Is slow speed, fine grain film dead?

Ted Harris · Mar 6, 2006

Can't help the smaller format folk but if you are pining away for Pan X then get some Polaroid T55. It IS Pan X.

As for EFKE (Adox) 25 it has always been a great film and if you have not tried it why not do so? In one form or another it has been around for some 50 years so there is really no reason to believe it is going to disappear tomorrow.

Photo Engineer · Mar 6, 2006

Ryuji said:
Radiation sensitivity is largely governed by the grain volume. If two-electron is applied, the efficiency of fog center creation will also increase, but if the crystals are made smaller, the overall shelf life may be comparable. Konica, who made true ASA3200 color negative films, did an extensive research on this topic and some results are published.

Exactly correct, but radiation generates ionized particles, and if electron efficiency increases, sensitivity to ionizing radiation goes up.

At least that was why I made that hypothetical comment.

I obviously have no way of determining why they chose an 800 speed film at better grain rather than a 1600 speed film at the grain of an 800 speed film. It could be other factors such as turbidity, sharpness or developability.

PE

jimgalli · Mar 6, 2006

Lets see, I just bought a 1000 foot roll of 5" panatomic X. That should be good for...OH...3,000 4X5 negs. You'll just have to make the jump to 4X5 I guess. Oh and at 6½¢ each, they're a bargain. But they're a pain in the enlarger. The grain focuser is useless with them, you have to find an edge. There is no grain.

donbga · Mar 6, 2006

Claire Senft said:
Panatomic=X was my favorite b&w film in 120 roll film, 35mm and sheet film. kodak did this user no favor in discontinuing it.

Ditto that brother! And I want my Ektar 25 back, what I wonderful film.

Don Bryant

Photo Engineer · Mar 6, 2006

donbga said:
Ditto that brother! And I want my Ektar 25 back, what I wonderful film.

Don Bryant

I wish someone could directly compare Portra 100VC with Ektar 25!

You might be surprised with the results in terms of grain and sharpness, not to mention color.

PE

Nick Zentena · Mar 6, 2006

Didn't Kodak come out with a new 50 speed colour movie film last year? Sure it's ECN-2 and all those issues but it seems if the market wants it gets made.

So what is the real market for 25 ISO or even 50 ISO still film?

Ed_Davor · Mar 6, 2006

There is still 64T and 64, good classic films

They aren't that fine grain, but they are slow

On the other hand you have Astia and E100G which are faster, but have finer grain than some older slower speed films

roteague · Mar 6, 2006

Hard to beat the grain on Velvia, even the new 100 Velvia.

Ryuji · Mar 6, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
I obviously have no way of determining why they chose an 800 speed film at better grain rather than a 1600 speed film at the grain of an 800 speed film. It could be other factors such as turbidity, sharpness or developability.

Fujifilm is seling 1600-speed color negative films as an everyday film and they are making a small boom in taking snapshots without flash. Fujifilm has sold several models of film p&s cameras equipped with 24mm f/1.9, 24-50mm f/2.8, 28-56mm f/2.8, etc. in 2005 and 2006. They are overcoming the granularity problems as well as radiation sensitivity problems for 1600 speed color films. Of course these films sell at higher prices and that should help Fujifilm.

So, in theory this should allow them to make decent b&w tabular grain films with 3200+ speed. The reason why they don't is unknown but it's probably because the film would need more number of crystals, lowering covering power because b&w can't get help of dye couplers. Indeed, a part of technology they used for 1600 speed film was improved couplers with better efficiency.

donbga · Mar 6, 2006

roteague said:
Hard to beat the grain on Velvia, even the new 100 Velvia.

You mean Disneychrome?

Don Bryant

Photo Engineer · Mar 6, 2006

Ryuji said:
Fujifilm is seling 1600-speed color negative films as an everyday film and they are making a small boom in taking snapshots without flash. Fujifilm has sold several models of film p&s cameras equipped with 24mm f/1.9, 24-50mm f/2.8, 28-56mm f/2.8, etc. in 2005 and 2006. They are overcoming the granularity problems as well as radiation sensitivity problems for 1600 speed color films. Of course these films sell at higher prices and that should help Fujifilm.

So, in theory this should allow them to make decent b&w tabular grain films with 3200+ speed. The reason why they don't is unknown but it's probably because the film would need more number of crystals, lowering covering power because b&w can't get help of dye couplers. Indeed, a part of technology they used for 1600 speed film was improved couplers with better efficiency.

It has been shown that t-grains with a large diameter can be stressed in film when the film turns around rollers in cameras during winding. This cracking effect causes fog. This may be one limitation in the design of high speed t-grain films.

Also, the higher the efficiency of a coupler, the more dense a dye speck becomes. This can tend to increase the appearance of granularity. This is another of the obstacles placed in front of the engineer.

Higher speed films are more sensitive to the X-ray units used in airports and other terminals. With more X-ray checks and higher energy devices, this also increases problems faced by film manufacturers.

As you can see, this involves a series of tradeoffs.

Another spectrum of problems are faced when desiging slow speed high definition films.

PE

jd callow · Mar 6, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
I wish someone could directly compare Portra 100VC with Ektar 25!

You might be surprised with the results in terms of grain and sharpness, not to mention color.

PE

I suspect you meant 160vc. I have some ektar 25 negs in 35mm and I can assure you that the grain/dye clouds are smaller than that of the160 VC. Reala is close (when rated @iso 50) and I suspect but can not be sure that 100UC might be closer still.

Or did you mean 100uc in the first place?

Ryuji · Mar 6, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
It has been shown that t-grains with a large diameter can be stressed in film when the film turns around rollers in cameras during winding. This cracking effect causes fog. This may be one limitation in the design of high speed t-grain films.

I know this problem very well, as I make tabular grain emulsions. The problem becomes more serious when the aspect ratio and diameter are large. To some extent this issue can be alleviated by improving the binder system in the emulsion layers and the overcoat.

Also, the higher the efficiency of a coupler, the more dense a dye speck becomes. This can tend to increase the appearance of granularity. This is another of the obstacles placed in front of the engineer.

We all know this. Fuji did something about that. Read their publications.

Another spectrum of problems are faced when desiging slow speed high definition films.

However, it wasn't me who brought up the high speed film issues.

roteague · Mar 6, 2006

donbga said:
You mean Disneychrome?

Don Bryant

No, that is Fuji Fortia 50.

jovo · Mar 6, 2006

Claire Senft said:
Usually a hand swaged heavy jacketed wadcutter will put a nice neat .429 hole in the negative. When this fails to do the trick multipe shots using a factory 300 grain load from a 454 Casull will at least scratch the living hell out of the negative unless I both overexposed and over developed. In that case I fondly wish I had a Holland&Holland 4 guage rifle...but unless you are HSB you cannot afford one.

I can't even begin to tell you how incredibly glad I am to live as far away from Milwaukee as I do.

avandesande · Mar 6, 2006

Your lucky you are not in New Mexico either. I would swear the olympic sign shooting team is out here-- the road down the street from us have signs shot up so badly you can't read them. We also have the .50 rifle championship out here....

Photo Engineer · Mar 6, 2006

mrcallow said:
I suspect you meant 160vc. I have some ektar 25 negs in 35mm and I can assure you that the grain/dye clouds are smaller than that of the160 VC. Reala is close (when rated @iso 50) and I suspect but can not be sure that 100UC might be closer still.

Or did you mean 100uc in the first place?

Lets just say I meant the one with the finest grain.

Sorry, but I had a senior moment. You are right. Portra 160 VC is what I really meant. I use the 400 UC but, I'm not sure how it compares at the lower speed, as I don't have side-by-side pix. That might be a better example, but I was reluctant to use it without personal experience.

You will find that the Portra family has better color and better keeping. One of the things about Ektar 25 was that the technique that allowed smaller coupler droplets gave worse keeping. There was a recent post regarding that either here or over on PN. A 'bad' roll of EKtar 25 would appear to have very bad grain. I believe there were some posted samples of this along with the comment. It usually happened with rolls that were frozen for a long time.

PE

Mick Fagan · Mar 6, 2006

I have spent the last four days in the darkroom, apart from work that is, printing one of my brothers wedding. I shot it all on 160NC.

I exposed the 160NC at 100 ASA and was thinking about the difficulty I was having in finding grain to focus at low enlargements. It reminded me of Ektar 25 professional, in that I was looking for an adjacent colour to see focus.

I decided to pull out some of my Ektar 25 negs, for a comparison. Well Ektar 25 professional wins, not by a lot mind you, one can see image structure in the 160NC whereas the Ektar 25 you see colour dye only.

I racked the enlarger up to the ceiling and dropped the table to the floor to make a theoretical enlargement of 1.2 metres wide on the long side of the frame. Yep you can see image structure on Ektar 25 professional at that enlargement.

I then pulled out some of my first rolls of Reala (the original version). This was surprisingly grainy like. I then pulled out some Reala which is less than a year old and noted immediately, the almost lack of image structure by comparison to its earlier version.

Something of note about the Reala is that I exposed the first version at 100 ASA, whereas for the last 8 years or so, Ive always exposed Reala at 80 ASA; this could be a factor in image structure. That noted, I think the latest version of Reala is really quite good.

I have been pleasantly surprised at how good this bulk roll of 160NC is; in fact it has made me think twice about Reala, which is my standard colour film.

Mick.

Claire Senft · Mar 6, 2006

I used to shoot and print a good deal of Ektar 25 in 35mm and 6x7. Very pleased was I with it. Then I tried Konica Impresa 50. Virtually as fine of grain and resolving power with a moderate to low contrast and extremely nice discrimination of subtle hues. As much as I like the Etar 25 I appreciated the Impresa 50 more. The high contrast and some crossover in the Ektar 25 made it less pleasing to my tastes. Of course both have now gone by the wayside.

Photo Engineer · Mar 6, 2006

I have debated long and hard about posting this.

Here is a factoid.

The reject rate on Ektar 25 was 90%. That is one reason it was cancelled.

PE

Mick Fagan · Mar 6, 2006

The reject rate on Ektar 25 was 90%. That is one reason it was cancelled.

PE

Yes, if one pushes the technology boundary, the reject rate is certain to rise in accordance to the push from an existing mark.

Mick.

Photo Engineer · Mar 6, 2006

Well, Mick that was one of the death notices issued to Ektar 25.

PE

MattKing · Mar 7, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
I have debated long and hard about posting this.

Here is a factoid.

The reject rate on Ektar 25 was 90%. That is one reason it was cancelled.

PE

This is an example of why we need to support the large manufacturers, including Kodak.

Only a large manufacturer, with sufficient capital behind them, can afford to:

1) manufacture a product, and while it is being refined, distribute it when 9 of every 10 rolls are not even released; and

2) put sufficient resources into a product to give it a chance to succeed, when problems of this nature arise.

It is very revealing that Kodak had such a rejection rate, yet the memories of this product are generally positive.

At the risk of turning this thread into an argument, doesn't this observation say something about Kodak's attitude to its film custonmers - i.e. whether or not Kodak is our "friend".

I know, I am biased ....

roteague · Mar 7, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
I have debated long and hard about posting this.

Here is a factoid.

The reject rate on Ektar 25 was 90%. That is one reason it was cancelled.

PE

Sounds like the rejection rate on Canon's 16mp digital sensor.

Claire Senft · Mar 7, 2006

Another film I miss is slow Kodachromes. 10,II,25.

I guess it is easy to see that what I like does not lead to good sales.

Is slow speed, fine grain film dead?

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