looking for cheapo ortho film.

[cynan]

Can anyone recommend an affordable ortho film that I can definately process with safelight? I plan to glue this film onto glass plates and use in an old FKD 13x18. I don't have a shutter on this camera so I'm looking for a slow, blue sensitive film.

Thanks

 

[htmlguru4242]

Hmm ... I'm not sure why you'd want to glue it to glass plates, other than that all you may have is a plate holder.

First, I should explain that Orthochromatic & Blue sensitive are [very] different things: blue sensitive is only sensitive to blue, while Orthochromatic is sensitive to blue, green and sometimes some yellow. Both can, however, be developed by inspection under a red safelight.

If you're looking for ortho. film, J&C sells some under "ortho film" at jandcphoto.com ; I don't know if they have any in 13x18 though.

If you're looking for blue only film, that might be tougher; all that I know of in Blue only is imagesetting film, and maybe some microfilms. I've had moderate success with single emulsion X-Ray film that is blue sensitive only. The issue with all of these films is taming the high to extremely high contrast.

Without a shutter, you're talking exposure times of a second or more, because its going to be really hard to time anything else.

I don't personally know of any film that'd be that slow, unless you were to coat your own plates with liquid emulsion.

 

[timeUnit]

I've tried Efke OP12 / Adox Print film with little success. Speed was less than ISO 6. Even at ISO 6 and extreme minimal agitation in Rodinal 1+200 (or something) contrast was too high.

I just recieved a two boxes of Adox Ortho. It's on a film base, and to be used with Maco/Rollei Low Contrast developer. I'm hoping for a nice old skool look from this film.

 

[cynan]

Thanks Guru,
Yes - I've only got glass plate holders for my camera. I plan to coat my own plates, but will only be able to produce small batches, so having film as a backup will be great. I'm not that worried about film size, as I should be able to glue any size smaller than 13x18 onto the plate (unless film thickness is an issue) + I could use an ND filter to slow things down, I suppose. It's just that I've read that some ortho films can be slightly red sensitive (forgive me I'm new to all this)

So I'm after a B&W film 13x18 - 4x5, Orthochromatic - red safe, affordable and available in the UK/Europe

 

[titrisol]

X ray film?

 

[Jim Noel]

I use Ilford Ortho+ as well as APHS, an ortho-litho film from Freestyle.
By using appropiate developers the final images are all but indistinguishable. Of course, the litho is very cheap, and on a very thin film base.

 

[Ole]

I've used some old Agfa Gevarex I got cheap a while ago - in 9.5x12", cut down to whichever size I need. Developing by inspection in dilute print developer turned out to be the best way to control contrast.

I also got a pack of Tasma litho film with my 30x40cm camera; that seems to have lower inherent contrast and works fairly well with "normal" developers. The lower contrast could possibly be due to age? Anyway I bought it from blyatnikov, he usually has some film in stock. I think that's about the cheapest usable, slow, ortho sheet film you can find. 100 sheets of 24x30cm film makes 400 sheets of 12x15cm...

 

[cynan]

Blast! Went and bought some Adox Ortho 25, didn't I. Now what do I do?

Can anyone recommend a cheapo low contrast film developer?... And maybe where I can see examples of LF ortho photos(?)

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Blast! Went and bought some Adox Ortho 25, didn't I. Now what do I do?

Can anyone recommend a cheapo low contrast film developer?... And maybe where I can see examples of LF ortho photos(?)

I used Maco ORT 25 in 35mm, which is similar to Adox Ortho from what I've heard. You can see one in my gallery (the fire hydrant). Rodinal 1+100 for 11mins was plenty soft enough for it.

 

[Black Dog]

Maco Genius film is dead cheap and will give normal contrast in a suitable low contrast dev-eg Rodinal as mentioned above.