Kodak Super XX

Craig · Aug 23, 2023

I recently bought some stock from a darkroom thaat was being closed out, and among the things was some Kodak Super XX dated 1989. What would be a good use for it? Is there something it particularly excels at? Would it make a good pictoral film? I think it was being used a duplicating/copy film.

mshchem · Aug 23, 2023

This was Kodak's fastest film before Tri-X. Probably fogged.

xkaes · Aug 23, 2023

mshchem said:
This was Kodak's fastest film before Tri-X. Probably fogged.

Super-XX was ISO 200. My favorites -- Royal-X was 1250 and Recording 2475 was 1000-4000.

Cold stored it might be usable.

mshchem · Aug 23, 2023

I shot a lot of Super XX and Ektapan back in the day 5x7 sheets in 100 sheet boxes. Kodak made/makes wonderful sheet film.

FriedLouisStudio · Aug 24, 2023

I don't recall ever using (or even ever seeing a box of) Super XX back in the 60s/70s, but Ektapan was my dad's favorite 4x5 film.

As opposed to Plus-X and Tri-X - which we used for many other things - it was especially well-suited for our fluorescent-lit product shots. On Ektapan, this lighting really "popped"!

mshchem · Aug 24, 2023

FriedLouisStudio said:
I don't recall ever using (or even ever seeing a box of) Super XX back in the 60s/70s, but Ektapan was my dad's favorite 4x5 film.

As opposed to Plus-X and Tri-X - which we used for many other things - it was especially well-suited for our fluorescent-lit product shots. On Ektapan, this lighting really "popped"!

View attachment 347328 View attachment 347329 View attachment 347330

Thanks for posting this. Good work!

MarkS · Aug 24, 2023

The late Michael A. Smith would only use Super-XX; when Kodak discontinued it around thirty years ago, he bought a vast quantity and used it until he passed in 2018. S-XX has a very long straight-line response curve; his later negatives are said to have had a lot of fog density, but because of that straight line, the high values still looked good. So your film may very well be usable if you accept some speed loss. Definitely worth testing!

Paul Howell · Aug 24, 2023

In the day XX was one of the films favorited by Zone System users, Kodak stopped production as Tmax 400 has a similar long straight line curve. You might want to experiment with a restrainer to help with base fog. I would start with an unexposed sheet to determine what level of base fog you are starting with.

OrientPoint · Aug 24, 2023

I still shoot from a 100-sheet box expired in 1990 (I guess that was around the end-of-the-line for Super XX?) Fog isn't bad at all, but grain is elevated. I still like the look and the grain isn't horrible but it's significantly increased over the years (not surprisingly). I should shoot it more often.

Alan9940 · Aug 24, 2023

Back in the day, I shot quite a bit of Super XX in 8x10 and was very sad when it disappeared. Due to its long straight-line response curve, the separation of mid-tones bordered on the magical IMO. I would definitely test what you have because you won't be disappointed.

MattKing · Aug 24, 2023

FWIW, my 1970 copy of the Kodak Darkroom Dataguide for Black and White lists Super XX as a continuous tone film with the same ASA 200 for daylight and tungsten illumination, offering fine grain and medium resolving power. The Dataguide recommends a number of common developers, including stock D-76, but not D-76 1:1 or Microdol-X. The development recommendations call for as much or more development as any other Kodak sheet film.

MarkS · Aug 24, 2023

Super-XX was an early (1940s) fast pan film; it was surpassed long ago by other films in speed, graininess, and sharpness. Its great advantage was that straight-line curve- and that the curves for red, green, and blue lay right on top of one another. Which made it invaluable for dye-transfer printers, who could easily make their color-separation negatives with it. So it went away when dye transfer did, for better or worse.
Of course some people liked the way it looked as a camera film- like Michael Smith and his wife and partner, Paula Chamlee. They produced beautiful work, printing by contact only.
When I worked as a lab tech in the late '70s, we used it to make b/w internegatives from color transparencies- but that doesn't men that I can comment on its characteristics now. It must be that I developed it in D-76, in a 3-1/2 gallon sink line (that's how we did sheet film there). Michael and Paula developed it in ABC Pyro, so i'm sure it will work well in any standard developer. When you make your tests, just expose generously to get past the fog.

Disconnekt · Aug 24, 2023

I have a roll of it in 35mm (in my freezer) that expired in December 1955

xkaes · Aug 24, 2023

Disconnekt said:
I have a roll of it in 35mm (in my freezer) that expired in December 1955

Don't you think it's time to thaw it out?

Is there a # on the box? For the sheet version it was 4142 (ESTAR thick base). I assume the 35mm had a thinner base.

Disconnekt · Aug 24, 2023

T

xkaes said:
Don't you think it's time to thaw it out?

Is there a # on the box? For the sheet version it was 4142 (ESTAR thick base). I assume the 35mm had a thinner base.

There's numbers on one of the box flaps that shows "1-KPC 32652D"

braxus · Aug 25, 2023

A video I did on shooting a roll of this film over a year ago.

Craig · Aug 25, 2023

This is the film I have. I'll have to test it.

snusmumriken · Aug 25, 2023

MarkS said:
Of course some people liked the way it looked as a camera film- like Michael Smith and his wife and partner, Paula Chamlee. They produced beautiful work, printing by contact only.

Interesting. I hadn’t come across these two photographers before. Looking at their website, I notice something that I get with Double-X too, but don’t actually like. It’s hard to describe, but I’ll have a go. There is full black and clean white in virtually all of their photos, but in between there’s an awful lot of a pearly light grey tone, as if the atmosphere was universally smoky. This seems odd given that the film (in both cases) is famed for its long straight line response and separation of mid-tones.

chuckroast · Aug 25, 2023

A while back, I semistand developed some Super-XX from 1961 just see if it held up. There were some mechanical issues with film that old (stuck together sheets) but the film produced perfectly fine images. It looked best in Pyrocat-HD 1.5:1:200 for an hour with 2 min initial continuous agitation and one midpoint agitation. The same scheme in D-23 1:1 worked fine but showed noticeably more grain.

In general Super-XX was relatively grainy which was fine for 4x5 where it matters so much less, but for smaller formats, Tri-X rapidly replaced it.

At 8x10 and with a 1988 expiry date, I wouldn't worry much about it unless it was stored in blazing heat.

Craig · Aug 25, 2023

chuckroast said:
At 8x10 and with a 1988 expiry date, I wouldn't worry much about it unless it was stored in blazing heat.

It came from a government lab, so I'm assuming it was stored properly. No more than 20-21°C I would expect.

DREW WILEY · Aug 25, 2023

It was considered their primary "commercial" film, and was classified as a "straight line" film due to its tremendous linearity and short toe. It had all kinds of applications including industrial and landscape photographer, even routine use in color separations and copy work, and was amenable to a wide variety of development strategies. Dye transfer prin ters used a lot of it. Contact printers loved it's ability to be processed to high contrast gamma if needed and still maintain its linearity. Wonderful product, which was mainly used in sheet version. It saw the handwriting on the wall once TMax films were developed and caught on, and took over its own niche. The closest thing afterwards was Bergger 200, now also
obsolete.

I'd be surprised if that old box of it is still any good. This was a true thick emulsion film, which might to frill off with swelling once you try to develop it. So you could either keep the box as a conversation piece or try shooting it. But if you do get decent results out of it, it will be a rare opportunity this late in the game to discover why so many pros depended on it.

All kinds of developers work with it. HC-110 and DK50 are specifically shown on the data sheet because those were the routine choices in commercial dye transfer labs.

Craig · Aug 25, 2023

DREW WILEY said:
So you could either keep the box as a conversation piece or try shooting it.

I have 3 boxes, so I can always try some and keep the rest. 2 sheets came already loaded in a holder, I might as well try them first.

I suspect it was used for making B&W copy negatives from colour transparencies. In this lot of film was a quite a bit of copy and duplicating film.

xkaes · Aug 25, 2023

Use it or lose it.

Vaughn · Aug 25, 2023

For some odd reason which I don't remember, I took a box of 4x5 Super-XX with me to New Zealand in 1986/87. I used it after I went thru my box of Royal Pan.
The vertical of the glacier face was on Royal Pan and the next day I took the horizontal looking down river from about the same spot on Super-XX. Same camera/lens. The horizontal (Super-XX) was taken with a red filter to extend the exposure time. Both prints on Ilford Gallerie glossy, grade 3, and a long time ago.

PS For better or worse I just checked the fridge...got some old Super-XX in there...4x5 exp 1994 and later, and some 5x7 expired when I was 20 years old in 1974.

DREW WILEY · Aug 25, 2023

Not surprising, Vaughn, that the Super-XX version holds detail over a much longer scale. My brother pretty much used it for everything in his 4X5, except for color shots, of course. But to my taste, I found it too grainy for anything smaller than 8x10, and by that time, it was Bergger 200 I was shooting instead in 8x10. But one could sure do tricks with that thick emulsion of Super-XX, including water bath development.

Of course, what were classified as "fine grained" films at one time, including Super-XX and Tri-X, now seem more like buckshot. And 200 would no longer seem like a "high speed" film either.

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