Kodak VISION3 Digital Separation Film 2237 and Kodak 2378 EXR Sound Recording Film

This question has probably been asked before, but are either of those films suitable for 35mm still camera use? I do recognize that the minimum order is an (approximately) 2000 foot roll, but the price per foot is low compared to other 35mm films.

I understand, based on my preliminary research, that 2378 has orthochromatic sensitivity, and that 2237 seems to be green sensitive only.

If anyone has had experience with these above films I would like to hear about your experiences with them, including ISO speeds and development times.

I'm not familiar with either of those films, but from their names they are meant for use in a motion-picture lab. So my answer to your first question would be "no".
However, a 2000' roll of 35mm will yield roughly 400 36-exposure rolls. So you could spend the next several years doing exposure and development tests... and still not have any usable results. Somewhere at Kodak you should be able to find the data sheets for these films- a study of them will give you a better idea of their designed working characteristics.

You'd be way off the map here, boldly going where no man has gone before... although no doubt someone will chime in and tell us that they expose 2337 at EI 2400 and stand- develop them in Dr. Pepper diluted 1:31 for 17.5 hours at 23C in a processing machine of their own design. They will claim "great results".

Forum member "laser" would know more about these films, perhaps he will help.

MarkS said:

I'm not familiar with either of those films, but from their names they are meant for use in a motion-picture lab. So my answer to your first question would be "no".
However, a 2000' roll of 35mm will yield roughly 400 36-exposure rolls. So you could spend the next several years doing exposure and development tests... and still not have any usable results. Somewhere at Kodak you should be able to find the data sheets for these films- a study of them will give you a better idea of their designed working characteristics.

You'd be way off the map here, boldly going where no man has gone before... although no doubt someone will chime in and tell us that they expose 2337 at EI 2400 and stand- develop them in Dr. Pepper diluted 1:31 for 17.5 hours at 23C in a processing machine of their own design. They will claim "great results".

Forum member "laser" would know more about these films, perhaps he will help.

Click to expand...

Dr. Pepper?

My first year studio and lab instructor at RPI once said, “…you can develop film in scotch… but it’s a waste of good scotch!”

Someone here tested 2237 and developed it in 510 pyro. Result looks good, but reportedly low equivalent ISO of 1.


Allegedly, 2378 is the same thing FPP sells as their "sonic" film here:

ISO 1? I knew someone had tried it. 1/30sec.@ f/2.8 in full sun... or 1/250 @ f/1.0, perfect for Leica shooters and their Noctiluxes. No doubt fine grain too!

2378 is for sound track duplication, 2237 is for 3 color separations from a film recorder (I believe).

Both lab stocks, both with no established ISO, but they are film and will give you some result with enough exposure and the right development time.

Not worth $12 a roll, but if you can get it cheap, fun to experiment with...

one caution, when Sony was Promoting the SDDS digital sound system, the sony track was loacted on the rebate portion of both edges of the film. for colour prints this was no proablem as the edge printing was a different colour and so was ignored on the print by the SDDS reader.

to work around the problem SOME sound negative had the "edge" printing placed dead center of the film. Now that SDDS is dead, I am not sure if they went back.

the data sheet for 2378 is here https://www.kodak.com/content/produ...STMAN-EXR-2378-3378-technical-information.pdf

the data on 2254 is here. https://www.kodak.com/content/produ.../KODAK-VISION3-2254-technical-information.pdf


and if you are thinking of playing with the Intermediate films you might also want to try 2242
https://www.kodak.com/content/produ...SION-2242-3242-5242-technical-information.pdf the non digital version.

MarkS said:

Somewhere at Kodak you should be able to find the data sheets for these films

Click to expand...

2378: https://www.kodak.com/content/produ...ing-Film-2378E-3378E-ESTAR-technical-data.pdf


So it's mostly orthochromatic with a little trailing sensitivity into red.

And it's enormously steep. It would be nice if you want to make line art or something like that. Also note the high dmax.

This one would be challenging to tame for

2237: https://www.kodak.com/content/produ...Digital-Separation-Film-2237-datasheet-EN.pdf

This one is orthochromatic with no red sensitivity, but also with a dip around blue, so it'll emphasize green.


Still steep though, so you'll need to 'pull' it to get somewhat normal B&W negatives.

Here's the HD curves overlayed with 5222/DoubleX as a comparison:

Black = 5222
Yellow = 2237
Blue = 2378

Terrence Brennan said:

I do recognize that the minimum order is an (approximately) 2000 foot roll, but the price per foot is low compared to other 35mm films.

Click to expand...

For the same amount of money you can buy a perfectly usable second hand digital camera and produce stellar images with it. I don't see why someone would blow a couple of hundred dollars on a product this compromised with the rationale "but the price per roll is so low". You can buy a few truckloads of mud and have it dumped in your backyard because it's so cheap, but what good does it do?