Comparing Ferrania P30 & Orto 50

[Andrew O'Neill]

Had loads of fun playing around with these two films. It comes with a warning, though... A dozen doughnuts were slaughtered in the making of this video.

 

[Alan Johnson]

Orto here does not show the reds to be much darker in Thornton's 2 bath.
But this developer does reduce contrast and may be partly the cause of this possibly.

 

[Ben 4]

Enjoyed this! And particularly admired the lovely pair of K1000s! I don't know how you shoot such slow films without a tripod—though I guess full sun helps. I did love Panatomic-X in the OM-1 back in the day. Thanks for exploring these two.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Orto here does not show the reds to be much darker in Thornton's 2 bath.
But this developer does reduce contrast and may be partly the cause of this possibly.

Both films were developed in the same developer, so would be affected in the same way, no?

 

[Alan Johnson]

Pure ortho = blank negs on red
Part ortho = some black silver
More contrasty developer = blank negs on pure ortho, more black silver on part ortho ?
I don't recall this has been discussed before, so not sure.

 

[Dustin McAmera]

Thanks for this. I was struck most by how subtle the difference was. Some of the places where I could see a difference weren't reds but yellow-greens of foliage, and in the peppers photo, the ortho has the red pepper darker, as you'd expect, but to my eye the P30 has the yellow and green ones darker.

I haven't used either of these films (and I'm not that keen to start paying Ferrania's prices). I'm wondering how my CHS100ii would compare (not trying to set you extra homework here!) - that's described as orthopanchromatic, and I know I like what I've done with it, but I haven't done a side-by-side trial against either a pan or an ortho film. Not sure if I have any ortho right now - if I have it's old (but I can get Ilford Ortho over the counter in town, it seems).
I don't think I'd survive a dozen doughnuts though.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Thanks for this. I was struck most by how subtle the difference was. Some of the places where I could see a difference weren't reds but yellow-greens of foliage, and in the peppers photo, the ortho has the red pepper darker, as you'd expect, but to my eye the P30 has the yellow and green ones darker.

I haven't used either of these films (and I'm not that keen to start paying Ferrania's prices). I'm wondering how my CHS100ii would compare (not trying to set you extra homework here!) - that's described as orthopanchromatic, and I know I like what I've done with it, but I haven't done a side-by-side trial against either a pan or an ortho film. Not sure if I have any ortho right now - if I have it's old (but I can get Ilford Ortho over the counter in town, it seems).
I don't think I'd survive a dozen doughnuts though.

Most likely, CHS100 II would render reds much lighter than P30, and only slightly lighter than a known orthopanchromatic film, such as Acros 100. Sadly, there is no spectral sensitivity graph available for P30...

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Pure ortho = blank negs on red
Part ortho = some black silver
More contrasty developer = blank negs on pure ortho, more black silver on part ortho ?
I don't recall this has been discussed before, so not sure.

I've made exposures in green sensitive x-ray film through a #25 red filter, with a factor of 9 applied and got an image albeit very contrasty

 

[pentaxuser]

It comes with a warning, though... A dozen doughnuts were slaughtered in the making of this video.

Humanely, I hope, Andy

On a more serious note and on my screen there seemed to be very little difference in how the reds were rendered but in the fruit bowl I thought that if anything the P30 rendered the reds even darker The reds looked every bit as dark if not darker than those I have seen in videos of Ilford Ortho 80

I had always thought that the best test for ortho was the rendition of the colour red so if Orto 50 is ortho then based on what I saw in the video I was puzzled at your conclusion that P30 is definitely Panchromatic i.e. renders identical or close to the reds of other panchro films My reds in both Ilford HP5+, the 100, 400 and 3200 Ilford Deltas and fróm what I can recall reds in Kodaks TMY 400 and P3200 plus reds in Fuji 400 and 1600 Neopan were all much lighter.

pentaxuser

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Humanely, I hope, Andy

On a more serious note and on my screen there seemed to be very little difference in how the reds were rendered but in the fruit bowl I thought that if anything the P30 rendered the reds even darker The reds looked every bit as dark if not darker than those I have seen in videos of Ilford Ortho 80

I had always thought that the best test for ortho was the rendition of the colour red so if Orto 50 is ortho then based on what I saw in the video I was puzzled at your conclusion that P30 is definitely Panchromatic i.e. renders identical or close to the reds of other panchro films My reds in both Ilford HP5+, the 100, 400 and 3200 Ilford Deltas and fróm what I can recall reds in Kodaks TMY 400 and P3200 plus reds in Fuji 400 and 1600 Neopan were all much lighter.

pentaxuser

The results did have me confused...like, did I have the negatives mixed up?? (I double and triple checked!)...and I'm quite sure it wasn't from sugar over load... The difference in red is quite subtle, especially in the bowl of peppers. The Orto is ever so slightly darker, but sadly it really hard to see the difference in the video. What's odd is their rendering of orange. P30 is obviously lighter. The green pepper is lighter in the Orto version (I also see this with green sensitive XRAY films). The P30 yellow pepper is slightly darker. P30's spectral sensitivity graph must be quite bizarre looking, going by the results (I wish Ferrania would post their graph...or maybe someone out there with a sensitimetre can test it!)
After doing this test, P30 comes out as a very unique film compared to other "conventional" B/W films out there. People are saying P30 is orthopanchromatic, but when compared to others with same designation like Acros, P30's reds are still considerably darker... I need to compare these two, since I have a ton of Acros. I'm really getting hooked on P30. If they ever come out with it in sheet film, I'm doomed!

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

In this snippet from the video, Orto rendered my red t-shirt darker than P30, as it should... but the difference is only slight. Look at the tonal rendering of my face (sorry, I was born like that). P30 appears darker, but I think that is down to the differences in contrast rather than spectral sensitivies. I did my best to match their density ranges, but they are not exactly the same...

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Good God, I look more like my Grand Dad with each passing day!

 

[mshchem]

Excellent and fun video as always. It's hard for me to see difference in many scenes. The P30 really is a nice film with your developer combo. Thanks for sharing, go easy on the Tim Hortons

 

[MattKing]

Good God, I look more like my Grand Dad with each passing day!

It's the Roughriders hat
On the subject at hand, I'd be careful about drawing conclusions based on the dyes in clothing. Take a look at how your hat is rendered in that colour image - that sure doesn't look like Roughrider green.

 

[pentaxuser]

I found it worth my while to re-look at the Gregg Davis video on P30. His findings do not seem dissimilar to what you are saying in #10 . However as far as its ortho quality is concerned he rates P30 as more ortho than Ilford or Rollei ortho films

I do not understand why Ferrania by now has not released any info on the spectral sensitivity of both films. That might go a long way to clearing up what each is in terms of their respective ortho qualities

For anyone interested in seeing Gregg's findings I attach the video: The relevant sections as I see it are 4:40 to 6:40 and 7:50 to 8:10




pentaxuser

 

[Corn_Zhou]

I found it worth my while to re-look at the Gregg Davis video on P30. His findings do not seem dissimilar to what you are saying in #10 . However as far as its ortho quality is concerned he rates P30 as more ortho than Ilford or Rollei ortho films

I do not understand why Ferrania by now has not released any info on the spectral sensitivity of both films. That might go a long way to clearing up what each is in terms of their respective ortho qualities

For anyone interested in seeing Gregg's findings I attach the video: The relevant sections as I see it are 4:40 to 6:40 and 7:50 to 8:10




pentaxuser

My guess is that they are still fiddling with the spectral sensitizing dyes use in production which could explain the changes in spectral sensitivity and no released data.

 

[Agulliver]

Thanks for this test. it can be difficult on a Youtube video but the first thing is....it's clear that P30 and Orto 50 are not the same film. Orto is definitely orthochromatic whereas P30 has some more sensitivity to red. But I am OK with the notion that P30 orthopanchromatic film.

Regarding needing a tripod. If we take ISO 50, in good sunlight one can shoot at f16 at about 1/50 second (sunny 16 rule) which is certainly easy enough. In overcast conditions one ought to be able to use the same film at 5.6 or f4 which reduces the DoF but is still perfectly do-able. If you're able to hand-hold at 1/25s (I regularly do 1/15s handheld) 50ISO is fast enough for most situations.

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks for this test. it can be difficult on a Youtube video but the first thing is....it's clear that P30 and Orto 50 are not the same film. Orto is definitely orthochromatic whereas P30 has some more sensitivity to red.

Can I ask: what have you seen in terms of information or had experience of that suggests that Orto 50 is more ortho than P30? In everything I have seen of photos and including G Davis and I think Scott Michiche's( apologies if I have misspelled his name ) Macbeth chart P30 makes reds look very black which I thought was the acid test

Maybe someone will attempt to take the same picture of a red square in the same lighting with a red filter with both films to see what the differences are This might at least put us further down the road of knowing more about the respective spectral sensitivities which if we have to wait before Ferrania publishes the information, may turn out to be a long time

Yes there may have been subtle differences in Andy's video but they all looked pretty marginal to me

pentaxuser

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Thanks for this test. it can be difficult on a Youtube video but the first thing is....it's clear that P30 and Orto 50 are not the same film. Orto is definitely orthochromatic whereas P30 has some more sensitivity to red. But I am OK with the notion that P30 orthopanchromatic film.

Regarding needing a tripod. If we take ISO 50, in good sunlight one can shoot at f16 at about 1/50 second (sunny 16 rule) which is certainly easy enough. In overcast conditions one ought to be able to use the same film at 5.6 or f4 which reduces the DoF but is still perfectly do-able. If you're able to hand-hold at 1/25s (I regularly do 1/15s handheld) 50ISO is fast enough for most situations.

Agreed. I plan to go out and shoot remaining roll of Orto 50, handheld in the K1000. The whole point of working with a 35mm camera is so that one can be mobile. I could even rate it at EI 32. With Sunny 16, I could easily get away with 1/60th @ f/11.

 

[Disconnekt]

Ferania just announced that Orto 50 is now in 120. Now you can test both of them in 120 format (Sorry for your wallet if you do lol)

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Ferania just announced that Orto 50 is now in 120. Now you can test both of them in 120 format (Sorry for your wallet if you do lol)

No worries. I've wanted some in 120. Thanks for the heads up!