cheap 400 35mm film

frobozz · Feb 10, 2016

pbromaghin said:
What was it that you liked about 5222 that made you switch? My eyes are not so good as to see much difference among these and tri-x.

The tonal range just seems to work incredibly well with everything I shoot, and I was making 20x24 enlargements that did not look at all grainy. (Note that when I was just scanning it, the grain was very objectionable and I didn't like the film at all - then, following advice I had read in various places, I made actual prints with it and lo and behold it was great stuff! I know that makes no sense. I can't explain it. But I saw the results myself.) One really nice thing about the film is that it is absolutely dead-flat. No curl to speak of in any direction. I make prints using a filed-out negative carrier and no glass, so I like the fact that I don't have to worry about negative flatness at all. One downside to the film is that it has no frame numbers. I end up using a fine-point Sharpie to make marks in the rebate to note which frames I printed.

Duncan

pbromaghin · Feb 10, 2016

nworth said:
Last week I got a 100 foot roll of Arista Ultra EDU 400 from Freestyle for some developer tests - $48 including shipping. I don't know how good a film it is, but it was the cheapest I could fine.

That's re-branded Foma. A lot of people like it, some don't. NOT a bad choice.

pbromaghin · Feb 10, 2016

frobozz said:
The tonal range just seems to work incredibly well with everything I shoot, and I was making 20x24 enlargements that did not look at all grainy. (Note that when I was just scanning it, the grain was very objectionable and I didn't like the film at all - then, following advice I had read in various places, I made actual prints with it and lo and behold it was great stuff! I know that makes no sense. I can't explain it. But I saw the results myself.) One really nice thing about the film is that it is absolutely dead-flat. No curl to speak of in any direction. I make prints using a filed-out negative carrier and no glass, so I like the fact that I don't have to worry about negative flatness at all. One downside to the film is that it has no frame numbers. I end up using a fine-point Sharpie to make marks in the rebate to note which frames I printed.

Duncan

That all makes sense. 5222, along with Visions, is getting more and more interesting. I figure that, since they are designed to be blown up to huge proportions on a screen, they must be good.

fdonadio · Feb 10, 2016

pbromaghin said:
That all makes sense. 5222, along with Visions, is getting more and more interesting. I figure that, since they are designed to be blown up to huge proportions on a screen, they must be good.

They're blown up to a huge screen, but we watch them from meters away... Well, to be fair, any film blown up to that size will look grainy if seen from close up.

MartinP · Feb 10, 2016

Remember cinefilm is being seen at 24 fps, not as a static projection. That way a lot of the things we might worry about in a print just disappear.

Ilford/Harman Pan400 seemed fairly like TriX tonality when I tried it, but it isn't available everywhere. I haven't used the Kentmere400 or Rollei400 to find any similarities or differences between them and Pan400. Fomapan400 is nicely characterful, but actually more like ISO250 in a standard developer. It might be interesting to try the Foma Retropan320 using their recommendations for EI640 although, as it is perhaps a sheet-film style emulsion rather than 135, the results might be a bit too 'characterful' in the smaller format. The Orwo cinefilm would be worth a try too . . . actually one could spend months playing with the alternatives!

My own choice is HP5+, when I have a need for it.

ggfinn · Feb 12, 2016

fdonadio said:
They're blown up to a huge screen, but we watch them from meters away... Well, to be fair, any film blown up to that size will look grainy if seen from close up.

35mm Cine cameras shoot 3- or 4-perf. 35mm still is 8-perf. Also, space is left for the analog sound track.
Academy ratio 4-perf image area is 16mm x 22mm, having only 41% of the area of a 35mm still at 24mm x 36mm.
My understanding is that cinema film is better as a rule, since most R&D went into it, since that was where 90% of their
business was (note: was) until several years ago. Someone from Kodak no doubt will have more to say and more accurately.

fdonadio · Feb 12, 2016

ggfinn said:
35mm Cine cameras shoot 3- or 4-perf. 35mm still is 8-perf. Also, space is left for the analog sound track.
Academy ratio 4-perf image area is 16mm x 22mm, having only 41% of the area of a 35mm still at 24mm x 36mm.
My understanding is that cinema film is better as a rule, (...)

Well, maybe it is a little better, but I doubt it would be so much better. One of the reasons being:

MartinP said:
Remember cinefilm is being seen at 24 fps, not as a static projection. That way a lot of the things we might worry about in a print just disappear.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 13, 2016

When Oskar Barnack designed what became the original Leica model he was looking for a way to test the exposure of cine film. At the time electronic exposure meters did not exist. So the design of the camera was completely comparable with the film. To make analysis of the negatives easier he chose to use a format that was two frames in size (twice the area of a single frame). Since then most 35 mm camera designers have done the same. (The Robot line of cameras used a square format. There was also a "spy" camera that used the single frame format as did single frame designs.) There is a difference in the shape of the perforations between cine and still films that does not effect the operations of still cameras.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 13, 2016

fdonadio said:
Well, maybe it is a little better, but I doubt it would be so much better. One of the reasons being:

From Kodak's published data for their film Diffuse RMS granularity values:

Kodak 400TX 17 (fine)
Eastman 5222 14 (very fine)

So 5222 is finer grained than the present version of Tri-X.

seanE · Feb 16, 2016

Is there a cost affective way of shooting colour film ''35mm'' I like portia and ektar, but there big money, Can you get 30m roles? or cheaper alternatives with similar tonality?.

frobozz · Feb 17, 2016

seanE said:
Is there a cost affective way of shooting colour film ''35mm'' I like portia and ektar, but there big money, Can you get 30m roles? or cheaper alternatives with similar tonality?.

Well, back to the movie film again. You can get the stuff really cheap still, because there are places that sell "short ends" - when a magazine of movie film gets down under about 200 feet it may not be worth running in a movie camera, so production companies sell it to short-end resellers (Film Emporium in NY is one). Their main market is low-budget and hobbyist movie makers, who are willing to shoot very short takes in order to get the film cheap. But you can also buy it too and use it as still film. The problem comes in developing it. It's supposed to be done in the ECN-2 process (not the normal C-41) and there are all kinds of issues with that - see the numerous threads around here. Or you can develop it in C-41 and deal with the wonky color errors, but you also have to remove the Rem-Jet antihalation backing on it, which means processing it yourself. You can't just send it to a normal C-41 lab. Again, see numerous existing threads around here on this subject. So there's how to get color film cheap, but the related costs and hassles will probably make you want to just stick to Portra and Ektar!

Duncan

pbromaghin · Feb 17, 2016

...Which leads me to ask something I have long wondered - why does color cine film require rem-jet, but B&W such as 5222 does not need it? They both go through the camera at the same speed and should be just as likely to build up a static charge.

mrred · Feb 17, 2016

I've been shooting ORWO N74+, in the 400' tins. The last time I bought it was $180.....$1.50 a roll. Nice film for the price.

seanE · Feb 17, 2016

I have ordered a colour skopar 35mm 2.5, its a contrasty lens, So I'm wondering what would suit it best? fomapan low contrast, or ''say'' ti x 400? I'm getting a role of each film I'm interested in to test them.

mrred · Feb 17, 2016

It's all in how you develop the film. Either can give you similar contrast.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 17, 2016

pbromaghin said:
...Which leads me to ask something I have long wondered - why does color cine film require rem-jet, but B&W such as 5222 does not need it? They both go through the camera at the same speed and should be just as likely to build up a static charge.

Interesting question. The remjet coating has more than one purpose. It provides lubrication and protection for color emulsions that tend to be more delicate than B&W ones. It also acts as an anti-halation coating.

pbromaghin · Feb 17, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
Interesting question. The remjet coating has more than one purpose. It provides lubrication and protection for color emulsions that tend to be more delicate than B&W ones. It also acts as an anti-halation coating.

Well, ya. Every film I know of has an anti-halation layer.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 17, 2016

pbromaghin said:
Well, ya. Every film I know of has an anti-halation layer.

Not all films have an anti-halation coating. Typically surveillance films do not. The idea being to increase their sensitivity to low light levels. Light reflected back into the emulsion gets a second chance to form an image.

pbromaghin · Feb 17, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
Not all films have an anti-halation coating. Typically surveillance do not. The idea being to increase their sensitivity to low light levels. Light reflected back into the emulsion gets a second chance to form an image.

I did not know that. Thanks for the info.

cmacd123 · Feb 17, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
Interesting question. The remjet coating has more than one purpose. It provides lubrication and protection for color emulsions that tend to be more delicate than B&W ones. It also acts as an anti-halation coating.

The B&W films have a grey base as there anti-halo method, and probably some dye in the emulsion. The colour Negative is Kodak's highest prestige product, and is only expected to be processed by A limited number of specialized commercial labs. (you don't spend 10,000 dollars a day shooting a movie and get any hack to develop the film.) Thus it has a unique process and they could specify the rem-jet removal step as part of that process.

Only Kodachrome and Movie Negative Bother with the REM-Jet. (the print film used to have it but changed to a dye undercoat to squeeze out an extra wash step to conserve water in California)

MattKrull · Feb 17, 2016

seanE said:
Is there a cost affective way of shooting colour film ''35mm'' I like portia and ektar, but there big money, Can you get 30m roles? or cheaper alternatives with similar tonality?.

While not the same (by any stretch), I use Fuji Superia in the same situations where I'd use Ektar (that being places where I want very saturated color). Like I said, not the same, but I've made an excellent and very vibrant 11x14 enlargement from Superia.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 17, 2016

cmacd123 said:
The B&W films have a grey base as there anti-halo method, and probably some dye in the emulsion.

Color positive films can also use an anti-halation coating consisting of finely divided silver. Bleaching and fixing remove this layer.

seanE · Feb 18, 2016

That was something I was only thinking about yesterday, I'm working on a DIY 8x6 flat bed camera, I'm making the plate holder at the moment, I settled on painting the back plate black, But I was wondering should i have put a mirror there instead, ''might create a double image because of the thickness of the glass tho''.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 18, 2016

seanE said:
That was something I was only thinking about yesterday, I'm working on a DIY 8x6 flat bed camera, I'm making the plate holder at the moment, I settled on painting the back plate black, But I was wondering should i have put a mirror there instead, ''might create a double image because of the thickness of the glass tho''.

If the film used has an effective anti-halation coating then painting the back plate will have little effect. Surveillance work is enhanced by halation but it really has no advantages for general photography.

seanE · Feb 18, 2016

its a wet plate holder so no anti anything here Im thinking back to what back lit sensors are, ''what are them yokes exactly??'' surly a primitive version of what I vaguely remember they are, Would be a mirror behind the plate reflecting the light back out again giving you twice the light gathering capabilities?

cheap 400 35mm film

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