lack of high speed 35mm b&w films

jojoman2 · Jun 8, 2016

I'm curious why companies like cinestill are churning out specialty films. Lomo has their hipster "art" films like the redscale crap. I wouldn't consider shooting either seriously for the work that I do. Meanwhiile, there are REAL applications for high speed b&w. I push tri x to around 1250 a lot when it's overcast, but I would rather shoot a true speed 1250-1600 film. I've tried delta 3200 in d76 1:1 and didn't like the popcorn type grain. I still have a few rolls of it lying around.

I missed the boat on fuji neopan 1600... I was a freshman in college when they discontinued the film. It was before I got into photography. I look at stuff taken with it now and I'm blown away.

Do you think there is any future for 1600 speed b&w? Will there be a campaign similar to what cinestill has done? If not, why?

Ian Grant · Jun 8, 2016

The market for 1600 EI films is very small, some people get superb results with Delta 3200. Personally my film of choice for B&W push processing at 1600 EI was always XP1 then later XP2 & Xp2+ which I processed myself in C$1 chemistry.

Ilford dropped the push process times when upgrading from XP1 to XP2, XP1 used a non standard C41 development time which labs didn't like and they didn't want to push process either. However XP2+ push processes well as long as you do your own processing I much preferred it to other high speed films.

Ian

Gerald C Koch · Jun 8, 2016

jojoman2 said:
I'm curious why companies like cinestill are churning out specialty films.

Cinestill does NOT produce any of its own film. Rather it repurposes Kodak cine film by removing the remjet coating and spooling the result onto cassettes. This allows the film to be processed in C-41 chemistry. HOWEVER this results in bad color rendition with cross-over between the color layers. Cinestill's economic model does not apply to B&W cine film since they do not have a remjet coating and the fastest Kodak film is Eastman 5222 with an ISO of 250.

Film is an ever shrinking market and the demand for film faster than ISO 400 is a shrinking portion of a shrinking market. Is there any need to go further with the economics of the siluation?

jojoman2 · Jun 8, 2016

I disagree that film is an ever shrinking market. Obviously it's taken a major hit, but it's not going away. I think there is a definite resurgance in film enthusiasts, especially among my generation. If anything, I'm most perplexed by the abundance of 100 speed films. I can't imagine who needs to choose between 4 or 5 different 100 speed films.

If just one manufacturer decided to put out a high speed b&w film they would practically have the market cornered, aside from delta 3200.

David Allen · Jun 8, 2016

I do not think that film is an ever shrinking market. Many industry reports over the past three years all conclude with some version of "Film sales have been quite stable for the last 5 years after a period of severe decline from 2002-2010".

What has shrunk is the range of films produced (although we do have Mirko doing sterling work at Adox/Fotoimpex).

To answer the OP directly, if you view any of the recent market reports you will see that iso400 films outsell all the others by a long margin. The market for faster films is very limited as most photographers do not need it. If you need iso1600 you generally have to accept:

Loss of shadow detail
Significant amounts of grain

Actually, for many people this is not a problem as using such a high iso is associated with particular types of photography such nighttime, concerts, etc and we have all gotten used over many decades that these types of images tend to be grainy. Indeed, photographs of a jazz concert in the 1950s would look very odd without any grain.

If you consistently need a high iso, you might like to try Tri-X developed in Spur SLD (http://spur-photo.com/some-information-in-english/). One of my ex-students has been getting impressive results at iso1000 with this combination with surprisingly good shadow detail and moderate grain.

Bests,

Ko.Fe. · Jun 8, 2016

Cinestill comparing to Lomo might be exactly the same crap. Because none of their films is original. All they do is removing remjet for lazy people who ain't capable of DIY ECN-2.

As for the title of the thread. Here is no problem to push HP5+ to 1600. Normal grain and nice contrast is achievable in prints. Even at 3200 it is still fine looking for REAL photography to me.

Gerald C Koch · Jun 8, 2016

Kodak closed their R&D division some time ago. As far as Ilford, Fuji, Foma et al they have essentially done the same. There is no one left to invest capital in developing any new films. On the color side Ferrania is struggling to re-enter the color film business essentially using old technology. So the appearance of a new B&W film just ain't gonna happen.

Whether the film market continues to shrink or has become stable the reality is that total sales are not sufficient to warrant the expense of developing a new film.

jojoman2 · Jun 8, 2016

I push tri x all the time, just not to 1600. I tend to stay around 800-1250. I've also shot eastman 5222, but wasn't all that impressed. The grain has an awful lot of bite when pushed, for me at least. For the price point if you bulk load it's pretty great.

I also just bought some foma retropan 320 that I'm looking forward to pushing.

All we need is some billionaire to suddenly become interested in film photography...

NortheastPhotographic · Jun 8, 2016

Because HP5 pushes SO well to high speeds. Because there is no call for a competitor to Delta 3200 (which really is a 1600 speed film). Because Fuji hates making film. Because Kodak decided they don't want to make P3200 anymore. Because digital is much better in low light if you want 'clean' images. Try Delta at 1600 in DD-X. If you need a 1600 speed film now's not the time to be picky about grain aesthetics.

MartinP · Jun 8, 2016

jojoman2 said:
If just one manufacturer decided to put out a high speed b&w film they would practically have the market cornered, aside from delta 3200.

"One manufacturer" did exactly what you suggest, Harman. Try using Microphen or DD-X, as recommended by the manufacturer, or even a third-party developer like the Spur mentioned by another poster. Meter carefully (not an averaged reflective reading) and use an EI of, for example 1600. The stuff works perfectly adequately. No other manufacturer sees any economic possibility of producing a high-speed film at the moment.

It is unclear what effect you are after, beyond an increase in EI. If you just want to boost contrast in low-contrast situations, under-expose and over-develop TriX or Pan400? Can you point to an example of what you want to achieve, then there may be some useful suggestions

Ricardo Miranda · Jun 8, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
As far as Ilford, Fuji, Foma et al they have essentially done the same.

You must have visited the R&D departments of Ilford, Foma and Adox.
Yeap, Foma doesn't have any R&D department according to you, but meanwhile they just lunched a new film last year.
And Ilford introduced a new film back in 2009 and still makes custom coatings for other companies as does Innoviscoat.
But you already knew that, didn't you?

Ricardo Miranda · Jun 8, 2016

jojoman2 said:
I also just bought some foma retropan 320 that I'm looking forward to pushing.

Look at the datasheet. There are times there for ISO 640
I have used it at 640 with the retro developer. It is a very nice film.
I suspect that Retropan 320 can be pushed to 1600, but I'll be cautious about that.
Any pushing is a compromise, so I know what you mean by having a true ISO 1600 film.

Gerald C Koch · Jun 8, 2016

jojoman2 said:
I push tri x all the time, just not to 1600. I tend to stay around 800-1250. I've also shot eastman 5222, but wasn't all that impressed. The grain has an awful lot of bite when pushed, for me at least. For the price point if you bulk load it's pretty great.

I also just bought some foma retropan 320 that I'm looking forward to pushing.

All we need is some billionaire to suddenly become interested in film photography...

Kodak rates the RMS granularity of Tri-X as fine while Eastman 5222 is rated as very fine. If you are experiencing unusual grain with 5222 then you need to review your development process. I rate this film at an EI of 400 and have always been very happy with the results. But then each film responds differently to pushing.

The Kodak publication on the Tri-X films says that Tri-x can be pushed to an EI 0f 800 without any degradation of quality and to 1600 with good results. They recommend normal processing for EI 800 considering this speed as within the normal latitude of the film.

Xmas · Jun 8, 2016

Most people shoot 400ISO film and there are a large number of emulsions available, tabular or conventional, even if you exclude Kodaks 5222 and Foma320.

If you want faster their is Ilfords Delta 3200.

But I'd doubt that Ilford sell much of it.

Kodak had a 3200 they stopped making aeons ago.

Foma a 800 ditto.

It is like Kodachrome no one is buying in sufficient volume.

Expect the selection to be reduced sooner rather than later. Efke stopped cause they needed to pay staff.

Gerald C Koch · Jun 8, 2016

Ricardo Miranda said:
You must have visited the R&D departments of Ilford, Foma and Adox.
Yeap, Foma doesn't have any R&D department according to you, but meanwhile they just lunched a new film last year.
And Ilford introduced a new film back in 2009 and still makes custom coatings for other companies as does Innoviscoat.
But you already knew that, didn't you?

If you had read my post more carefully you would have found that I never said the other companies had closed their R&D facilities. However I would be surprised if their size has not diminished. Kodak was the giant in developing new technologies. Without them there is just not that much being done. If Ilford marketed a new film in 2009 we really do not know when the research was actually done. Marketing a new film is not the same as developing a new film which is what the OP wanted. Doing coating for other companies does not imply any research on Ilford's part.

Ricardo Miranda · Jun 8, 2016

Xmas said:
Efke stopped cause they needed to pay staff.

And they were in a crumbling building. Literally.

Gerald C Koch said:
However Kodak was the giant in developing new technologies.

Yes, they had a nice department, I'm sure of that, especially for colour films.
But Koda was better known as churning up new formats every few years and then killing them off years latter.
Sorry Gerald, but not everything was invented by Koda. Case is chromogenic films or the Ilford CCG technology.

pentaxuser · Jun 8, 2016

jojoman2 said:
All we need is some billionaire to suddenly become interested in film photography...

APUG has a multi-page thread about such a billionaire person. I have no knowledge of his interest in fast film or even any film but from what I have seen I think he is very keen on pushing

pentaxuser

Ian Grant · Jun 8, 2016

It's being forgotten that the fast 3200 EI films are relative newcomers to the market Delta 3200 was introduced in 1998, Tmax 3200 was earlier (1988).

Ian

railwayman3 · Jun 8, 2016

I'm afraid that any campaign to resurrect 1600ISO film is unlikely to succeed. It's simply the economics of making small quantities of any film, which has been discussed-to-death in numerous threads here. I'm sure that there would still be buyers for any one of the dozens of products which have gone, from Kodachrome to glass plates, but there's just insufficient demand to justify production.

I don't think that R&D come into the equation to any extent....I'm sure that every company has the formulae and manufacturing info for many past products, although maybe not the machinery or skilled staff. (Perhaps the formulae for the former Konica 3200 ISO colour neg is still somewhere in the archives!).

Ai Print · Jun 8, 2016

Tmax 400 pushes to 1600 *very* well. In fact my defacto standard speed in 35mm is 800 with very little difference between that and box speed.

DREW WILEY · Jun 8, 2016

Between TMY400 and Delta 3200 I have everything I realistically need in high speed films. I love both films, yet in different ways. And I rate Delta 3200 at 800 for pyro.

Patrick Robert James · Jun 8, 2016

I think the question you should be asking yourself is why you aren't getting results that you like from the films that are available. They work just fine for everyone else.

Delta 3200 already cornered the market. Pretty much everyone I knew switched to it when it came out. Neopan 1600 (probably my favorite film ever) was a great film but it wasn't a fast film. IIRC it was a 400 speed emulsion with a couple tricks to make it a little faster (640) and a little sharper. It wasn't a 1600 speed film, but then again, Delta 3200 isn't 3200 (more like 1200) and TMax 3200 was only about 800.

And you can't really "push" film regardless of all the hyperbole you have read on the internet. You can underexpose and overdevelop, but that doesn't make the film any faster. There are ways to make film more sensitive though but they aren't worth it for everyday use.

Fast films need to be fresh to get the best results from them. The expiration date on the box is even almost too late to shoot it in my experience. Forget about out-dated fast films. They are awful. That could be why you don't like the results you got.

MartinCrabtree · Jun 8, 2016

Indeed TMax 400 possesses great latitude. Kodak suggests how to develop for pushing in publication #4046.

Ai Print · Jun 8, 2016

Patrick Robert James said:
And you can't really "push" film regardless of all the hyperbole you have read on the internet. You can underexpose and overdevelop, but that doesn't make the film any faster. There are ways to make film more sensitive though but they aren't worth it for everyday use.

Well before our beloved internet, the term "Pushing" or "Pulling" for adjusting film development time according to exposure time made with it was and is pretty much industry standard as a means to describe this action in simple terms. I could not imagine going to a busy pro lab and telling them the exact time to pull my slide film a 1/3rd of a stop in your terms, IE the exact time and temperature for it to be right....they would look at me like I was crazy.

Saying one is pushing or pulling a film to make those adjustments is fine and rating a film at a speed higher or lower than box is also fine because it keeps things simple for metering purposes.

Andrew O'Neill · Jun 8, 2016

Ricardo Miranda said:
You must have visited the R&D departments of Ilford, Foma and Adox.
Yeap, Foma doesn't have any R&D department according to you, but meanwhile they just lunched a new film last year.
And Ilford introduced a new film back in 2009 and still makes custom coatings for other companies as does Innoviscoat.
But you already knew that, didn't you?

Sorry, but what film did Ilford introduce in 2009? Thanks!

lack of high speed 35mm b&w films

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