Kodak 2430 Fine Grain Aerial Duplicating Film

[lt_col_gordon_tall]

Hello Photrio friends,

I recently purchased a 9.5" wide x 500' long roll of Kodak 2430 Fine Grain Aerial Duplicating Film from eBay. Since this specific stock seems to occasionally come up for sale, I thought I would share my initial experiences.

Before purchasing, I had a hard time finding much information about the film. According to the paper insert from Kodak's Aerial Systems division, 2430 is a "very fine-grain film for duplicating high-definition aerial negatives." It has been mentioned a few times on this forum. Many of the positive hits date back to older NASA scientific reports and internal CIA reconnaissance documentation, showing that the primary audience for this film was within government—and for a very scientific/technical official audience at that.

The roll I bought was manufactured in 1994 and expired in October 1997. It came sealed in a box and an unopened container; the film itself was on a giant spool. Removing the tape from the roll was a challenge. No matter how slowly or gently I tried to remove it, I kept seeing tiny flashes of light. Triboluminescence. I worried this would affect the film, but at least with the first roll I shot, I don't think it did.

In complete darkness, I cut a ~33in long sheet off from the bulk roll. Then, with a safelight on, I cut three 61.5mm wide pieces for rolling in 120 backing paper, with a bit of trim leftover. The film is on an Estar base that appears yellow prior to development. Having never seen a yellow film, I was pretty surprised at the color and worried that something with the roll had gone bad.

Unsure of where to start, I did an ISO bracketing test from ISO 25 down to ISO 0.12, using my children's stuffed animals positioned in extremely bright light as subject matter. I shot on my RZ67 Pro II, 90mm lens at f/8, using a tripod and mirror-up cable release. I developed the film in Xtol 1+7 for 2 hours stand development.

For the sake of consistency, I made no adjustments to the SilverFast settings when scanning these negatives using my Epson V600, so I am sure each frame could be improved in different ways. Pardon the dust on the negatives as well. Since this was a test, I did not bother to clean them up.

The film is microscopically sharp but extraordinarily slow; it also has poor latitude. But I am quite pleasantly surprised with the results from this first test roll, and it seems useful in the ISO 3–12 range.

Given how much of this film I have, I may offer to give some away at cost at some point. I'm going to keep working with it and get a little more experience before I do that, though.

By the way, I am definitely a hobbyist and not a technical expert when it comes to film photography, so I am sure my approach to using and testing this film could be improved. Feedback welcome!

ISO 25

ISO 12

ISO 6

ISO 5

ISO 3

ISO 2

ISO 1

ISO .5

ISO .25

ISO .12

 

[MattKing]

In complete darkness, I cut a ~33in long sheet off from the bulk roll. Then, with a safelight on, I cut three 61.5mm wide pieces for rolling in 120 backing paper, with a bit of trim leftover. The film is on an Estar base that appears yellow prior to development. Having never seen a yellow film, I was pretty surprised at the color and worried that something with the roll had gone bad.

Thanks for sharing your very interesting experiment.

If I can make a suggestion, it would be this:

Try doing some tests with more even and diffused and moderately directional light such as a scene illuminated by high overcast sky, and no direct sunlight. Include in the scene something with a more recognizable mid-tone and range of tones - like a Macbeth Colour Checker or one of the Kodak tools that provide a range of test densities. Use those results for your evaluations.

 

[Alan Townsend]

It looks very interesting. Appears to be more normal contrast and color blind, or is it orthochromatic? In other words blue only sensitive or blue and green sensitive. That would possibly be great for enlarging small negatives to large format positives or negatives for alt printing processes. Duplicating films like that have been unavailable for a long time.

 

[MarkS]

2430 is indeed a film for making positives from aerial roll film negatives. (Either space-borne or air-breather imagery.) So it's only sensitive to blue light, and is slow and contrasty (as you've seen). Also capable of quite high resolution, not that you'll be needing that. The practice (simplified) was that film would come in to the lab from a mission and get developed, then immediately copied onto 2430 (or one of many other similar film types). Which was done on a large roll-contact printer machine designed for the purpose. That duplicate-positive roll would then go to the image analysts for interpretation, while the original camera negative would go to the archive.
So you have some struggles ahead if you want to use 2430 as a daylight camera film. But with a little persistence, you may well get some results you like. Best of luck!

 

[lt_col_gordon_tall]

2430 is indeed a film for making positives from aerial roll film negatives. (Either space-borne or air-breather imagery.) So it's only sensitive to blue light, and is slow and contrasty (as you've seen). Also capable of quite high resolution, not that you'll be needing that. The practice (simplified) was that film would come in to the lab from a mission and get developed, then immediately copied onto 2430 (or one of many other similar film types). Which was done on a large roll-contact printer machine designed for the purpose. That duplicate-positive roll would then go to the image analysts for interpretation, while the original camera negative would go to the archive.
So you have some struggles ahead if you want to use 2430 as a daylight camera film. But with a little persistence, you may well get some results you like. Best of luck!

Thanks for the backstory, very interesting. The challenge is part of the fun!

 

[lt_col_gordon_tall]

Thanks for sharing your very interesting experiment.

If I can make a suggestion, it would be this:

Try doing some tests with more even and diffused and moderately directional light such as a scene illuminated by high overcast sky, and no direct sunlight. Include in the scene something with a more recognizable mid-tone and range of tones - like a Macbeth Colour Checker or one of the Kodak tools that provide a range of test densities. Use those results for your evaluations.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will definitely shoot the next test roll under more even lighting conditions. I'll also see about getting a color checker next month when I have a fresh photo budget.

 

[MCB18]

I have a roll of 2422 that is also extremely yellow, unfortunately it is SLOWWWWWW so pretty much useless for anything other than negative enlargement.I’ve thought about getting some other dupe films but I really don’t need another giant roll of film I don’t know how to use laying around my house.