Best B&W Film Reversal Kit: Foma, Adox Scala, or Bellini

Ivo Stunga · Sep 21, 2024

I don't know if one can master film reversal without all that heavy chemistry knowledge/being sawwy in it + being a densitometry guru + developing by process control... I'm neither of those.
But I can push/pull and have them at box speed with clear highlights and various contrast/density according to push/pull - the beauty of home kits and patience with trial and error I guess.

But that R100 and E100D softness puzzles me. 60x projection magnification is an unforgiving beast, tells all the story, reveals all your flaws.

DeletedAcct1 · Sep 21, 2024

Ivo Stunga said:
I don't know if one can master film reversal without all that heavy chemistry knowledge/being sawwy in it + being a densitometry guru + developing by process control... I'm neither of those.
But I can push/pull and have them at box speed with clear highlights and various contrast/density according to push/pull - the beauty of home kits and patience with trial and error I guess.

But that R100 and E100D softness puzzles me. 60x projection magnification is an unforgiving beast, tells all the story, reveals all your flaws.

E100D soft?
It costs about 30€ in EU for a 36exp 35mm roll, I would expect all but softness.
Why is that?

Ivo Stunga · Sep 21, 2024

Beats me, but here's the comparisons to illustrate my experience. Note that all of these are developed in the same lab over the years!

Kodak E100:

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You can see that with E100 I had shutter speed of 1/30, but with a 24mm lens that's acceptable. I'll however allow criticism here as no tripod with mirror lock was used this time around. That said I have the same lackluster performance from my E100D that I shot last month in broad daylight and developed at the same lab. Haven't uploaded my scans yet, but that softness is there too and therefore not inspiring to upload + I'm not willing to scream very loudly about this yet as a test is in order! I want to finish my Provia 100F roll and have the same lab develop it, then compare them both in projection.

My old Fujichrome slides and scans however tell me what to expect...

Fuji slide films:

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Another possibility:
Have I been spoiled irreversibly by Aviphot and the rendering of distant details, usually lost in atmospheric haze with regular films? Then again - my Fuji slides don't hurt my eyes when projecting, hunting for something sharp to stick to.
OR - dye clouds are inherently poorer performing than silver particles and 60x enlargement is just too tall an order for color to handle

miha · Sep 21, 2024

I don't notice any difference. If there is one, it's likely due to the scanner or scanning process, not the film. From my experience, E100 delivers impeccable slides when projected.

paddycook · Sep 21, 2024

I've found modern Ektachrome to lack the acuity of the old variants, and it's nowhere near something like Kodachrome for sharpness (and yes I know Kodachrome was a different process but I didn't find the old E6 emulsions suffered as much by comparison).

Ivo Stunga · Sep 21, 2024

There's a massive difference when having Aviphot 200/80 projected next to E100D through Meridian PC 45mm 2.8 projection lens, enjoyed from 2-3m viewing distance.
With Delta 100 Vs E100D in the same scene/lighting. Like Medium Vs 135. Like needing some glasses Vs normal eyesight. Like mush Vs crisp. And Aviphot is sharper/more details than Delta 100!

I shoot primarily for projection, that's my main course and viewing platform.
Scanner is Plustek 7600i Ai with SilverFast - it scans hyperfocally so focusing issues there aren't present. And my scanning methods haven't changed: 7200 tiff scan with double exposure, deflated to 3600DPI, then dragged through LR and sharpened there.

Camera/lenses are the same.

loccdor · Sep 21, 2024

Ivo Stunga said:
Beats me, but here's the comparisons to illustrate my experience.

Hmm, I hadn't noticed that, but I compared some of my images. You really have to pixel peep at 7000 pixels to see it and the E100 is still sharp enough for my uses, but I think you're right:

E100: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53969136069_ae5bbf91a5_o.jpg

Sensia 100: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53739280847_7cc5680199_o.jpg

miha · Sep 21, 2024

Comparing scans holds little value, unlike projection, so I trust Ivo's judgment. While my experience projecting E100 slides (using Leica lenses for both capture and projection) leaves nothing to be desired, I haven't personally compared E100 with the films Ivo tested.

loccdor · Sep 21, 2024

They're digitizations with Pentax K-1, 36 megapixels camera and its high resolution macro lens, using pixel-shift technology to maximize the detail, on a secure stand, with pains taken to carefully hand-focus at the grain-level.

Ivo Stunga · Sep 21, 2024

loccdor said:
You really have to pixel peep at 7000 pixels to see it

With my setup it's painfully apparent to the point that I'd be ready to use color only in close-up/soft portrait situations - BW Reversal and Aviphot for the rest. Or seek out ~60mm projection lens to have smaller/sharper image overall, making this a lesser problem.

Henning Serger · Sep 21, 2024

miha said:
Can someone share a photo of the Kodak Gray Card Plus taken with an ADOX HR-50 film

View attachment 379041

I am using this film (SCALA 50 / HR-50 with Speed Boost technology, as well as the original base film) for almost 20 years now. So I know this stuff very well .
The film has extended red sensitivity (super-panchromatic), and therefore the main difference in colour reproduction is that red is recorded a bit lighter, and blue is recorded a bit darker (which I like in landscape photography, because it improves the differentiation between clouds and the blue sky).
The differences in colour reproduction to panchromatic film are visible in certain scenes, but not dramatic.

Best regrads,
Henning

miha · Sep 21, 2024

Thanks. I guess using red or orange filters would have an even greater effect compared to panchromatic film.

Henning Serger · Sep 21, 2024

miha said:
Well, I found it online - left Adox HR-50, right Kodak Tri-X :

There are unfortunately three problems with that test:
1. The film is not a copy film, as said in the introduction.
2. The HR-50 sample is significantly underexposed, and therefore you get a wrong impression of the differences in colour on the colour chart.
3. He is using generally the development times of D-76 from the data sheets of the manufacturers for the test series of different films. But these times are often not correct, or evaluated under development conditions which are different to the conditions the customer is using.
For example let's assume the manufacturers are using very precise, calibrated thermometers. But how many customers are doing the same? Very few. And from my own experience running a test lab I know that variances of more than +/- 0.5 °C are resulting in visible differences in density of BW films.
So for the idea of his test-series it would be much better to test and evaluate every film-developer combination with a densitometer to get the right development and consistent density and contrast. Then you can compare the films properly.

Best regards,
Henning

Henning Serger · Sep 21, 2024

miha said:
Thanks. I guess using red or orange filters would have an even greater effect compared to panchromatic film.

Yes. The darkening effect of blue sky with this film is roughly comparable to the darkening effect you have with a medium yellow filter on a panchromatic film.

Best regards,
Henning

Henning Serger · Sep 21, 2024

ChrisGalway said:
Wow Henning, superb! What a pity that Scala film is not available in 120.

Thank you , Chris.
Well, ADOX SCALA in 120: Maybe in the future....would at least not be totally impossible.
But:
I like medium format quality, I am a medium format user as well. But there are several films on the market which offer such outstanding quality already in 35mm (especially in combination with excellent lenses), that I don't miss medium format at all when using them.
And SCALA 50 definitely belongs to that group. Especially if you go the "quality path" = viewing them under an excellent loupe on a light table, and of course especially when you are projecting them !!

Best regards,
Henning

Henning Serger · Sep 21, 2024

Lachlan Young said:
It was somewhat eccentric in the Agfa Scala process.

No, not really, Lachlan. I was the first person testing ADOX CMS 20 II in the Agfa SCALA process at Europe's leading SCALA lab Photostudio 13.
ADOX told me before that that I would be wasting my time, and that this film cannot be reversal processed. Well, that statement empowered my ambition to see whether that is correct .
And I then started the tests together with the SCALA expert at Photostudio 13. And the result was quite astonishing and very positive, with very nice results. The only significant restriction was the minimum development time of the FD in the special Refrema dip-and-dunk processing machine for the SCALA process (3:15 min.). Therefore a pull-development was not possible for this film. But that was a limitation by the machine, and not the film.

CMS 20 II in Agfa SCALA developed by PS 13. Snapshots hand-held with the F90X and AF-D Nikkor 1.8/50 on a classic-car show:

Best regards,
Henning

Henning Serger · Sep 21, 2024

Ivo Stunga said:
...... but Adox kit would rise that 7 times and be over in just two months at my shooting rate,

Ivo, personally I look at it this way:
With the current price of the film and the SCALA reversal kit I only pay 35 Cent per shot, per final processed transparency.
That is really negligible, because for this 35 Cent I get in projection on my screen a huge 1m x 1.5m photo in unique, unsurpassed quality!!
Neither negative film nor digital come close to that outstanding price-performance ratio (look at the costs you would have for such huge prints, which also cannot offer the brillance and three-dimensional quality projection delivers).

Best regards,
Henning

Henning Serger · Sep 21, 2024

Ivo Stunga said:
But that R100 and E100D softness puzzles me. 60x projection magnification is an unforgiving beast, tells all the story, reveals all your flaws.

Ivo, I have tested E100 very intensively in my test lab, also in comparison to all other colour reversal films including its forerunner Ektachrome E100G. And I have shot lots of E100, often alongside to Provia 100F, in my daily photography.
My results concerning sharpness of E100:
- E100 is capable of sharp results, even very sharp results with excellent (modern design) lenses
- former E100G was slightly sharper, and also had a bit higher resolution (but you need high mangnification to see the difference)
- Sensia III, Astia 100F, Provia 100F, Velvia 50 and Velvia 100 offer visibly / significantly sharper results than current Ektachrome E100 (and about 10% higher resolution as well)
- with Provia 100F, Velvia 50 and 100 that difference is strongest, and also visible at lower magnifications (and proven by the MTF curves in the data sheets of these films)
- SCALA 50 also offers significantly sharper results than E100.

Best regards,
Henning

DeletedAcct1 · Sep 21, 2024

Henning Serger said:
No, not really, Lachlan. I was the first person testing ADOX CMS 20 II in the Agfa SCALA process at Europe's leading SCALA lab Photostudio 13.
ADOX told me before that that I would be wasting my time, and that this film cannot be reversal processed. Well, that statement empowered my ambition to see whether that is correct .
And I then started the tests together with the SCALA expert at Photostudio 13. And the result was quite astonishing and very positive, with very nice results. The only significant restriction was the minimum development time of the FD in the special Refrema dip-and-dunk processing machine for the SCALA process (3:15 min.). Therefore a pull-development was not possible for this film. But that was a limitation by the machine, and not the film.

CMS 20 II in Agfa SCALA developed by PS 13. Snapshots hand-held with the F90X and AF-D Nikkor 1.8/50 on a classic-car show:

View attachment 379110 View attachment 379111

Best regards,
Henning

Problem is: Photostudio13 doesn't offer the b&w reversal service anymore...
Another problem is where to buy slide mounts...

Ivo Stunga · Sep 21, 2024

Henning Serger said:
With the current price of the film and the SCALA reversal kit I only pay 35 Cent per shot, per final processed transparency.
That is really negligible, because for this 35 Cent I get in projection on my screen a huge 1m x 1.5m photo in unique, unsurpassed quality!!
Neither negative film nor digital come close to that outstanding price-performance ratio (look at the costs you would have for such huge prints, which also cannot offer the brillance and three-dimensional quality projection delivers).

My napkin math says I pay about 18 cents per frame (bulk HR-50) for a processed slide (1EUR per 38 frames) and I like your logic, makes this more palatable! Someday I'll try this kit for sure. Only problem with prints Vs slides - slides are ephemeral much like digital. To have a print at ready to touch/see without any equipment - a treasure on it's own.
But the outstanding quality of slides is there to enjoy for sure - that's what holds me to the format. Projection events are another thing on their own...

Henning Serger said:
My results concerning sharpness of E100:

That's what I've been seeing with my projection setup/eyes/scanner

Henning Serger · Sep 21, 2024

Alessandro Serrao said:
Problem is: Photostudio13 doesn't offer the b&w reversal service anymore...

Photostudio 13 stopped business completely because the owner retired.

Alessandro Serrao said:
Another problem is where to buy slide mounts...

There are still new mounts available for 35mm and medium format. And lots of different types are also available on the used market.

Best regards,
Henning

Ivo Stunga · Sep 21, 2024

Alessandro Serrao said:
Another problem is where to buy slide mounts...

That's my current problem as I really loved GEPE 7013 mounts with metal mask, have bought 1400 of them over the years and need many more, but then GEPE decided to drop this business and nothing comes close to GEPE in versatility (can be closed perpendicularly for a square opening/projekction of square aspect ratio crop), ease of use and projected field edge sharpness + no stray light due to the metal mask.
Please correct me if I'm wrong and something on-par exists

loccdor · Sep 21, 2024

Regarding E100, Kodak has stated that it is prioritizing low granularity and good scanning results (with typical scanners) in its films developed in the last couple decades. This is also what we see out of Ektar, "finest grain color negative film", but it has lower resolution as the tradeoff.

Anyway, sorry for the off-topic digression, I'm off to shoot some Scala 50 and develop it in Rodinal.

Ivo Stunga · Sep 21, 2024

Well, my scans would rather have old formula back and Fujifilm not Fujiying itself into oblivion. No complaints about grain from me. Ever. Grain is beautiful. We can have digital for that plastic look.

DeletedAcct1 · Sep 21, 2024

Henning Serger said:
There are still new mounts available for 35mm and medium format. And lots of different types are also available on the used market.

Best regards,
Henning

I can't find them. Can you please suggest me where to look?

Best B&W Film Reversal Kit: Foma, Adox Scala, or Bellini

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