Films I never got to use...

Here is a short list of films I never got to use (this is not meant to be an exhaustive list, I'm just listing the ones that I would like to have tried):

Panatomic-X
Ektachrome 320 Tungsten
Polaroid Type 55
And, the real subject of this post:
Scotch 1000 ISO? E-6 film, which reputedly had very attractive, "impressionist" grain structure.

If anyone has suggestions about imitating the Scotch E6 film, i.e. a high-speed color film, either E6 or C41, that gives noticeable grain, I'd love to hear ideas. Would pushing a normal E6 film to something way beyond reasonable (say from 200 to 1600) produce similar results? I rarely use color film faster than 200, except for the periodic roll of Fuji 800 C41, and my experience with pushing color film is limited.

Of course feel free to list your own "never got to use" films (or papers for that matter)!

I use expired Fuji Superia 1600 from time to time...that's grainy to me.

rthomas said:

If anyone has suggestions about imitating the Scotch E6 film, i.e. a high-speed color film, either E6 or C41, that gives noticeable grain, I'd love to hear ideas.

Click to expand...

I never used the Scotch but I once read that that film (or maybe Gaff 500) were used by Sarah Moon in her impressionist Pirelli Calender in 1972:

http://community.livejournal.com/foto_decadent/1754369.html

I once had a good few attempts at getting something like that look and the best I achieved was with Fuji Sensia 200 pushed three stops and shot through a Tiffen Pro Black Mist filter.

Sarah Moon used GAF 500 back in the 70's, i think they even used one or more of her images in a GAF advert in the UK, the 3M (Scotch) film wasn't available then.

Ian

There's a lot I never got to try, but I imagine I'd still end up using HP5+ and 400NC at the end of the day. Tech Pan I think would have been fun, I'd have shot maybe 3 rolls of EIR if I had the chance, but there's nothing missing that would have made it for me.

Look at it this way - it doesn't matter what materials there are and aren't, if you never took the photo to begin with. That's the main part of it.

I too would have like to try Panatomic-X.

Jeff

I did shoot a couple of rolls of Panatomic-X (I tended to use Pan-F in the day)... but the one film I never did shoot and wish I had was Kodak Super-XX.

I'd have liked to have tried 2475 Recording Film.

Pantamonic X that I used and still have the negs. is similar to Ilford's Pan F.

I also used Verichrome Pan.

I've got a series of books in binder and I refer to them every so often, nostalgia, and have "Kodak Professional Black & White Films," First Edition 1969. I see I paid a $1.50 for the book.

Really don't have any film I regret not using.

Nice question!

You might try some velvia pushed to 800 in exposure and processing. I have shot velvia 50 before at 400 and had them push process it. It was very soft in appearance. Might be worth a try.

You didn't miss anything with Super XX; good at the time, but highly mythologized. Grainy, low resolution,
and the same color rendition as Tri-X. It was only used as a color sep film because it had been long used as a color sep film. TMY2 beats it like a drum.

Verichrome Pan ? Now THAT is one to miss. But it didn't translate to new technologies.
Same with Panatomic. But you DO have better materials today, in TMX and TMY2.

GAF 500 was awful, but very pretty. 2475 Recording Film was lovely for portraits (so it seemed when I was 19, but I think that it had a lot to do with girls I was in college with !) It was a grainy, low contrast film, and you can use 3200 Kodak or Ilford to the same effect.

A WONDERFUL film was Kodak's Portrait Pan. Look at an old Kodak pamphlet, and you'll see the distinctive curve was similar to TXP, but easy to work with. Wonderfully enough, you can bend TMY2 into the old Portrait Pan tone curve. It was gone before my time, Paul Strand's favorite film. Look at the curve and see which of today's film is similar !

A fine old film that ought to have more love today is Plus X.

So what besides Portrait Pan would I have like to use ? Well, Autochromes perhaps. Or Kodachrome in 8x10 sheets, but I got to use it in 120 so that is fine. I have to go with Autochrome. It is the only medium that is really different from what we can do today.

i'm not trying to brag, but I have been at this a while, and still seek out old and wierd films.

Back in oh, it would have been about 1980 I did not heed David Vestal's advice after I self tought myself from his excellent The Craft of Photography, to stick to and learn one film.

Being 16 or so at the time it seemed too dull to stcik to one film. So I mostly shot HP4 (I think) that was handed out at the school camera club to shoot the annual school yearbook with. but I also shot whatever else I could lay my hands on, on my limited funds, at the time. I used the first 1000 asa 35mm colour negative films available for rock and roll concerts. Use my first and only 2475 in an old rollei that no one else in the camera club wanted to use for a winter ice carnival in a darkened arena. Both had golf ball sized grain on any enlargement.

I have shot panatomic X, and still have a roll of 120 and 5 or 6 20 exposure 35mm casettes, Stll one roll of Verichrome Pan in 120, of the few rolls of that that I have shot. Stl a few rolls of 120 and 35mm of HIE, and a fw shets of 4x5 that will yeid good sized b&w grain. Still have a few rolls of technial pan too. The probelsm is trying to use all these old babies before they are no good. I am working down a 16 roll stash of long frozen Ferannia Pan, imported and rebadged by 3M into NA in the 70's I think. I have about 6 rolls left. It has healthy grain, and and EI of 12, and takes about 18' in striaght d76 to get any sort of contrast out of it.

Outdated 800 speed fuji consimer grade colour neg shot at EI400 in 35mm gave me good grain last year.

I had a batch of E-6 first developer concentrate poop out on me and I developed a few rolls before I caught it. One of the resulting dark rolls was of 35mm Ektachrome 5012, from a long outdated frozen bulk roll. It shows good chunky grain, but I have yet to scan it to lighten things up to see if it is otherwise salvageable.

get some ektachrome and cross-process it in C-41 - that will get you grain and goofy colors - here's an example:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/colusite/4036511516/