Hi all! I have a friend that found a big roll of “IR Typesetting film” that is apparently from the 2000s, and when I looked into it, apparently Ultrafine still sells it! Does anyone have any experience with this stuff? Supposedly it’s made to work with 760 and 840nm lasers, which is very interesting. It’s probably very slow, and will need to be developed in a very low contrast dev, but would it be worth picking up a roll of it to experiment? It’s only like $150 for a 12“ x 100‘ roll I think…
Precisely; using an appropriate digital laser exposure machine.this is made for imagesetters and prepress work not regular photography, but it's perfect for making digital halftone negatives.
He does; so do Calvin Grier, Katayoun Dowlatshahi and Todd Gangler. To the best of my knowledge all of them contract out the negative-making to a pre-press service. They send the files and receive the ready-made negatives. This is also how I've done it on occasion. My bet is that none of these people have ever had to handle the unprocessed material. I'm also not aware of any interest in Michael's behalf in this kind of photography; I doubt he still actively uses film in the first place.i think Michael Strickland uses imagesetters printed negatives for his carbon transfers, you could ask him if he ever tried esposing the film with a camera
folks have used graphic arts film in the past as camera film
Thanks for the more specific search term, that helped a lot!This is "hard dot" film, I really couldn't say if I've ever seen anyone share any results with it used for con.tone photography. "Graphic arts" is kind of a broad category.
Sulfite, not sulfate!sodium sulfate pre-bath
Oop! Yes, very important haha.Sulfite, not sulfate!
Yes, I am familiar with the concept. The Foto-32 film that I have been experimenting with is also like this, giving ultra-high contrast and almost no grayscale if developed with normal developers. I am pretty sure it (along with the former Washi-S) is TF 12d, which has an impressively vertical H&D curve.I don't know for sure if that's the same kind of film, but it might be similar. IDK how this film works exactly, only that if you look at the curves, it's pretty much a vertical line instead of a curve. So it's really tailored to give no greyscales whatsoever - which is exactly what you need in its intended application.
I do have a way to cut the film down to sheets, although before I buy an entire roll, I do want to run some experiments with the film that my friend got. It probably isn’t identical, but it would at least tell me whether the pursuit is worth any effort. Very interesting to know about the green safelight thing, I’ll have to see if I can find a green LED that could be used with this. I did email Ultrafine about it to see if they can provide any more information, so we’ll see.Well, $125 for a roll really isn't too expensive, so I'd just give it a go. Why not? Easy enough and it won't break the bank. It'll be challenging to cut sheets from it without creating kinks in the film, which will likely show up as crescents in the photos. Given its sensitivity there's a good chance you can process the film under green light.
I have a 200m roll of 105mm microfilm on the way that I’m getting for free in exchange for cutting it down to 120/4x5, so I have microfilm covered haha.I doubt you're going to get much of anything interesting out of an imagesetter film without an imagesetter. There are so many other old films floating around these days with which to torture yourself trying to get results . I'd save the $125 and buy some old microfilm to play with.
Very interesting to know about the green safelight thing, I’ll have to see if I can find a green LED that could be used with this. I did email Ultrafine about it to see if they can provide any more information, so we’ll see.
This is what the print shop at a former employer used. Ancient history.I used to run an imagesetter on the overnight shift. This was in the 1990s, so in the time frame of the materials you're looking it. When work was slow we'd experiment with the various graphics arts films we had access to. There were various types of line film, masks, etc. The image setting film was not much fun. It was pretty thin, could only do black or white and nothing in between (truly), and required lots of exposure. As I recall, we had to run it through a specific processor. We couldn't use the same process as for most other films. With a lot of other graphic arts films you could coax a range of tones one way or another. With imagesetter film, not really. At least that was my experience trying with one type for a few hours three decades ago.
I doubt you're going to get much of anything interesting out of an imagesetter film without an imagesetter. There are so many other old films floating around these days with which to torture yourself trying to get results . I'd save the $125 and buy some old microfilm to play with.
I will see about getting some of this film from a friend, just to see if I can get any good results. If I do get promising results, I would definitely consider getting some fresh. And depending on the results, I wouldn’t be opposed to cutting it up into sheets, although I doubt there’s going to be enough interest for me to try and get it made into something like 35 mm or 120.@MCB18 there is only one way to find out!
This is what the print shop at a former employer used. Ancient history.
I have one imagesetter i would like to start using. It's a scitex imagesetter i will use for digital negatives
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