ECN-2/RA-4

wyofilm

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Is there anything inherently incompatible with Kodak vision 3 film and RA-4 printmaking?
 
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Vision 3 250D in c41 EI400 and printed on ra4 works great for me. If you are referring to develop V3 in ra4 for the proper cd3, I have not tried it.
 

MattKing

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Is there anything inherently incompatible with Kodak vision 3 film and RA-4 printmaking?
The film is inherently less contrasty than C-41 film.
And there are differences between the response of the projection stock that Vision 3 is intended to be printed on and RA-4 papers.
But differences are one thing, and incompatibilities are another.
 
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wyofilm

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Vision 3 250D in c41 EI400 and printed on ra4 works great for me. If you are referring to develop V3 in ra4 for the proper cd3, I have not tried it.
Are you then using some pre-rinse remjet step before going with C41 chemistry?
 
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wyofilm

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The film is inherently less contrasty than C-41 film.
And there are differences between the response of the projection stock that Vision 3 is intended to be printed on and RA-4 papers.
But differences are one thing, and incompatibilities are another.
What is the film industry doing at this point with vision 3? Do they us a dup film to make a positive? Does such a film still exist?

My question was a bit unfocused because 1. I'm wondering if v3 is a good stills stock? You suggest that it might not be. 2. The ECN-2 kits out there have a separate bleach and fix steps (the memory of PE haunts me to not use Blix). I was imagining ECN-2 kits would be convenient for C-41, but that might or might not be the case. Fuji does offer a reason one stop shop kit with separate bleach and fix steps. I went down the Kodak route with replenishment, but the volumes are just more than I need and my c41 use is sporadic.
 

MattKing

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What is the film industry doing at this point with vision 3? Do they us a dup film to make a positive? Does such a film still exist?
Historically, the camera films were edited manually and then contact printed on to the projection stock.
In order for that to work, both stocks were quite low in contrast.
Then they transitioned to scanning the camera film, editing digitally, and then film recorder printing back on to the projection stock.
Now with productions shot on film they mostly scan, edit digitally, then distribute digitally.
But they still do make some projection prints - for specific and special markets, and special projects like 70mm theatres.
That workflow is the same workflow that was in place immediately before digital projection took over (mostly) from optical projection - they scan, edit digitally, film recorder print the digital file back to projection film stock.
The high end scanning and film recorder printing was set up to work with the existing low contrast, matched-to-each-other camera and projection stocks.
And essentially, there has been no good reason to fundamentally change any of that. Particularly when you consider that lower contrast film is well suited to scanning.
There still are both intermediate films and projection print films in the Eastman Kodak Catalogue - the projection print films are KODAK VISION Color Print Film 2383 and 3383 (the perfs differ).
 

AgX

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Historically, the camera films were edited manually and then contact printed on to the projection stock.
In order for that to work, both stocks were quite low in contrast..

Not quite.

The ratio between contrast of taking and printing material is different for cine and still materials.
 

btaylor

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I am also curious about experiences printing RA4 from ECN-2 negatives. I am sitting on a fair amount of Vision 3 stock. I intend to try some packages of ECN-2 chemistry designed for home use and it would be great to hear what results others may have had.
 

cmacd123

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the tradition was a Multi step process. Camera negative printed on a "master positive" stock - positive image with an Orange mask. that was used to make Printing Negatives" which were then used to make the actual theater prints. if the printing negative were to be damaged, or worn, a fresh one could be made from the master positive.

Some special effects and titles were also Spliced in at the master positive stage.

the contrast went up at the final print stage. the intermediates were designed to keep detail.

with digital editing, the Camera negative is often scanned directly. when they need prints, it is possible to use what is called a film recorder to digitally print on the 2383/3383 Print stock. It is also not unheard of to make a master positive the same way as a "protection element" to be stored in another location in case they have tousea backup because the camera negative is no longer available. in the old analog system , that master positive would have also been kept in a separate location.

SO yes, the negative is compatible, BUT will give a slightly lower contrast than a Still film Negative. this can be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on what you want to do.
 

Fujicaman1957

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Huh...if it has less contrast than regular C-41 process film, it seems to me this might be just the thing for shooting at concerts. The lighting is always contrasty at concerts and this might help solve that problem...
 
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Are you then using some pre-rinse remjet step before going with C41 chemistry?

I dont use a pre rinse. The remjet comes off by itself in the rinse cycle (4 fill shake and dumps). Bleach 6 minutes, rinse, fix 6 minutes, wash, photoflo then hang. I take a damp paper towel and wipe the backside of the film to remove any tiny amout of rj left.
 
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wyofilm

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Got it. Thanks. Have you found the negs to be too low in contrast for your liking?
 
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wyofilm

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I had a summer job during my college years working for a company that produced 35mm slides for universities, museums, etc. The company had a vast library of 6x9 negs of famous art and architecture. My job was to mount the neg and photograph the backlit negative some number of times to produce a set of 35mm positive slides of Monet's Water Lilies, for example. Do this for many impressionist artists and a collection of impressionist art could be sold as a set to a professor in art history class, or what have you. What I don't remember because it was about a thousand years ago is how the orange mask was dealt with. I assume we used a filter on the lens, but I just can't remember. Basically, it sounds like the same process used by the motion picture industry. Does this sound right?
 

MattKing

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You were probably using the same stock that the motion picture prints were made from - the same stuff that Seattle Film works used to make slides from.
It had the advantage (for your employer) of not being very long lasting!
 
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wyofilm

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You were probably using the same stock that the motion picture prints were made from - the same stuff that Seattle Film works used to make slides from.
It had the advantage (for your employer) of not being very long lasting!
I don't know, the Seattle Film works connection doesn't sound quite right. I'm pretty sure we used 100 ft bulk rolls of 35mm film. This seems right because each of us (there were two of us) would use about one bulk roll in the morning and one in the afternoon. We would shoot maybe 1/2 dozen negatives before lunch and another 1/2 dozen after lunch. I recall we make 100 copies. Or maybe we would shoot two bulk rolls during each session. Anyway, the film was processed on site, it wasn't mailed off.

The quality of the product was first rate. Perfect or redone. This was a company located in Stamford, CT. As I recall two brothers set the contracts with museums to photograph important (famous) works of art from around the world. Their negative collection was vast!

Did Kodak produce a negative film without an Orange mask? I did this work during the summer of 1986, but the company I worked for has been in business for years. It was so established that they might have produced essentially ALL of the worlds slides for universities/museum gift shops. Really, how many companies would have had such a collection of negatives?

At the time, I was rowing nearby at a national team development camp and exhausted all the time. I wish I remembered more, because it was a pretty cool company. It just wish I could remember how the orange mask of the original negs were handled.
 

MattKing

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Don't be too concerned with the Seattle Film Works reference - that was just the amateur film market offering that gave prints, slides and a "free" roll of film back to the customer.
The Seattle Film works film was 5247 (IIRC) motion picture camera film spooled into 35mm cassettes - an earlier version of the Vision camera films - and the slides were made from the motion picture projection stock. As projection stock was designed to be projected in movie theatres several times and then discarded, it wasn't designed for longevity.
The same sorts of materials were also used to make the sorts of souvenir slides you could buy at tourist attractions. I expect that the production of them made use of the intermediate materials that Charles refers to above,
The quality of the results could very well have been first rate - after all motion pictures made money from looking great - but the longevity of the results wasn't on the same level as something like Ektachrome.
As the procedure involved making projectable positives from negatives, you wouldn't normally have wanted a maskless film, because the colour would not have been optimum.
 

halfaman

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I have used Cinestill 800 in 120 format from their kickstarter, which is Kodak Vision3 500T with remjet removed, exposed to ISO 1600 under tungsten lightning, pushed in C41 chemistry and then scanned and also printed optically in Fuji CA DPII with RA4 chemistry. I can say that results this way are still a bit on low contrast and low saturation side but color balance is suprisingly good even not completely spot on, but I think sometimes led lightning is the one to blame for this.

One example, the floor is bluer on the print:
 
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wyofilm

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The floor might be bluer, but the skin tones look great. In fact, the overall photo is great.
 

btaylor

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Thanks for this. He didn’t do much with the RA4 printing and I question whether he had the color properly corrected, but it definitely worked and should be worth trying. There is a local guy here selling 1 liter ECN2 kits for $20, I am going to give it a shot.
 

MattKing

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Freestyle sent me an email announcing their new ECN2 kits.
 

cmacd123

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their was a series of films designed for still use, that more or less shadowed the motion picture set, But using C-41 (earlier C22) quite possibly under the Vericolor name. one in particular was a positive print film, balanced to make prints from conventional colour negatives. As a final print it did not have the masking dyes system. The mask is HIGHLY important for any film which will be used make a further generation.

As per the other remark about Movie Positive fading, this was a major issue. The likely theory is that Kodak selected dyes that were good at Not fading when exposed to light, but had mediocre dark stability. Theatrical prints were routinely destroyed after they had a run in the theater, and so most would only exist for 6 months, which meant stability afterwards was not an issue. while fading due to multiple passes in a theatre being exposed to an Ultravilolet rich high intensity arc light would have been an issue. their was some blow back from the industry, when the reference prints that were kept were found to be fading. Kodak did several reformulations first as LPP print, and ending with the current 2383/3383 which has a dark keeping rating of over 100 years.

Seattle film works, like many labs at the time who used Motion Picture film to make slides would have used whatever Kodak or the other suppliers were offering at the time. The old Kodak film faded Pink, while some of the agfa film faded Brown, and the Fuji film was fairly stable. The attaction of the movie film was that production companies would sell off any ends left in the camera if their was not enough film for the next shot. these would be anywhere from 100 to 250ft long, (under a 100ft was summarily scrapped) and the Labs could buy this and load it into still cassettes for cheep. It HAD to go to a specialist lab because of the REM-Jet and so the deal was for a flat price, they would develop the film, provide a set of slides and your negatives, as well as a fresh roll of Movie Film. Since the slides were contact printed, the emulsion was on the wrong side compared to slides made with slide film.
 

cmacd123

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I should add that back in tose days I used a LOT of the ECN2 to ECP labs, and when I look at the slides today, some are faded, but most look OK. so the "high Fade" print stocks were already on the way out when this was a hot topic.
 
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