Ilford Line Film

[philosomatographer]

Hi All,

I have recently acquired three 50-sheet (4x5in) boxes of well-kept (refridgerated) Ilford Line Film, but am having a hard time getting more information on this film. I have not opened any of the boxes, thus I do not know if there are even any documentation in them (will do so this week-end when I get to the darkroom).

If anybody could share some experience wit this film, such as what ISO speed to rate it at, which developers to use, etc. I would be very grateful.

I know that people used it to develop interpositives from negatives, and that it was extensively used in scientific circles (found many papers mentioning it).

thanks!

 

[holmburgers]

Howdy,

I found an older APUG post and someone says ISO 6 in Dektol. A starting point at least... (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Any chance you want to get rid of some of that film?? Just kidding,

Let us know what you do with it!

 

[Ian Grant]

Used to use it for copying line artwork in the 70's & 80's. It was dropped quite a time ago.

Develop it in any normal print developer, it's quite high contrast, but a dilute fine grain developer hight work for continuous tone work. It's somewhere around the 6-12 ISO mark and an Ortho film.

Ian

 

[philosomatographer]

I am really looking forward to experimenting with this film (and I am new to 4x5in photography as well, used to be a 120 film shooter).

Ian, if you say develop it in a print developer, for how long? Prints are usually developed in 1-2 minutes, but I presume for the film it should be longer?

Holmburgers, if I don't like the character of this film, you can be sure that I'll sell it on this website. You'll have to take your chances with shipping from South Africa though

Finally, I understand this film is insensitive to red light, so it'd probably be great to develop by inspection (weak red light) during the experimenting phase...

 

[Ian Grant]

Line film develops quite quickly, about the same as papers so a couple of minutes. Longer of you use a dilute FG dev though and as it's usable with a safelight you can see what's happening

Ian

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

My guess it's probably lithographic film which means it's orthochromatic film.

 

[Ian Grant]

Ilford sold off their Graphics and X-ray film divisions to Agfa many years ago, 70's I think, but they still made Line film, it was used for masking, copying etc.

Ian

 

[philosomatographer]

Just an update, I am exceptionally pleased with what this film can do, exposed at ISO 6, developed by inspection under red light in diluted D-76. Wow, the smoothest tones and highest resolution I have ever seen in my life, my 12x16in prints honestly look like contact prints. Here are some samples:

(Note: APUG now seems to "silently" scale down images, so right-click and select "View Image" to see higher resolution)

Reach for the light

(1950s Symmar 150mm, f/5.6)

Quadra-illumination

(1950s Symmar 150mm, f/11)

House outside Oudtshoorn

(Nikkor T-ED* 500mm, f/22)
and a small crop from an 8x10 print to show some detail - the detail in the 12x16in print is four times better and sans paper grain, but I don't have a scanner big enough:

Now to figure out which 145 photographs will be worthy of use this film, before my stockpile is gone forever. But I adore this film. Amazing dynamic range (far beyong my skills to lay that range down on paper) and literally no grain, even under a strong grain focusing loupe. Nada.

 

[holmburgers]

Whoa, way cool! It looks silky smooth and very rich. Thanks for posting this, it's awesome to see updates from old threads that include examples of what we were talking about.

(By the way, the sharpening/compression used on the new APUG looks 'not-so-great')

 

[dehk]

Your experiment turned out really nice!