Arista.edu Paper and Film

[Jeremy]

Is anyone here willing to test out a new film/paper? The new arista.edu line is now out from www.freephoto.biz and the prices are outstanding if this is another set of rebadged Ilford products. 8x10 VC Fiber $34.99/100. 4x5 film 100 for $34.99. I will probably be buying some of the paper to test out whenever I get the chance, but if someone with more darkroom experience would like to take a crack at discerning which brand Freestyle is re-labeling please let us know!

 

[Jeremy]

correction on the 4x5 film. It's 100 sheets of 200 speed 4x5 film for $29.99.

I wonder if this is the same product as the J&C 200?

 

[bmac]

just got the new freestyle catalog. $35 for25 sheets of 8x10. I wonder what this stuff is?

 

[gma]

A few weeks ago the Freestyle Photo website had a page introducing the new Arista EDU 100,200 and 400 films, stating that they are made in Hungary, which causes me to suspect that they are made by Forte. That info is no longer on their site.

gma

 

[bmac]

Yeah, the catalog says they are made for them in Hungary. I guess I will have to buy a box and see what it is like.

 

[sanking]

Yeah, the catalog says they are made for them in Hungary. I guess I will have to buy a box and see what it is like.

The 200 ASA Arista.edu films from Freestyle test almost exactlly like BPF 200 and JandC Classic 200. They are apparently all made at the same plant in Hungary and in my opinion are the same film. Any differences in performance are most likely due to minor variations in emulsion batches, age, and/or conditions of storage.

Sandy King

 

[Foto Ludens]

if you are comparing sheet film, wouldn't looking for identical notches on the upper corner tell you if it's the same film? Different notches might not neccesarily mean different film (the factory might cut it dif. for the many labels), but it might be worth looking into.

 

[bmac]

Andre, my experience is that with the Ilford made Arista Pro films the side markings on sheet and roll film are different. I am guessing that they are different on sheet film. I'll have to take a peek.

Sandy, thanks for the info.

 

[gma]

I will order a box of Arista EDU 200 4x5 sheet film in my next Freestyle order. I have two fresh unopened boxes of J&C Classic 200. I'll shoot film from each box using two setups, one in full bright sun and one in deep shade with a long exposure. Any other suggestions for the test?

gma

 

[Foto Ludens]

I stumbled into this while browsing the freestyle web site:

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/news.php#
(look on Jan. 2004)

There they state that arista.edu is manufactured by a famous european line...

Might be too little too late, but that's my contribution to the cause.

 

[PJC]

I exposed and developed a sheet of the Arista.edu ISO 400 in PyrocatHD and it's quite nice. I suspect it's Fortepan and I'm sending some to Sandy King for testing.

Without doing any scientific tests and only exposing one sheet of 8x10, it appears that an E.I. of 400 is appropriate. I developed it in PyrocatHD 2:2:100 for 9.5 min, minimum rotation @ 24C and the neg prints on Ilford MGIV warmtone, without filtration - very nice tonalities.

Regards, Pete

 

[PJC]

Greetings,

Sandy tested the film I sent him and here are his comments to me:

"The ISO 200 film is in my opinion clearly the same films that is sold as Bergger BPF, JandC Classic 200, and Fortepan 200. They are definitely of the same family with some minor differences, perhaps due to conditions of storage, emulsion batch, etc.

Same is true for the ISO 400 film. Definitely same as Fortepan 400 and JandC Classic 400."

Regards, Pete

 

[djklmnop]

I am currently in the process of doing densitometry testing on the Arista EDU 100 films. I will report back in a week or so with some resulting images. I made some initial tests, but the lens' was damaged and did not stop down properly for the film speed testing. Just my luck. Will do it over soon!

Andy

 

[Deniz]

My first 2 sheets of Arista.edu 400 8x10 film are drying right now. And from the look of it.. they are crammed with detail and tone.(whatever that means)

I used rodinal 1:25 8:30 mins at 20deg.
and water for stop when i was done fixing in ilford rapid fix at 1:4 for 4 mins i turned on the lights and i was shocked to see the water the deepest purple i've ever seen. i was scared for a sec that i used something else than water.. one of the negs is really thin and maybe underexposed a bit(dark forest scene) and maybe all that silver had to go somewhere and water bath is where it is.

Tomorrow i will be printing them on Ilford MGFB warm and AZO 3 in Agfa Neutol WA 1:7 and maybe Rodinal 1:10
I will let you guys know about the results.

 

[Tom Hoskinson]

Deniz,
The purple is the antihalation die from the film. Try pre-soaking the film in water before developing.

 

[Deniz]

I did presoak the film for a min. Maybe needed more.
There is one very wierd thing on one of the negatives. It looks like a hole. Just tiny (1mm radius) circle of clear film base. I am not sure why did that happen but i checked the film holders and everything but no visible problems.

 

[sanking]

My first 2 sheets of Arista.edu 400 8x10 film are drying right now. And from the look of it.. they are crammed with detail and tone.(whatever that means)

I used rodinal 1:25 8:30 mins at 20deg.
and water for stop when i was done fixing in ilford rapid fix at 1:4 for 4 mins i turned on the lights and i was shocked to see the water the deepest purple i've ever seen..

Purple water would surprise me also with the Arista.edu film. If the antihalation die was purple, and this was really Arista.edu film, it could be that all of the film labeled as Arista-edu is not from the same source. The Arista.edu 200 and Arista.edu 400 films that I tested had a cyan colored antihalation backing, as do all of the the other films that come from Hungary (BPF, Foretpan, JandC) . Purple antihalation backing is typical of the Arista films made in England, same thing you see in Ilford FP4+ and HP5+.

I would personally be very irritated if I were a Arista user and found out that Freestyle was mixing film from the two soruces and selling it all as Arista EDU because the curve and CI characteristics of the films from these two sources is very different.

Sandy

 

[glbeas]

Rodinal turns a dark purple with many types of film, possibly a reaction with the sensitizing dyes. Konica 750 turns the rodinal pale yellow, and Ilford Pan F if I remember right did the same. You may have seen the carryover from the developer in the water.

 

[ksmattfish]

I just developed 3 rolls of 120 size Arista.EDU 200. It says "made in Hungary" on the package and the pre-rinse turns blue. I don't see any writing on the film itself. I've never used Forte, or any of the other Hungarian films mentioned in this thread, so I can't compare it to those. I'll have to wait for prints to really see what I think of it. Right now the first thing I notice is the very thin film base; thinner than any Kodak, Ilford, or Arista film I've used before.

 

[Foto Ludens]

Blue tint and thin film sound like the Maco film I use (which is supposed to be like Efke). Maybe it's an eastern european standart...

 

[dpneal]

I just developed two rolls of Arista.EDU 100 in 120. If anyone cares, here are my thoughts:

1. My two minute pre-wash resulted in a lovely deep turquoise flood of anti-halation dye.
2. The little strip of tape that attaches the film to the paper backing is god-awful to remove; it doesn't peel away cleanly like HP5+, APX 100, or Neopan Acros 100. I had to resort to scissors to get the stuff off -- Mildly irritating.
3. There aren't any frame number or emulsion information printed on the film base. It's easy enough to figure out which side the emulsion is on because of the difference in texture, but, again, this is mildy irritating.

If the film weren't so gosh-darned cheap I would probably be irritated enough to stick with APX 100. As a starving student, however, I do what I can to cut costs at all costs!

I haven't tried printing the negs yet, but they look OK on the light table (I did 6 minutes in Rodinal 1:25 per Freestyle's recommendations). I'm not very experienced yet, so I doubt that my printing tests would be helpful anyway.

I noticed that the dev times for Arista.EDU 100 and Fortepan 100 in Rodinal 1:25 and D76 (stock and 1:1) are different on the Freestyle site and on the Massive Dev Chart. Maybe this stuff isn't from Forte after all?

All the best,

Dan

 

[Aggie]

The Forte I shoot has a really thick base and curls massively even after months of weights on them. This is the roll forte.

 

[djklmnop]

I just noticed that this film has a horrible smell to it!!!! I don't mean up-to-the-nose smell, but merely from uncapping hte plastic canister!

Anyone else notice this?

 

[glbeas]

It's not unusual. When I worked in a darkroom I used to be able to tell tri-x from plus-x and a few others by the smell of the film. Ever get a waft from Kodak High Speed Infrared film? Very strange odor!

 

[dpneal]

I developed another two rolls of EDU 100 in 120 today -- I didn't notice anything particularly offensive about the smell, but the film definitely has an interesting bouquet.

I developed in Rodinal 1:25 again today, but this time with no pre-soak -- the spent developer was colorless. Weird. I did notice a couple of places where the emulsion seems to have torn away from the film base on a frame from one of my rolls. I've never had that happen before.

I'm less and less enamored w/ the stuff ... but I still don't think that name brand film is worth the $0.80/roll premium.

-- Dan