Double-X 5222

Thinking of picking up some 5222 from Film Emporium. I'll check to see if they short ends, but if not, I have some questions about ordering 400' of the stuff.

I've heard you can get them to respool it to 100' rolls. That sounds good to me. Will those 100' rolls go right into my Watson bulk loader? Is there anything I should be aware of?

Alternately, is there some kind of daylight loader that I could use for 400' or even 200' rolls? I ask because I live in a small apartment and its pretty hard to find blackout conditions - loading up the bulk roll once in the dark is going to be a pain enough in my changing bag. For those of you who shoot movie stock, how do you generally proceed with the 400' rolls?

Lastly, any other tips with 5222, movie stocks, or bulk rolling? I'll be using Xtol for developing. I've read here that its 250D, but for still use, meter at 400...

Thanks!

I ended up buying the 400 foot roll, and I use my darkroom to load onto the spools. I found that if I pull out a length of film from the roll the length of the span of my oustretched arms, that is about a 36 exposure roll. I cut it, tape it onto the spool and tightly wind it on so it will go into the cassette. It is not as bad as it sounds, and just about as fast as using a bulk loader.

Tim Gray said:

Thinking of picking up some 5222 from Film Emporium. I'll check to see if they short ends, but if not, I have some questions about ordering 400' of the stuff.

I've heard you can get them to respool it to 100' rolls. That sounds good to me. Will those 100' rolls go right into my Watson bulk loader? Is there anything I should be aware of?

Alternately, is there some kind of daylight loader that I could use for 400' or even 200' rolls? I ask because I live in a small apartment and its pretty hard to find blackout conditions - loading up the bulk roll once in the dark is going to be a pain enough in my changing bag. For those of you who shoot movie stock, how do you generally proceed with the 400' rolls?

Lastly, any other tips with 5222, movie stocks, or bulk rolling? I'll be using Xtol for developing. I've read here that its 250D, but for still use, meter at 400...

Thanks!

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I checked a few days ago and all they had was the 400' rolls that have been 're-canned.' I went on the wait list for the short ends but will probably end up buying the 400 footer ($80) if nothing shows up soon.

Fred

Unfortunately my darkroom is my tiny bathroom and I'm not quite sure if its dark enough for film handling. Maybe I will go that route though.

I am sure others have had better experiences, but I have never gotten short ends from those people. They just never have them.
Someday I might order a 400 foot roll but these days I am shooting much more 120 film than 35mm. The Nikon is getting dusty.

tim in san jose

It's good stuff, nothing super amazing about it, but has a nice older look. If you can forgo the bulk loader and you have a darkroom it is pretty easy to load directly from the roll. Didn't we just have a thread on this? It's all blending together, maybe that was ages ago. Oh, and just so some folks don't get their hopes up, it is not Super-XX but just plain old XX, a different thing all together.

To be honest, for $80-100, I'd be happy with a 400' roll. As long as it wasn't a giant pain in the butt to deal with. I've never bulk rolled before though, so I'm not quite as comfortable with it as others.

I think there was a thread on it. But I wasn't sure if it was something I found while searching or it was recent. I couldn't find it again...

I have no illusions as to what it might be like. Or even any real ideas. But it's cheap and looks fun.

I've only been shooting film for about a year... so I have no real reference as to what it might have used to be like as a still film stock. I only have experience with 400TX and TMZ, with a handful of rolls shot on other stocks.

Tim Gray said:

I've never bulk rolled before though, so I'm not quite as comfortable with it as others.

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Do it a couple of times and you'll be comfortable with it. It's not rocket science after all.

Tim Gray said:

To be honest, for $80-100, I'd be happy with a 400' roll. As long as it wasn't a giant pain in the butt to deal with. I've never bulk rolled before though, so I'm not quite as comfortable with it as others.

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Say you have 200 windings for 400 feet. (I am an engineer and could come up with a closer number but my brane hurts today) Say 200 windings... Get the chain saw out, get in the darkroom and cut that spool in half. You now have 400 short pieces of film, much easier to work with. And those ragged jagged edges are pretty "Arty".

tim in san jose

5222 has a good look. It is a little low in contrast but that makes it pretty easy to use. I have usually exposed it at 200 and have had good results in Pyrocat-P, Rodinal and 777. I get the 400' rolls and respool it to 100' spools in a dome type dark bag. The 100' rolls obviously will fit in your bulk loader.

If you are looking for cheap film that is easier to bulkload, try Freestyle.

Patrick

patrickjames said:

5222 has a good look. It is a little low in contrast but that makes it pretty easy to use. I have usually exposed it at 200 and have had good results in Pyrocat-P, Rodinal and 777. I get the 400' rolls and respool it to 100' spools in a dome type dark bag. The 100' rolls obviously will fit in your bulk loader.

If you are looking for cheap film that is easier to bulkload, try Freestyle.

Patrick

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Do you have any posted examples of that film in 777? Is that homemade 777 or the stuff from kentucky?

Being the sort of contrasty developer that it is,I would interested in seeing how it does.

tim in san jose

Hello Tim-

Here are two images on 5222. The first one was developed in 777 which I bought from the Frugal Photographer I believe. Since it is prepackaged I don't know what they put in it, but I think I will mix it myself from now on since there is some disagreement as to whether it contains glycin or not. This isn't a big deal since it is designed to be replenished, so I will just gradually replenish it with my own. Developed for 10min @ 26ºC.

The second image is developed in Pyrocat-P for about 12min. @ 22 or 24ºC. You can get a pretty good idea about how much brightness range this film can hold from this image. The sun was shining on the shades, so you have direct sun and an indoor exposure together. This can be attributed to the Pyrocat tanning effect in some ways, but it is hard to blow out the highlights on this film.

I would have to go back and study the negs I have shot from this film all together to give you a better idea what it can do, but I think this will get you started.

By the way, I am not sure where you got the idea that 777 is a high contrast developer as my short experience with it would lead me to believe that it is not, even with longish developing times. I haven't used it enough to fully evaluate it, but I do like its convenience and its "panthermic" qualities. The water here in SoCal gets pretty warm in the summer (26º obviously) and the developer worked well. With Rodinal 26º would be almost useless with many films.

I should add that the first image is a neg scan and the second is a print scan.

I hope this helps.

Patrick

Patrick,

Very nice images.

My impression of 777 might be more an aspect of my shooting style, usually one stop over exposed to make sure I get the shadows. I did a lot of test work on Efke 100 but then took about a year off... you know how that affects 777.

Second image... nice control of the highlights. I have found my use of W2D2+ gives me a lot of control using staining developers. I have done a little work with Pyrocat-HD on 5x7, but not enough to consider myself proficient.

I don't see you having many problems replenishing it with your own. Just remember that developer needs to be used often.

tim in san jose

Eastman Double-X 5222

I've read quite a bit on other forums about photographers who use this motion picture film made by Kodak. It is an ISO 250 film that seems to typically be shot at EI 250 and responds well in normal developers.

Unfortunately, the film is fairly difficult to get. It can be purchased in 400' or 1,000' reels, or you can get short ends of it from companies like Film Emporium in New York City.

I picked up a 400' can of it thanks to an acquaintance here in Vancouver (where I am visiting as I type this) and I'm looking forward to trying it out.

If you've given it a try, your comments would be welcome. I'm going to try to develop it in PMK first, since that's my standard developer for non-T-grain emulsions.

Threads merged. There are a few more related threads that you can find by searching on "5222."

I think this one was 5222 in D-76 (1+1)--

k_jupiter said:

Being the sort of contrasty developer that it is,

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?????????? 777 is very soft working, yielding negatives with a smooth scale. It is the very antithesis of 'contrasty'.

c6h6o3 said:

?????????? 777 is very soft working, yielding negatives with a smooth scale. It is the very antithesis of 'contrasty'.

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Been a couple of years but... the tests I did using a calibrated density strip, 3x4 Efke 100 and 777 showed a much more contrasty combination than most of the developers I have hanging around. I don't mean to contradict your findings c6, but I found 777 to have a very long scale curve, very difficult to print on normal paper.

Notes: This was the the homebrew off the http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Harvey/harvey.html site, not the commercial stuff available from Kentucky.

I suspect more work needs doing on this topic.

tim in san jose

777 OT

c6h6o3 said:

?????????? 777 is very soft working, yielding negatives with a smooth scale. It is the very antithesis of 'contrasty'.

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It will be YEARS before folks realize that Harveys (BPI) 777 is ONE thing,
and the variation of Edwal 12 known as Germain's Portrait Developer / speculative 7+70+7 is another).

It is amazing that photographers will endlessly argue the merit of ID-11 vs D-76 while accepting that 2 random developers must be identical. But that is photo history in a nutshell ! The power of Magical Thinking !

Are there any pressure plate scratch problems with 5222 ?

Almost Tri-X grain.....

rms granularity, per Kodak is 14. LPM is 32/100 It is, indeed, a film of old technology.

For comparison, the granularity is the same as Foma 200 and APX 400.

The Eastman 5231 Plus X is 10, just like the regular version, Tri-X is 17.

The human eye can detect a difference in granularity of 16% (Haist quoting some Kodak researchers. Just happened to read that last night!) If that is the case, 17/14 gives 21%. Noticable, but close insofar as the human eye and brain.

I realize that grain isn't the only consideration. I would presume that XX has an old fashioned long toe that was needed before coated lenses. At least, that's how I understand such things, open to correction.

k_jupiter said:

Say you have 200 windings for 400 feet. (I am an engineer and could come up with a closer number but my brane hurts today) Say 200 windings... Get the chain saw out, get in the darkroom and cut that spool in half. You now have 400 short pieces of film, much easier to work with. And those ragged jagged edges are pretty "Arty".

tim in san jose

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There was an old aerial photographer in my past who cut rolls of wide color paper in half with a chopsaw in the dark. I'll take risks, but that seems a little bit on the extreme side.

I've been shooting 5222 for about six months now. I've been using ADOX Borax MQ Developer, which is a D-76 type. I add the ADOX Replenisher after each film run. I've run about sixty rolls so far myself, you can get about seventy rolls of 36exposure from a 400' roll. I hand load it, right off the film core, that's the easiest way, no problem at all. According to the Darkroom Cookbook, D-76 was developed for the motion picture industry, so it makes good sense to me to use it with the XX. I certainly like the midtone values I'm getting, this film seems particularly good at seperating those.

df cardwell said:

Are there any pressure plate scratch problems with 5222 ?

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Not unless you already have a scratch problem. The base material is designed to run through a cine camera at high speed. Running it through a 35mm still camera would not be subjecting it to nearly as much stress. If you have a scratch problem, it's probably not the film. Check your camera and handling first.

The recommended developer for 5222 is Kodak D-96. The formula for this developer is published (I've seen it in the Film Development Cookbook by Anchell & Troop, and presumably it's elsewhere too). I may experiment with it in due course, but I want to try developers I'm used to using first.