May Ron RIP
I don't want to be rude, but perhaps you haven't had the experience of projecting 120 film on a screen, or doing a sizeable (say, 11x14" or bigger) optical enlargement of a 6x7 negative with a decent schneider, rodenstock or Nikkor enlarging lens. Because the end picture you get isn't "good" or "acceptable"; it is better described as "stunning".
You can enlarge 35mm ADOX CMS 20 II as big as you want. If you look at it under a microscope with 100X enlargement factor (would be a 2.4 x 3.6 meter image) it delivers perfect sharpness, incredible resolution and still very fine grain.
Even though I have a lowly v800 (I guess the useful discussion is over, may as well descend into irrelevance and await Godwin's arrival), "smear" isn't something I associate with the output. That sounds like poorly focused scanning (the lack of adjustable focus is a serious oversight on these things, personal opinion), or badly processed images.
Can you provide an example? I've seen a number of 120 film scans of very high quality done with an Epson. I've seen few bad scans, except for people trying to prove a point.
I suppose people are unlikely to post their bad scans, but if these scanners were truly as horrible as you and Lachlan claim, no one would use them-- and yet, there are commercial photographers who seem to think they're moderately useful.
Even the test scans I've been doing at 6400 PPI, which is (to my mind) a mostly useless resolution given the preceding discussion, look reasonable (not great, merely reasonable) at the completely pointless 100% size on a 1080p monitor at less than 2 foot viewing distance.
You'll note I haven't posted any of these images-- I'm not entirely happy with my MF efforts so far. Even on shots I was certain were in focus, I'm having difficulty finding the in-focus point. Whether it's equipment or technique, I don't know-- I suspect equipment, as most of them were taken with a TLR (Mamiya C33). Or, perhaps the scans are not quite in focus.
I see you have now found Ron's In Memoriam thread - found here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...rey-aka-pe-photo-engineer-feb-15-2020.173245/.Has he passed away?!
I haven't seen any announcement ... Is this true? If PE passes away this will be like another era for this forum. For me, Ron was the crown jewel of this forum.
If he has passed away, we should have some announcement, some memorial here.
Sorry for the off topic.
Helge, CMS 20 should be single emulsion layer because it is a monodisperse emulsion, crystals are all of similar size, so it makes no sense having two layers as the two layers would contain the same. The monodisperse size delivers a very narrow latitude that has to be boosted with an special low contrast developer because it tends to deliver pure black or pure white with no gradation in the middle, it is Agfa COPEX series microfilm intended to make microfiches or the like, ultra low speed to deliver (datasheet says) 800 Line Pairs per mm performance (at high contrast) which is a crazy amount, but wanting pure black or pure white for sharp texts and drawings in the microfiche.
Coating two (or three) sensitive layers with different speeds/natures, one over the other, is a technique to get a larger latitude and (probably) a more linear sensitometric curve in the toe and/or in the shoulder. At least Kodak states that, to increase latitude, they use 3 layers of different speeds (Fast-Med-Slow) for each color, totalling up to 9 layers to record the three colors.
Well, ADOX CMS 20 for sure it's a pain to use, but it always ends deliverring an amazing set of beautiful images, and of course it records an icredible amount of detail, we all have the the Porsche slide !!
I downloading the full res image... this rivals to many LF shots ! Incredible !
Speaking about the OP's Thread Topic, this deserves a Flextight or drum scan, it is a particular case where a great scanner makes a great difference for a large print, that 35mm slide can be printed very big with total quality.
https://www.adox.de/Photo/cms-20-reversal-processed-slide/
View attachment 253385
That would be me. Thanks for the kind words.We can confirm that from our own countless resolution tests over the years.
The second best performance concerning resolution are offering drumscanners. Really very good performance, sufficient for huge prints, exhibition and gallery work. Drumscanners are unmatched in the field of shadow and highlight detail capture and recovery (e.g. if you have done a mistake in exposure). That is due to their PMT technology.
We have some drumscan examples on our website, e.g some made by the leading German drumscan company www.high-end-scans.de. The expert behind this company, Mr. Ventzke, has an excellent reputation.
Since my ICG 370HS drum scanner is optically limited to roughly half of its specified 12000 ppi resolution, the 8000 ppi representation is as good as the ICG can do. Some degree of oversampling yields slightly better results than scanning at 6000 ppi only.You can enlarge 35mm ADOX CMS 20 II as big as you want. If you look at it under a microscope with 100X enlargement factor (would be a 2.4 x 3.6 meter image) it delivers perfect sharpness, incredible resolution and still very fine grain.
And as you increase the distance to the picture for viewing the bigger the picture is enlarged, there is no limit for enlargement of this film in real viewing situations. We've projected it on walls with 6 meter width, and you can still see the finest details from only 40cm viewing distance.
The two scans on our homepage are drumscans made by www.high-end-scans.de. The leading drumscan service for professional customers in Germany.
But to keep the file size manageable for web presentation, the choosen scan resolution was not at its technical maximum.
The pictures are unplanned handheld snapshots made by Henning Serger on a classic car meeting. He was the first to make tests with reversal development of CMS 20 II. And he succeeded (honestly, we had our doubts that it will work because of the extremely thin emulsion layer, and we were surprised by the very good results). Good to have brave customers who are thinking "out of the box".
ADOX - Innovation in Analog Photography.
So... why TMY, TMZ, TX, TXP, Potra 160, 400, 800, Ektachrome, ColorPlus 200, Pro Image 100, Gold 200 and Ultramax 400 all have multi layers and not TMX ? Those color films have two or three layers for each color... Why TMX is the rare exception ?
12 films multilayer but not TMX ? Are you sure ?
What about the infectious development provocating the early shouldering if not having two layers ?
There are a whole lot of BW films you are ignoring - essentially all BW at 125 or slower and some older slightly faster K-grain emulsions were far more likely to have been single layer + topcoat(s) than not.
if you want ultimate sharpness/resolution it’s quite natural.
That enormous resolution of T-MAX 100 and CMS 20 II probably wouldn’t be possible with multiple layers.
Because it’s not a colour film.
In the late seventies/early eighties researchers at Kodak succeeded in making single layer Kodachrome.
It’s was a tiny bit grainier than the usual stuff, but sharper, cheaper and simpler to develop.
They didn’t release it for a number of reasons unfortunately.
Why am I writing this?
That research was not for naught.
When tablet grain arrived some of those ideas went into the VR and T-Max films
Look, at one point ilford FP4, before (ISO 125) FP4+, was improved by adding a second layer, to improve its latitude.
If TMX was single layer it would be the only kodak pictorial film made in that way. Again you don't understand at all how critically necessay is coating two different emulsion layers for a film like TMX to reach that crazy high perfomance, get better informed. Look, that performace is not possible with a single layer, in color films they even coat 9 layers, 3 per color to extend latitude, and you say that TMX has to be made like in 1930 because something about glass plates... Lachlan, this is ridiculous, don't you catch it ?
T-Max 100 likely has a minimum of 2, more likely 3 emulsions blended for specific performance in a single layer.
This is stuff that I, a mere mortal among gods, just never knew.Even me I blend several DIY emulsions to coat dry plates, but we are talking about a different matter, look... TMX cannot be made with a single emulsion layer because the performance it sports it would be out of reach by far, this is quite straight to understand, TMX and TMY share the same technology, fat crystals in the outer layer and slow cubic in under that:
View attachment 253441
Can you see how well packet is the upper layer of TMY?
If both emulsions were blended that horizontal alingment of the T would be lost, to begin with, and high performance would be destroyed for several reasons.
The way to boost latitude is multi layer, TMX has an insanely large latitude like TMY, coating a single layer would not allow that.
This is stuff that I, a mere mortal among gods, just never knew.
What is also worth noting is that the T-Max films seem to be noise-limited in their resolution (granularity overwhelming fine resolving power), rather than contrast limited - at its 200 cyc/mm limit, T-Max 100 is still delivering 30% response I recall, whereas (when presented with the same target) other more 'traditional' films max out their resolution at near contrast extinction. If T-Max 100 was less sharp, it would probably be able to resolve even greater cyc/mm - there are aerial recon films with immense resolutions, and poor MTF, latitude, granularity - which is fine if you need to resolve a tiny object on the ground from space under very high contrast imaging conditions on rollfilm up to 330mm wide, not so good for more normal photo imaging at sea level. The vital inter-relationship of latitude, MTF and RMS Grain tell far more about the suitability of a film for actual image making than any top-trumps style slobbering over resolution charts. As does actually using the damn film for its intended purpose, printing it in the darkroom with decent kit or scanning it on a scanner that's actually up to the task.
I'm not sure about the history of that aspect - I know Ron had said that a 400 speed K-Chrome was researched - and it has been disclosed in Bob Shanebrook's book that Kodachrome 200 had some T-Grain emulsions in it. Interestingly, the Kodachrome 200 layer order was different to the norm in the cyan and magenta layers, with the slow emulsions on top of the fast emulsions, apparently because the effects of the sensitising dyes in the fast emulsions would have made the slow emulsions need to have equally large grain (at least that's my understanding).
Multiple polydisperse emulsions (because that is what 138S is making) blended together aren't going to be much use at improving response/ sharpness over one.
Unfortunately Kodak literature (datasheets, books etc.) often uses sharpness as a synonym for resolution.
And using micro contrast in the original sense (they invented the term) as a descriptor of the rightmost part of the MTF curve.
That’s worth keeping in mind.
Apart from that, you are probably almost certainly right in that empirical observations of grain, clearly point to T-MAX 100 not being either a very homogeneously grained emulsion, neither a multilayer one.
400 and 100 T-MAX MTF and exposure curves gives us some hints that point in that direction too.
Just looking at the end product of scans and prints, 100 has a good long straight line and nice latitude. But it’s nothing compared to 400.
The real speed of (new) 400 is probably closer to 700 or 800.
Regarding the use of the one layer Kodachrome ideas used in later one layer films:
I’m afraid I have to delve into the same realm of unconfirmable “proclamations” that a certain other poster does.
But I have the information from two sources:
Wesley Hanson (inventor of the orange mask among other things) talks about one layer Kodachrome someplace in this video (I don’t have time to scrub through it to find the exact place right now, but if you haven’t watched it you really should take the time).
https://ethw.org/Wesley_T._Hanson
And an email conversation with a now deceased Kodak researcher, whom I mailed about if he knew of details about the one layer Kodachrome, among some other things.
Of course I can’t ask for permission to post the mails, and I won’t anyway, due to the information having a small but real likelihood of the still being under some kind of protection or NDA.
Lachlan, Lachlan...
Look, a DIY emulsion has many technical limitations, one of the limitations is that, while you may increase the speed of the emulsion, latitude won't increase what we may desire, if you blend two or more DIY emulsions of different speeds you in fact increase the resulting latitude, this is the reason why we may mix several DIY emulsions.
Sounds like an argument for TMAX over more traditional films like Tri-X. Is there a downside to TMAX?Let me repeat it a final time: The core technology of the TMax films (TMX, TMY, TMY-II, TMZ) is laying extraordinarily well aligned ultra flat crystals over cubic crystals, all TMax films sport this core concept to provide insane latitude, insane linearity and fine grain.
With TMX you easily get 14 stops, or 18 with a careful processing, For that you require multi layer. If you blend the cubic in the T you destroy the alignment provided by the SHEAR THINNING (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_thinning) in the coating cascade, but you need the cubic emulsion for the linear extreme highlight latitude, so you won't find a way to avoid multi-layer for the TMX if wanting those 14 to 18 stops.
It is totally ridiculous your theory of TMX being a totally different concept than TMY, beyond speed, they are different flavors of the same, sharing linearity and insane latitude. You won't find a serious evidence stating that TMX is single layer, this is a urban legend with no base.
Your deduction that TMX is single layer because of glass plates is simply ridiculous, this is not being aware of the core technology that shapes the TMax product range.
Sounds like an argument for TMAX over more traditional films like Tri-X. Is there a downside to TMAX?
So why does Kodak still sell Tri-X? Why would anyone still use Tri-X?It's readily available, super latitude, super resolution and fine grain = there is no downside . . .
Why does anyone drive a Jeep when a minivan will carry everything comfortably?So why does Kodak still sell Tri-X? Why would anyone still use Tri-X?
So why does Kodak still sell Tri-X? Why would anyone still use Tri-X?
Not that I am about to do a DIY emulsion, but I'm curious. How can this be done in a practical sense. Presumably you need a completely, completely lightproof working area. And the emulsiion solution must be uniform after mixing, which must also be done in total darkness. And must be spread evenly. How can all this be done by someone at home?
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