I've read that the Lomography Kino films are really just ORWO cine films... which has got me thinking, is potsdam UN54, and would that make the berlin film N74, or are ORWO cine films different emulsions?
Is Lomography Potsdam UN54?
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They're certainly someone's cine films; that's what the "Kino" in the names signifies. Whether they're actually ORWO, or something else (old leftover pancakes or master rolls from Ferrania, Foma, Svema, or even Fuji or Kodak) is an unanswered question, AFAIK.
Yes UN54+ is Potsdam, and N74+ is Berlin. But they don’t make N74+ any more so I would assume that film will switch to N75 at some point.
OP
OP
haven't used berlin film, but from what I've heard about it that may explain why it's a denser film.
OP
OP
And I also wonder...
what are the fantome and babylon films really?
what are the fantome and babylon films really?
Never tried ORWO UN54, but I agree with @relistan for Berlin Kino. If you wander over to Lomography's own "developing guide", you can see an image that shows the film rebate. Clearly says "ORWO N74" in the edge markings.
https://www.lomography.com/magazine/340020-lomography-berlin-kino-400-developing-guide
I did shoot one roll of Potsdam, and it came with KS perfs and lomography edge print. so whatever it is their packaging folks are working from possibly unperforated pancake film. And I agree that the N75 seems to be a retrograde step compared to N74.
Filmotec don't have the equipment to slice anything but 35mm and 16mm AFAIK and they can only perf 35mm with cine (BH?) perforations. They can't package into anything but bulk lengths on their own equipment. Lomography sells 120 and individual rolls of 35mm, so someone else is doing the 120 slitting and all of the packaging, probably from large rolls. AFAIK all the ORWO films are coated at InovisCoat, who I think may have some more slitting and perfing capabilities but no packaging.
Never tried ORWO UN54, but I agree with @relistan for Berlin Kino. If you wander over to Lomography's own "developing guide", you can see an image that shows the film rebate. Clearly says "ORWO N74" in the edge markings.
https://www.lomography.com/magazine/340020-lomography-berlin-kino-400-developing-guide
Good eye! I had not seen that.
This was from @Henning Serger in another thread:
"FilmoTec can make BW emulsions, but they don't have an own coating line. They cooperated with partners for coating. Meanwhile FilmoTec is their partner for it. They can convert raw film into movie film formats, but they don't have any own confectioning capabilities for 135 and 120 film. An outside partner is needed for that."
I believe he mistyped and meant "Meanwhile InovisCoat is their partner for it".
"FilmoTec can make BW emulsions, but they don't have an own coating line. They cooperated with partners for coating. Meanwhile FilmoTec is their partner for it. They can convert raw film into movie film formats, but they don't have any own confectioning capabilities for 135 and 120 film. An outside partner is needed for that."
I believe he mistyped and meant "Meanwhile InovisCoat is their partner for it".
This is very sad.
@cmacd123, I've not tried the new N75 myself, but I'm curious why you think it's "retrograde" compared to N74+. Are there other specific characteristics of N75 besides the ISO that you find are a step backwards?
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Yes, of course. It was a typo by me.
Me culpa, sorry.
InovisCoat is now FilmoTec's partner for coating (at first it was Forte, after Forte's exit it was Harman technology).
Best regards,
Henning
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InovisCoat can make R&D, emulsions and coating. But they don't have any confectioning / converting capabilities (no slitting, perforating, spooling into cassettes, packaging).
Best regards,
Henning
I think he's referring to the high base fog level of N75 and the speed decrease. It is still very good film and prints beautifully, but it's a 320 speed film instead of 400, and whatever they have done with the changes to add the better anti-halation layer seems to bring up the fog level which may decrease contrast. I have 100ft of it and have made some prints and they look very good to me anyway.
The top two prints in this photo are N75 on ADOX Variotone (not yet spotted, don't judge!): https://www.flickr.com/photos/relistan/50674943946/in/dateposted-public/
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Correct.
When they introduced Lomography Berlin they also honestly said that they used older, expired film for it.
The change from FilmoTec N74+ to N75 was mainly due to the change from the Harman coating machine in Mobberley to the former Agfa coating machine in Monheim.
As I have often explained here, you cannot simply change the coating machine: An emulsion is always designed for one specific coating machine on which the film will be produced. For a change of the coating machine the emulsion must be modified and adopted to the new coating machine. That is in general not so easy, and sometimes even impossible.
And quite often it results in an end product with different characteristics. And that is the case here.
Best regards,
Henning
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Ah, interesting! This makes quite a bit of sense. I couldn't quite understand why the change but this is a very good reason.
fantome has to be from France surely and babylon was set up years ago as a film producing factory by, I think, Saddam Hussain who used the name babylon as a form of respect for the ancient kingdom of Mesopotamia. A much more romantic word for the country, I felt
Babylon was the sort of film that would have appealed to Indiana Jones who was often in that neck of the woods and dealing with mysterious people from the Middle East
I even was given a tour of the factory many years ago along with other Photrio members. The tour guide kept on referring to "our sponsor" and pointing to big photographs everywhere of that person.
None of us criticised anything so the same number of us who had started the tour finished the tour which was good
pentaxuser
Lomography Babylon Kino is the ISO 13 film; it's ORWO DN21 rolled into 135 cassettes for consumers. Very nice film, originally for making duplicate negatives from cine camera originals, IIRC (which would imply reversal processing, and it does have a nice clear base). I've got a bulk roll of the ORWO original in one of my Watson loaders.
I have really only shot one roll, but as other have said
1) judging by my roll shot at 400, 320 is probably closer to the working ISO, the documentation lists both speeds. perhaps the devleopment time might also be different, my first roll was done along with several rolls on N74, at the normal time I use of 6 minutes in HC110- dilution B. that was still the old Syrup HC-110
2) the film has a very dark grey anti-halation layer, slightly darker then Plus-x used to have, but the layer did not seem to loose any colour in processing. I really am not sure if the dark base represents fog or just dark dye, but I did a double take as how dark the edges were. Only the folks in Wofen know if that layer was supposed to clear in normal processing.. the heavy anti-halo would be an improvement as it should promote sharpness. But leaving a dark negative is of course "different" than what I would expect.
reading Henning's comment, this is a clear lesson that the entire film coating system is not very portable across machines.
the movie work flow would not normaly use any reversal processing.
if one were to be shooting a Black and white movie, the camera original could be shot on 5222, N74 or 75 or UN54. the lab would then make a low contrast positive on
ORWO Duplicating Positive Film DP 31 (or the kodak equivelent) and print that also by contact on DN21.
in the glory days of old, the negative on DN21 could then be used to make release prints on PF2 which would be shipped to the theaters or classrooms of the world. note that while PF2 is higher contrast - it is just blue sensitive. Both DP31 and DN21 ate Panchromatic films, so they could be used also with the corresponding colour master positives and original negative if one wished to convert a colour original to black and white. editing and special effects can of course be added in both transfers from the original negative.
A photogrpaher, Alex Luyckx, has a video talking about the 4 Lomo films that are Orwo:
Tl;dr
Berlin 400 = Orwo N74
Potsdam 100 = Orwo UN54
Babylon 13 = DN21 (Internegative film)
Fantome 8 = DP31
Tl;dr
Berlin 400 = Orwo N74
Potsdam 100 = Orwo UN54
Babylon 13 = DN21 (Internegative film)
Fantome 8 = DP31
Some of it is kodak stock for color anyway, the 800 iso film.
Filmotec do their own perforating and signing, on most modern machinery (to industry standard). They can apply any kind signing easily.
I watched the video and several times the Orwo cine films were praised for their "noir" looks It is never clear to me that is meant by this. Is it their high contrast or are those using the word somehow confusing noir meaning black with the genre called film noir which as far as I know describes the genre of a type of film rather than it contrast. Certainly a lot of the noir films were in b&w but that was simply the medium in the days when a lot of the type of films called "film noir" were made
Having watched a lot of the film noirs I don't recall them being intrinsically more contrasty than say adventure or western films made b&w.
It all sounded like "marketing BS" to me. a conflation of two quite separate unrelated aspects of high contrast and the noir genre
pentaxuser
Having watched a lot of the film noirs I don't recall them being intrinsically more contrasty than say adventure or western films made b&w.
It all sounded like "marketing BS" to me. a conflation of two quite separate unrelated aspects of high contrast and the noir genre
pentaxuser
I have no idea what that means, either. Neither UN54+ nor N75 are "noir". Both are grainy, yes, but have normal contrast in normal developers with normal times. UN54 and UN54+ have quite nice tonality in my experience.
This is the older UN54 :
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