New Arista Premium 100 and 400 films Made in USA

[Poohblah]

I've got some of this stuff in my fridge... I can't wait to shoot it!

 

[JRJacobs]

Well, in my book it's more a list of "facts" of reasonable provenance than it is hard evidence. For me evidence would be more along the lines of an invoice from Kodak charging Freestyle for the film. But I'll admit that it is good fodder for speculation and conjecture, as in your second paragraph.

Wish I could offer you the hard evidence, but I can't publicly say how I know. So let me just say that if you want something just like Tri-X , then get some of the Arista Premium 400.

If it gets popular enough in 35mm, it will be offered in larger formats.

 

[sidearm613]

I assume it is rebranded Tri-X. If so, how do you like it?

I have never used any Kodak films other than T Max 400, so I have no idea how good it is. Thinking of buying 25 rolls of the 100 ISO Arista stuff. Would it be worth my time buying it?/QUOTE]

the AP 100 is actually Plus-X 125. the 400 ISO is Tri-X. both films are really great. I have never used AP 100 but i do use Plus-X and it is fantastic stuff and the Arista is simply the bargain of the century in that case. shoot away and have fun!

 

[canuhead]

...If it gets popular enough in 35mm, it will be offered in larger formats.

Man if they could cut 8x10 Tri X in 50 sheet boxes I'd break open the piggy bank for this. Stretching, but would be awesome.

 

[ssloansjca]

It rocks I would love to see it in 120. I am shooting a lot more black and white now and this, partly, is why!

 

[Lee L]

So let me just say that if you want something just like Tri-X , then get some of the Arista Premium 400.

Is that you Mark Felt? I was trying to follow the money ...

I do have some of both Arista Premiums arriving in a day or two, so I'll be able to try it myself. If it "walks like a Tri-X duck" in my cameras and darkroom, that's fine for me, and the conjecture and apparent (?) non-disclosure agreements will be moot.

Lee

 

[Lee L]

It will be interesting to see if the two legacy films match up to the listed dev times (and oher criteria) for Acros and Neopan.

Times were apparently posted today. See (there was a url link here which no longer exists) for a comparison. No times for Neopan SS are on the Freestyle database that produced the times in the linked table.

Lee

 

[Lee L]

The accompanying graph shows data from Tri-X and Arista Premium 400, both exposed for EI 320 developed in Edwal 12 in the same small stainless steel tank at the same time. The target for the measured image was a FotoWand 12 step reflection target with 1/2 stop (log density 0.15) steps. It's possible that there were some reflections of white walls in the lower reflection density steps, which are glossier than the other steps to increase reflection density. That tells me I need to put some sort of black curtain in the areas reflected by the step tab for critical testing. Light was from a monolight flash head, daylight balanced, metered with a Gossen Digiflash. The density readings were taken on a black baseboard with a Darkroom Automation Enlarging Meter under an Omega D5XL enlarger with a diffusion gel in the condenser head filter drawer. The Darkroom Automation Meter displays to 1/100 of an f-stop, and gives very steady readings.

The red line for the Tri-X curve was widened to keep the lines from burying each other. X axis is in log density units, Y axis in f-stops as per the DA Enlarging meter.

Quack!

Lee

P.S. My high school physics teacher once accused a lab partner and I of fudging the numbers when we measured a polaroid of a falling ball bearing shot with a strobe light to find acceleration due to gravity. Our numbers were "too good". This looks the same way, but you'll have to live with my word that the numbers are as measured.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Well, I believe that settles it... Great work, Lee! Raw data, hard numbers.

- Thomas

 

[2F/2F]

It is exactly the same as Plus-X and Tri-X. Period. End of story. How obvious does it have to be? Quite wasting server space arguing about it. I was at Freestyle the other day, asked straight out, and got the answer we all know is true!

Too bad I shoot Ilford!

 

[JLP]

Too bad I shoot Ilford!

Never to late to convert!

jan

 

[Lee L]

It is exactly the same as Plus-X and Tri-X. Period. End of story. How obvious does it have to be? Quite [sic] wasting server space arguing about it. I was at Freestyle the other day, asked straight out, and got the answer we all know is true!

Too bad I shoot Ilford!

Use the ignore thread function. That's what it's there for. Besides, with all 30,800 of us in the store the other day we couldn't all get close enough to eavesdrop on your private conversation.

If I believed everything a photo sales clerk told me, or everything I read on the internet without some other verification, I'd be a lot poorer in more ways than one.

Lee

 

[2F/2F]

Use the ignore thread function. That's what it's there for. Besides, with all 30,800 of us in the store the other day we couldn't all get close enough to eavesdrop on your private conversation.

If I believed everything a photo sales clerk told me, or everything I read on the internet without some other verification, I'd be a lot poorer in more ways than one.

Lee

I asked Freestyle just to see if they said anything other than the obvious. Of course it is Plus-X and Tri-X. It would not be possible for it to be anything else. It has to be made by Kodak, and the listed times are identical. A test is fun and good to do, and I don't knock anyone for testing. I thought about doing so myself in a previous post about this film. However, why anybody has *any* doubt at all is beyond me. I am simply surprised by the "if it really is" comments, not getting on anyone's case for finding out for themselves.

 

[Chazzy]

Use the ignore thread function. That's what it's there for. Besides, with all 30,800 of us in the store the other day we couldn't all get close enough to eavesdrop on your private conversation.

If I believed everything a photo sales clerk told me, or everything I read on the internet without some other verification, I'd be a lot poorer in more ways than one.

Lee

I'm very grateful for your work. Thanks very much.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I'd like to echo Chazzy. Posts like these are great, because they cast beyond a doubt what is going on. Very few people are this methodical. I am not as disciplined as Lee.

If I ever pick up the 35mm camera again, I sure know where to start! Thanks for your work on this, Lee.

- Thomas

 

[Lee L]

Thanks guys, but it wasn't that much work. It was only exposing a couple of frames with a flash and making one processing run, plus the density measuring, which would have been very fast with the Darkroom Automation Meter if the heater hadn't kept cycling in the cold we're having and pulling the enlarger lamp down 1/3 stop. The hardest part for me is getting the darkroom time.

But like you and the Missourians, I prefer to be shown rather than told, especially when someone I don't know well says "trust me, it's just like" or "it's exactly the same as" when there's a big price difference, so I thought this might be worth posting for the other 'skeptics' out there.

For me locally, Tri-X 135-36 is $6 + tax + 30 miles of driving, so even with shipping and a single roll order the Arista Premium is break-even before counting what my time is worth.

Lee

 

[df cardwell]

Which makes you wonder. If Kodak is selling this to Freestyle cheap enough that they can then sell it to us for half the price of Tri-X/Plus-X, what's the deal?

Hmm, maybe if I ordered a bazillion miles of Tri X, Kodak would give me a price on it ?

 

[Lee L]

DF 400 developed in Cardinol? Has a certain ring to it.

Lee

 

[John Shriver]

Kodak is now in the situation that Ilford was in before their receivership. Ilford had over-capacity due to "no layoff" union labour contracts. That was fixed through receivership. Kodak obviously has substantial fixed costs, but they are probably things like property tax on plant and equipment. (I can't imagine Kodak has any "no layoff" union contracts.) There's a whole coating line just for making B&W film up there in Canada.

That makes the marginal cost of making an extra master roll, and selling it house-branded through Freestyle, be very low. Obviously, Kodak takes a risk of cannibalizing Tri-X sales, but they seem to think this will increase their profits.

What you're very unlikely to see is the same deal on T-MAX films. They already cost a buck more a roll than Tri-X and Plus-X, and they have a lot of product development costs to recoup on TMY-2.

 

[clayne]

I buy AP400 all the time - great film at a great price. It's pretty obvious to all parties involved, to the point that for my Flickr uploads, I just label all my images shot with it as Kodak Tri-X since that's what the emulsion is. Tend to expose it at 250 and develop in D-76. Doesn't get more tried and true than that.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kediwah/

 

[wogster]

Kodak is now in the situation that Ilford was in before their receivership. Ilford had over-capacity due to "no layoff" union labour contracts. That was fixed through receivership. Kodak obviously has substantial fixed costs, but they are probably things like property tax on plant and equipment. (I can't imagine Kodak has any "no layoff" union contracts.) There's a whole coating line just for making B&W film up there in Canada.

That makes the marginal cost of making an extra master roll, and selling it house-branded through Freestyle, be very low. Obviously, Kodak takes a risk of cannibalizing Tri-X sales, but they seem to think this will increase their profits.

What you're very unlikely to see is the same deal on T-MAX films. They already cost a buck more a roll than Tri-X and Plus-X, and they have a lot of product development costs to recoup on TMY-2.

I think you will find that Canadian coating line closed years ago, the Kodak complex in Toronto is a mere cloudy day shadow of what it once was..... It really comes down to, when you have the machinery and it's operating you make something on it, when it's sitting idle you don't.

The thing with rebranded film is that often the supplier contracts for the cheapest price they can on a regular basis, that basis is probably annually. Current batches are Tri-X, next year it could be HP-5, the year after it could be Foma, and a year after that it could be Efke, then back to Kodak. This makes it more difficult to make decisions on how to handle the film.

 

[clayne]

I think you will find that Canadian coating line closed years ago, the Kodak complex in Toronto is a mere cloudy day shadow of what it once was..... It really comes down to, when you have the machinery and it's operating you make something on it, when it's sitting idle you don't.

The thing with rebranded film is that often the supplier contracts for the cheapest price they can on a regular basis, that basis is probably annually. Current batches are Tri-X, next year it could be HP-5, the year after it could be Foma, and a year after that it could be Efke, then back to Kodak. This makes it more difficult to make decisions on how to handle the film.

In the case of Freestyle/Arista, they always use a new name.

 

[Anon Ymous]

The thing with rebranded film is that often the supplier contracts for the cheapest price they can on a regular basis, that basis is probably annually. Current batches are Tri-X, next year it could be HP-5, the year after it could be Foma, and a year after that it could be Efke, then back to Kodak. This makes it more difficult to make decisions on how to handle the film.

I can't see any problems, since they change the name when they change the source. There's Arista Premium, Edu, etc... Different films, different names.

You just don't know how lucky you are over there! A 100 ft roll of TriX costs about 60 euros over here! It's just a tad cheaper than buying preloaded...

 

[ElrodCod]

If Kodak is selling this to Freestyle cheap enough that they can then sell it to us for half the price of Tri-X/Plus-X, what's the deal?

A large part of the cost of a product is the advertising budget asociated with it. Kodak doesn't have that when selling a product to be rebranded.

 

[brofkand]

A large part of the cost of a product is the advertising budget asociated with it. Kodak doesn't have that when selling a product to be rebranded.

How long has it been since Kodak has spent a dime advertising film, let alone B&W film?

I guess the "cash cow" of film is paying for Kodak's razor-thin margins in the printer, digital camera, etc. businesses it has entered.