New Adox “Color Mission” Film

[mshchem]

Looks good. Old school.

 

[RodinalSpezial]

Has any one else noticed that it seems to come with BH perforation? The other Adox films do not, which suggests that they perforated it either with new equipment or someone else did it for them.

EDIT: Just to explain: BH perf. is what's used on movie camera films like Kodak Vision etc.

 

[Kino]

Has any one else noticed that it seems to come with BH perforation? The other Adox films do not, which suggests that they perforated it either with new equipment or someone else did it for them.

EDIT: Just to explain: BH perf. is what's used on movie camera films like Kodak Vision etc.

Well, if it is BH perf, it is probably "short pitch" (.1866 inch/4.739 mm) which would work in a motion picture camera. There is no real reason to offer it as such, unless those are the only perforators that were available to finish the film.

That is interesting and makes sense. Adox could easily offer it as a cine stock if they wanted to in the future.

Good catch!

 

[brbo]

That is interesting and makes sense. Adox could easily offer it as a cine stock if they wanted to in the future.

C-41 film as cine stock?

 

[Kino]

C-41 film as cine stock?

At this point in time, all bets are off. Since the typical delivery is NOT print stock, it can just as easily be originated from any film.

 

[brbo]

What changed? Not just "at this point in time", what changed in the last 10 years that C-41 is now suddenly a cine stock just like any other ECN-2 stock? I mean, even ORWO is sticking to ECN-2 for their newly announced cine stock. I'm not saying C-41 can't possibly ever serve that market, but Adox punching BH perforations now because they believe in 5-10 years ECN-2 will be gone...

 

[ADOX Fotoimpex]

Has any one else noticed that it seems to come with BH perforation? The other Adox films do not, which suggests that they perforated it either with new equipment or someone else did it for them.

EDIT: Just to explain: BH perf. is what's used on movie camera films like Kodak Vision etc.

We perforate this film stock ourselves. This is why we currently cannot catch up with demand.

 

[Kino]

What changed? Not just "at this point in time", what changed in the last 10 years that C-41 is now suddenly a cine stock just like any other ECN-2 stock? I mean, even ORWO is sticking to ECN-2 for their newly announced cine stock. I'm not saying C-41 can't possibly ever serve that market, but Adox punching BH perforations now because they believe in 5-10 years ECN-2 will be gone...

I didn't say unequivocally that ADOX is doing that for that purpose; just that it COULD be used as cine film.

By at this point in time" I meant that every one and their dog is shoving ANY available type and age of film into a camera for either artistic or budgetary reasons and using it in non-standard workflows.

Don't attribute my speculation to ADOX as a fact!

 

[RodinalSpezial]

We perforate this film stock ourselves. This is why we currently cannot catch up with demand.

Thanks for the clarification. I didn't want to suggest that you were hiding anything, it was just something that stroke my eye. Is there any special reason for using BH perf on a still film?

 

[Lachlan Young]

Is there any special reason for using BH perf on a still film

Quite possibly it's to do with the availability of high speed perforators - or at least affordable ones without dropping huge money on new ones.

 

[ADOX Fotoimpex]

Thanks for the clarification. I didn't want to suggest that you were hiding anything, it was just something that stroke my eye. Is there any special reason for using BH perf on a still film?

We simply have more film-film perforators than still-film perforators and since it is actually a higher level of accuracy we use them on the higher volume runs and the other machine only for low volumes. For the consumer it does not matter. Both films run fine through any camera.

 

[Joerg Bergs]

Both films run fine through any camera.

100% Agree. We have no problems during our tests. We have tested with Leica M´s, Nikons and some Point-and-Shoot Cameras.

 

[Joerg Bergs]

Thanks!

The scans have the Frontier look (am I wrong?), so it's a bit hard to judge.

Not at all. We use all high standard Lab scanners (Fuji, Agfa, Noritsu and a Kodak one). And we printed some negs onto fuji DPII paper. The real silver gelatin prints are the base for our hybrid way.

 

[Lachlan Young]

We use all high standard Lab scanners (Fuji, Agfa, Noritsu and a Kodak one).

But they are still minilab scanners, & they impose their own ideas of colour/ colour correction/ gamut on to the negs (before the operator even sees the files) in ways that either a direct RA-4 optical print, or a scan done on high end kit (X-Y CCD/ Imacon/ drum scanner/ camera-scan etc) & carefully manually inverted may not.

 

[foc]

But they are still minilab scanners, & they impose their own ideas of colour/ colour correction/ gamut on to the negs (before the operator even sees the files) in ways that either a direct RA-4 optical print, or a scan done on high end kit (X-Y CCD/ Imacon/ drum scanner/ camera-scan etc) & carefully manually inverted may not.

Yes, that is true BUT most people sending a film to a lab for processing and scans won't request high end drum/etc scans. So the Frontier/Noritsu/etc is more representative of what to expect from this film, IMO.

Maybe @Joerg Bergs could provide a high-end scan or camera scan of a few of the shots just for comparison.

 

[BMbikerider]

If this ever does get into production all the better but I hope it is better than the recently introduced Adox RA4 paper developer. Ever since I started using RA4 paper and chemicals I have used Kodak with no complaints what so ever. When there was a shortage of the Kodak developer, I went over to using ADOX and in my experience it is not very good. It has a life in a Nova processor of no more than 3-4 weeks whereas the Kodak Ektacolor with replenishment seemed to be in several months and possibly more. When it is fresh it is OK but has no staying power like the Kodak.

 

[Joerg Bergs]

But they are still minilab scanners, & they impose their own ideas of colour/ colour correction/ gamut on to the negs (before the operator even sees the files) in ways that either a direct RA-4 optical print, or a scan done on high end kit (X-Y CCD/ Imacon/ drum scanner/ camera-scan etc) & carefully manually inverted may not.

Each owner can, if they will, modify or turn off any auto correction (not only in the operator section). No Imacon can beat a noritsu scanner. ICE is dawn good. And we talk about a 35mm film with medium grain. Anything above 20 MPixel blow up the grain with no other useful information.

We have sold all our Imacon/Hassel scanner; we don´t see any advantage in compare to a lab scanner.

 

[Joerg Bergs]

Maybe @Joerg Bergs could provide a high-end scan or camera scan of a few of the shots just for comparison.

I will post a real RA4 print direct from the negative in the next weeks. It´s very closed to our scans.

 

[foc]

I will post a real RA4 print direct from the negative in the next weeks. It´s very closed to our scans.

Thank you for the reply and I look forward to seeing the print V scan comparison.

 

[flavio81]

We have tested the Color Mission in our lab. Here you can see some samples:

https://www.meinfilmlab.de/adox-color-mission-200/

Wow! Thanks!!

Looks very nice for what's essentially a "beta test" film... I mean if it's already looking like this, I expect the next ADOX C41 film to be magnificent.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Each owner can, if they will, modify or turn off any auto correction (not only in the operator section).

Only up to a point. I know that discussing scanning is throwing this thread way off-topic, but both minilab and Hasselblad/ Imacon scanners have limitations largely imposed by their software (the hardware is first class) - and the minilab systems are designed to be much more operator resistant (and largely understand what a colour neg is out-of-the-box - unlike most high end scanners' software), but it's considerably easier to extract the uninverted, non-messed-around-with image file from a Flextight than a minilab scanner. That's mainly where I disagree with you.

Anything above 20 MPixel blow up the grain with no other useful information.

Mainly in systems that add excessive onboard sharpening. Reasonably well represented (and not heavily USM'd) granularity information in the 4000+ppi range does make a noticeable difference in large to very large prints - though even the best scanners visibly lose ground against an optical print with a Rodagon-G or similar at properly big sizes. On the other hand, almost all people don't need more than 20mp files anyway!

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what the direct optical RA-4 print looks like.

 

[Moose22]

Only up to a point. I know that discussing scanning is throwing this thread way off-topic,

Dude, you know what these nice people did, you see what they posted. Don't be that guy. This isn't worth bickering over.

We all work with the tools we've got. It sounds like you're busting their balls for using a lab scanner... Just say thanks for the great information and samples.

I greatly appreciate that they've put the first examples up, and am glad they let me know their hybrid methods so I can weigh my expectations from those data. And when you get your rolls of film you can add your scans for us all to look at and we'll be grateful for even more examples.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

it'll be interesting to see what the direct optical RA-4 print looks like.

+1

On a related note, does @ADOX Fotoimpex or anyone have any reliable data on what percentage of today's C41 film users actually do wet-prints of color negatives regularly? I could be wrong, but it appears to me that most users use hybrid workflow and increasingly this is how color films will be used. That leads me to this question or rather apprehension about the future of color films: as AI based automatic colorizers gets better and better, is there any reason for those who use hybrid workflow to continue to use color films? A day may come when users will simply use B&W films and use continually improving colorizers on the scanned B&W negatives to get color images.

 

[Joerg Bergs]

This is the wet print from the ADOX Color Misson 200, on the right the scan. We use Kienzle enlarger and a Jobo System. But 99% will print onto a Frontier and Agfa printer, the best on the market right now with Fuji chemicals and Fuji DPII Prof. paper.

On the subject of scanners: Of course, a drum scanner unfolds even more useful information. But with what amount of time? And the ColorMission was not developed for the FineArt target group. Our Noritsu scanners have a resolution of over 30MPixel. This scanner are fast, with ICE and we filter the colors based on a print. Unfortunately, no customer would pay me the effort that I would have with a drum scanner. It's like HiFi: the last 5% of quality has to be paid for dearly.

Our scanners also do not sharp the scans, because all these options are deactivated in the system settings. The manufacturer's software is very good, you just have to know how to use it and talk to the manufacturer, who can optimize a few things.

We print many of our scans very large, for example an HP5 35mm at a width of 1.40 meters, without artefacts or anything similar being visible. I've been in the business for 30 years and know all of our devices and master the balancing act. For the purists we offer a direct wet-print, from color and bw

 

[RodinalSpezial]

That certainly looks really good! Thanks for the effort, I think this makes it much easier to get an accurate impression what the film might be like. I will get some rolls delivered tomorrow and am quite excited to test the film.