 

[Jim Jones]

Twenty-seven years ago, at the University of Iowa, we used quite a bit of a Kodak special order direct positive 35mm film with an exposure index of maybe 3. We developed it in print developer, and completed the processing as with any other film. It gave nice continuous tone transparancies for training aids. I believe it was blue sensitive. Films of this type rely on gross overexposure to give positive results. We had no information on exposing and developing as conventional negatives, and had no need to experiment with that use.

 

[Kino]

Jim, I believe that was 5360 Direct Positive stock; stock typically used in the motion picture industry for a "dirty dupe" of the conformed negative so the sound composer and foley artists could start work on scoring and laying in sound effects.

We have still have 3K feet of that in cold storage at work; the last known cache that I am aware of in the World because Kodak bought a 1K foot roll from us last year!

 

[Brac]

Tasma are apparently in Tatarstan which presumably is somewhere in Russia (forgive my ignorance). They are still in existence making black & white film (at least) but the only ones I have seen mentioned have been of ISO 64, 100 & 125 speeds. Quality control seems a bit suspect - the last batch I saw advertised in the UK came with a warning not to use all 36 exposures because the film end would pull of the inner spool! Best of luck!

 

[p krentz]

Since the film is 14-16 years old have you tested for heat fogging? I would be highly interested in your test results if this was not kept in cold storage. Pat

 

[srs5694]

Since the film is 14-16 years old have you tested for heat fogging? I would be highly interested in your test results if this was not kept in cold storage. Pat

I don't yet have any to test for heat fogging (or anything else); I was posting to find out more before buying. I didn't learn much specific, though, and curiosity got the best of me so I ordered some. I should get it in 1-4 weeks, and I'll post my experiences then. My best guess is that this is a high-contrast B&W film with a clear base suitable for making transparencies of text or diagrams for presentations, but that's just a guess at this point. I may try developing it in Burton 195, POTA, or something else that's used for getting lower contrast from Tech Pan. The worst-case scenario is that I'll be out a few bucks. At best, I'll have something good for long exposures in bright light and/or high-contrast effects.

 

[varjag]

This is a slow BW positive film, IIRC blue-sensitive, it was intended for technical purposes, duping film, but often used for cheesy lith-like effects (by bumping contrast with special development or multi-stage reproduction). I think with right developer you can develop it as an ok slow, non-sensibilized negative.

Hard to tell if that batch is still OK, but usually such stuff builds fog quite slowly. I've used tech films from mid-80s without any noticeable fogging.

 

[Phillip P. Dimor]

I've no experience with Tasma, though I did have about 25 100ft rolls of this Kodak Direct Positive film. I developed it in print developer as well, stop bath and fixer too.
It gave me a direct duplicate of a 35mm negative. I would expose it in my plate burner. Very neat stuff, grainless image. My results suffered due to Newton's rings.
As far as actually shooting it.. Never tried it, my film had no perforations.
Also, the film is initially clear (neat!).. At first, I thought I had been ripped off!

 

[srs5694]

In case anybody's following this topic, I've discovered from a post in another forum that the film in question is for making positives (slides) from negatives. The procedure is to shoot and process negative film normally, make a contact print onto the Tasma MZ-3L film, and develop the Tasma film normally. The post that provided this information also included the comment "the film should be developed at red light," which I'm tentatively interpreting to mean that the film is insensitive to red light. The post also included a recommended developer:

phenidone: 0.1g
hydroquinone: 2.2g
sodium sulfite: 16g
sodium carbonate: 22g
potassium bromide: 4g
water to make 1l

Developing time is specified as "2-4 minutes," which seems awfully wide to me.

I'll report more once I've got my film.

 

[srs5694]

I received the film today. It's a very odd film. It comes in rolls without cartridges or spools; you unwrap it in a darkroom and load it into a bulk-load cartridge, or (presumably) use it directly for making contact copies, as noted above. (I hear that the cartridge-less film distribution was once common in the Soviet Union.) It's also an off-white color, not the more usual gray of B&W film.

I shot a test roll and cut it into three parts to test development, with rather depressing results:

• I tried PC-Glycol 1+1+48 for 10:00 at 20C, based on my PC-Glycol times for Svema FN64. Results were very dark and cloudy, but images were clearly present.
• I didn't have hydroquinone, so I tried a variant of the formula I presented earlier using 3.95g of sodium ascorbate rather than 2.2g of hydroquinone. (I'll call this MZ-3L-C.) I developed for 3:00 at 20C. The results looked badly fogged, but better than the PC-Glycol results.
• I tried Rodinal 1+25 for 4:00 at 20C. This time was a wild guess. Results were similar to the results in MZ-3L-C, but maybe a tad foggier.

Overall, it looks like the film is badly fogged; however, it's possible I've overdeveloped it (I almost certainly did with the PC-Glycol) and this is exacerbating the problem. I'll try another test roll with less development, but it may take me a few days to get around to this.

In addition to the general fog, about half the frames have odd mottling on them. This is usually dark (on the negatives; light in scans), but is sometimes light (on the negatives; dark in scans). At first I thought these were a sign of a development error, but they appear in all three strips, so I suspect an emulsion problem -- perhaps a sign of age.

Grain is fine, but not extraordinarily so. Efke KB25, Ilford Pan F+ 50, and Kodak T-Max 100 all equal or exceed the fineness of grain from the Tasma MZ-3L. This could be another age effect or another sign of overdevelopment, though.

I've scanned the roll but not yet tried printing from it. Here's a sample scan from the strip I developed in the MZ-3L-C developer. (I used a Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 and VueScan to perform a 2700-dpi scan; however, I reduced the resolution to 1280x846 for posting to the Web.)

Overall, then, I suspect that this film isn't going to be very useful -- at least, not the outdated batch that's being sold on eBay at the moment. Perhaps a fresher batch would be worth buying. If I find a way to get significantly better results from the samples I've got, I'll post the information.