Arista EDU DX - "made in the UK" is the film stock Ilford again?

mshchem · Sep 20, 2024

cmacd123 said:
the E-mail I got from Freestle metioned the Arista EDU DX film made in the UK, and also that they will have the Arista EDU Ultra now once again in NON DX coded metal cassettes.

Freestyle has always been fairly good about identifying the Variants... my notes say:

Englands finest and English Profesional - made by Ilford
Arista II the next generation - AGFA.
Arista EDU - Forte hungary
Arista Premium, KODAK
Legacy Pro - Fuji
Arista EDU Ultra Foma, although the plactic version appers to have been spooled by Flic Film, who also apperently spoolded some Foma Pan directly for Foma.

the Arista EDU Ultra is suposed to now come in metal NON DX cassettes.
the new Arista EDU DX is also made in the UK. I will not be 100% convinced until I try a few rolls.

note that the Arista II and Arista EDU both came out very shortly before their respective makers left the industry. I had ordered a few rolls of each, and was not able to reorder by the time I was convinced that they would be useful.

My presonal theroy about the ARista Premium, was that it might have been Plus X and Tri-x reversal. wwhich is normaly sold in 16mm. Kodak had to change the reversal process to satify the EPA, and changed both of those products to a new formula.with new type numbers. it is plasible that they could have slit the remaining master rolls to 35mm and sent it to the "still" converting department, rather than declaring it scrap. the only nagging reason that i am thinking this was that Premium 100 was not 125.

When did you get the email?

MattKing · Sep 21, 2024

I received my email about 8 am this morning.
Between the email and the information on Freestyle's website, the Arista EDU Ultra is described as being made in the Czech Republic, and being available in 35mm, 120 roll and various sheet film sizes.
In comparison, the Arista EDU DX is described as being made in the United Kingdom, available only in 35mm, and interestingly "Its fine grain and large tonal range provide a wonderful negative for making prints with enlargers or scanning for archiving and making digital prints. "

Nicholas Lindan · Sep 21, 2024

mshchem said:
Can you confirm that these are plastic cassettes? These little things are very difficult to open. Requires pulling the film tongue out with a retriever.

I now always pull the film tongue out - it makes it so much easier to load the reels if you do it straight from the cassette. I snip the leader, put the sprocket holes in the prongs of a Hewes reel, flip off the lights with a footswitch and load. Goes a treat - no swearing and no dealing with film curl - especially the reverse curl caused by film being in the camera too long, and that then quickly shifts to forward curl.

Nicholas Lindan · Sep 21, 2024

MattKing said:
Freestyle: "...a wonderful negative for ... scanning for archiving ..."

Now, there is a dumb statement. Film will outlast any hard disk, any computer and any CD or DVD. Better to archive the hard drive to film if you want something long lasting.

"Archive writing" is the process of putting digital data on microfilm. The film will last centuries. Firms that have their data archived this way then pay for having the film stored in old salt mines (possibly right next to Kodak's store of film stock).

So: take black and white film, archive it to a disk and then archive the disk to B&W film. Yep, makes sense to me.

Any archival media has to be human readable. At least theoretically human readable. There must always be some way to get the 1's & 0's back using a 'forever technology' like an optical microscope. The data can't be encoded or compressed in a manner that would require software to untangle it - the software and the algorithm is sure to be lost by then.

Nicholas Lindan · Sep 21, 2024

I seem to remember reading that Ilford had a service to coat film stock for other firms.

I could see Ilford coating Tri-X for Kodak and then selling the overage to Freestyle as Edu film.

I also seem to remember Kodak having a film production operation in the UK.

There is a lot of 'seeming to remember' here, this could all be balderdash served on a heaped mound of steaming codswallop.

MattKing · Sep 21, 2024

Nicholas Lindan said:
I seem to remember reading that Ilford had a service to coat film stock for other firms.

I could see Ilford coating Tri-X for Kodak and then selling the overage to Freestyle as Edu film.

I also seem to remember Kodak having a film production operation in the UK.

There is a lot of 'seeming to remember' here, this could all be balderdash served on a heaped serving of steaming codswallop.

Harman make a large portion of their income from coating and/or confectioning film for others.
They also coat and confection film branded in the brand names they own - Kentmere and now (for colour) Harman - as well as the brand they have a license to use: Ilford.
Tri-X is owned by Eastman Kodak, and the marketing and distribution rights are owned by Kodak Alaris - the brand is unlikely to go anywhere.
And the huge entity that was the Kodak in the UK - Kodak Limited, the second largest in the world, is long gone.
The entity that is the remnant of Ilford, and actually owns the name Ilford, subject to Harman's license, is part Australian and part Japanese.

mshchem · Sep 21, 2024

Nicholas Lindan said:
I now always pull the film tongue out - it makes it so much easier to load the reels if you do it straight from the cassette. I snip the leader, put the sprocket holes in the prongs of a Hewes reel, flip off the lights with a footswitch and load. Goes a treat - no swearing and no dealing with film curl - especially the reverse curl caused by film being in the camera too long, and that then quickly shifts to forward curl.

I hear you. Hewes made (makes) a little loader for 35mm. In room light you put the end of the film on the teeth, set the cassette in a cradle on the loader. Extinguish the lights crank the little crank, takes but a few seconds. Snip off the cassette and it's done. Of course a sane person would do what you are doing rather than spending $200 on some contraption.

Henning Serger · Sep 21, 2024

Nicholas Lindan said:
I seem to remember reading that Ilford had a service to coat film stock for other firms.

They offer other companies Kentmere 100 and 400, and confectioning / finishing it for other companies into the packaging of these firms.
That's it.

There is only one exception: Production of Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 II. That is a joint venture of both comapanies, in which one essential part of the production is done by Fujifilm, the other part by Harman technology.

And the third part: Other companies ship film jumbo rolls (master rolls, parent rolls) to Harman, and Harman is doing the whole confectioning / finishing of the delivered film for these parties. Examples: Most of the repackaged Agfa-Gevaert Aviphot Pan films business of several small film distributors is done this way.

Nicholas Lindan said:
I could see Ilford coating Tri-X for Kodak and then selling the overage to Freestyle as Edu film.

No. Not possible of several reasons. Main technical hurdle: Film types are always designed for one specific film coating machine (in case of Tri-X the coating machine in Building 38 in Rochester). You cannot simply transfer Tri-X coating (or any other Kodak film) to the M14 coating machine of Harman technology in Mobberley (and vice versa).

Nicholas Lindan said:
I also seem to remember Kodak having a film production operation in the UK.

That is long, long gone. History.

Best regards,
Henning

npl · Sep 21, 2024

Robert Stone said:
They mention its ability to be very flexible in exposure and push-pull characteristics in the description which sounds a lot like HP5+ to me

Almost all films datasheets say that.

pentaxuser · Sep 21, 2024

npl said:
Almost all films datasheets say that.

Unfortunately that's a good point I'd prefer companies to be 100% honest in terms of facts about films or any other products but as the saying goes: You can never expect the fishmonger to ever shouts "Stinking Fish" when selling it

pentaxuser

brbo · Sep 21, 2024

I wonder if there was ever a single BW film produced that wasn't labeled as "flexible" at some point. I mean, people take a microfilm, put it in a 35mm cassette and it instantly becomes "very versatile and flexible"...

cmacd123 · Sep 21, 2024

as far as the Flic Film style cassettes. the "Quic Pick" actually works quite well, and you can get it from Freestyle.

(note the video shows also an Original Wolfen Cassette.)

250swb · Sep 22, 2024

Having been on the Ilford factory tour I can confirm they don't dip into tubs of emulsion they buy in from foreign sources but do actually make the emulsion from raw materials. So re-creating a formula may not be easy given material specifications with environmental rules change over the years it does mean it isn't impossible that 'made in the UK' film badged by Ilford is a genuine bespoke emulsion. It is also possible that Ilford film (as in the Kentmere brand) does actually get badged as something else to take advantage of import duties and local trading laws or an business owning a brand name spotting a new marketplace. Neither of these possibilities amount to a conspiracy but maybe a 'revelation' in the same way not many people realised how much manufacturers like Ford or Jaguar relied on Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese electronics until Covid shut down world trade. But people are acting like this is something new, perhaps your favourite film was always made by Ilford and you never knew it.........?

Ian Grant · Sep 22, 2024

Nicholas Lindan said:
I also seem to remember Kodak having a film production operation in the UK.

As Henning stated Kodak's UK coating lines stopped making film some years ago, they continued coating RA-4 colour papers for longer.

Kodak Ltd opened a new factory in Hungary in 1938/9 coating films like Plus -X, Tri-X, etc, as well as papers, the factory was under German control during WWII and nationalised after the war becoming Forte.

There was also Kodak (Australia), whose factory at Abbotsford (later Cloburg) coated films, plates and papers, also by 1957 Kodachrome, and then of course the Canadian Kodak Co, who also made a full range of films & papers.

In my teens, 1968/9, I remember the instruction sheet of a Kodak developer giving different development times and EIs for Tri-X, depending on where it was made, US, UK, or Canada.

Ian

cmacd123 · Sep 22, 2024

I belive that both Kodak Pathe in France and Kodak AG in germany did some steps in making film. not sure of they did full coating. for a number of Years all Super 8 cartridges were made by Kodak Pathe, until production was hauled back to the US.

Wallendo · Sep 22, 2024

I find it interesting that the Arista Edu DX is only available in 400 ISO. Possible this is related to Arista Pan only being available in ISO 100.

Currently, Arista EDU is only minimally cheaper than the Foma-branded version.

Paul Howell · Sep 22, 2024

I am going on the assumption that Aristia Edu Dx is Kentmere 400 and Arista Pan is Orwa, movie or recon film. If my guess is right both are lacking an anti glare layer. Foma continues to struggle with quality control, I have not had any issues, Action Pan 400 is closer to 250 or 320 depending on the developer but does better in bright light, and is available in LF sizes. I have a few rolls of Kentmere 400 35mm for use in my point and shoots, and in 120 as I dislike the curl of Foma 120. Next order I will restock with Foma 400 in 35mm along with some Foma 200 which may shoot at 400 in Diafine. The difference in price between Foma branded and Freestyle house brand in not large enough to make a difference in my budget

mshchem · Sep 22, 2024

cmacd123 said:
as far as the Flic Film style cassettes. the "Quic Pick" actually works quite well, and you can get it from Freestyle.

(note the video shows also an Original Wolfen Cassette.)

That's a great improvement over the first 5 iterations.

Film-Niko · Sep 23, 2024

Paul Howell said:
I am going on the assumption that Aristia Edu Dx is Kentmere 400

That is extremely likely.

Paul Howell said:
and Arista Pan is Orwa, movie or recon film.

Aristapan 100 is either still FilmoTec (Wolfen) UN 54 ( https://filmotec.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Technische-Info-UN54.pdf ) or it is the successor FilmoTec Wolfen NP 100 ( https://filmotec.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Datenblatt-NP100-neu.pdf ).

Paul Howell said:
If my guess is right both are lacking an anti glare layer.

The Kentmeres (both 100 and 400) don't have an AHU (anti-halation-undercoat). But the UN 54 and NP 100 have one (see data-sheets above.

cmacd123 · Sep 23, 2024

mshchem said:
That's a great improvement over the first 5 iterations.

Dave Marshall of Flic film is a photographer first, so he keeps plugging away. the pevious deviceDIDwork, but only if the cassette was assembled perfectly, the tail was wound in, and the entire label was removed.

cmacd123 · Sep 23, 2024

Film-Niko said:
The Kentmeres (both 100 and 400) don't have an AHU (anti-halation-undercoat). But the UN 54 and NP 100 have one (see data-sheets above.

the Original batch of UN54 only had the grey base, (and B&H perfs) the NP100 has the same dark grey dye is the N75. But I have seem both sold as wolfen 100.

Paul Howell · Sep 23, 2024

Film-Niko said:
That is extremely likely.

Aristapan 100 is either still FilmoTec (Wolfen) UN 54 ( https://filmotec.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Technische-Info-UN54.pdf ) or it is the successor FilmoTec Wolfen NP 100 ( https://filmotec.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Datenblatt-NP100-neu.pdf ).

The Kentmeres (both 100 and 400) don't have an AHU (anti-halation-undercoat). But the UN 54 and NP 100 have one (see data-sheets above.

The roll I shot does not seem to anti halation layer. Hard to see as the images are darker than they appear on my monitor, but the Astira Pan seems to have a bit of glare on the metal door handle, the Foma 400 the glare is well controlled.

Paul Verizzo · Sep 28, 2024

loccdor said:
I'd bet that it's Kentmere. Although Arista did used to sell a rebranded Tri-X which was an excellent value compared to on-brand, so it being HP5+ isn't entirely out of the question.

That was about 2010. Freestyle had an Arista product that was, actually was, PX and TX for....don't start crying....$2 a roll. Everyone knew it was Kodak and the employees knew it. Identical developing times and characteristics. I still have 4 rolls of PX and 1 of TX frozen. I just hate the idea of shooting the last of PX.

Patrick Robert James · Sep 29, 2024

I’m curious about the Ilford “Pan” films I see every now and then that are available in a few markets.

miha · Sep 29, 2024

Patrick Robert James said:
I’m curious about the Ilford “Pan” films I see every now and then that are available in a few markets.

Ilford Pan 100 and Pan 400 were introduced before the Kentmere films. The Ilford Pan films and Kentmere films are different products.

Arista EDU DX - "made in the UK" is the film stock Ilford again?

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