2238 is a film for making archival separation positives from original color negatives. So it has to be panchromatic; the original negative is just contact printed with red, green, and blue filters in front of the light source for each of the separations. But I thought hey, panchromatic slow speed film with very fine grain... it's like Tech Pan without all the developer hassles! So I got some and finally got a chance to play with it a bit yesterday.
It's on a clear Estar base which has a very very faint blue tinge to it after developing. (There is a blue dye somewhere in the emulsion that comes out in your developer. If you're not using one-shot developer you might want to run a prewash until the water runs clear.) The specs don't say whether it has an anti-halation layer. Because it's supposed to be contact printed it wouldn't have as much need for one. I'd say it is definitely prone to light-piping through the base, but not as badly as, say, HIE...so there is probably some less-than-normal anti-halation layer in there. It's also not quite as sharp as Tech-Pan in the end, which might be due to some slight halation. Though this would make a really dandy way to make B&W positives from B&W negatives by contacting-printing them, instead of trying to run a reversal process on the original negs!
It's available direct from Kodak in single roll quantities, though unfortunately that roll is 2000 feet long and costs $750! Here is the spec sheet:
http://motion.kodak.com/motion/uploadedFiles/H-1-2238t.pdf
I rated it at ISO 25 and ended up liking the results when developing it in ID-11 (D-76) 1:1 for 10 minutes. I also tried Rodinal 1:50 at 6:30 but to my eye that was a little grainier and probably needed a little more time to really develop the ISO 25 metered bracket shot. As you can see from the spec sheet, it can be rated and developed in a wide range of choices, which will affect contrast, etc. I was going for the less contrasty end of things.
Here are some example shots:
If anyone else is interested in playing with this, I could put up some 100' rolls in the classifieds. It's definitely interesting stuff though at least in my tests so far it's not quite the miracle Tech Pan replacement.
Kodak also sells it in 100' 70mm rolls for $105 each... though you need to buy 18 of them! But any of those folks wondering what to do with their Hasselblad 70mm backs, here's another option!
Duncan
It's on a clear Estar base which has a very very faint blue tinge to it after developing. (There is a blue dye somewhere in the emulsion that comes out in your developer. If you're not using one-shot developer you might want to run a prewash until the water runs clear.) The specs don't say whether it has an anti-halation layer. Because it's supposed to be contact printed it wouldn't have as much need for one. I'd say it is definitely prone to light-piping through the base, but not as badly as, say, HIE...so there is probably some less-than-normal anti-halation layer in there. It's also not quite as sharp as Tech-Pan in the end, which might be due to some slight halation. Though this would make a really dandy way to make B&W positives from B&W negatives by contacting-printing them, instead of trying to run a reversal process on the original negs!
It's available direct from Kodak in single roll quantities, though unfortunately that roll is 2000 feet long and costs $750! Here is the spec sheet:
http://motion.kodak.com/motion/uploadedFiles/H-1-2238t.pdf
I rated it at ISO 25 and ended up liking the results when developing it in ID-11 (D-76) 1:1 for 10 minutes. I also tried Rodinal 1:50 at 6:30 but to my eye that was a little grainier and probably needed a little more time to really develop the ISO 25 metered bracket shot. As you can see from the spec sheet, it can be rated and developed in a wide range of choices, which will affect contrast, etc. I was going for the less contrasty end of things.
Here are some example shots:
If anyone else is interested in playing with this, I could put up some 100' rolls in the classifieds. It's definitely interesting stuff though at least in my tests so far it's not quite the miracle Tech Pan replacement.
Kodak also sells it in 100' 70mm rolls for $105 each... though you need to buy 18 of them! But any of those folks wondering what to do with their Hasselblad 70mm backs, here's another option!
Duncan
