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New at Photokina 2012: ADOX SILVERMAX 35mm film 135/36

Made in Germany? Available in 35mm and 8mm? No T-grain emulsion? Emulsion not made by Fotoimpex inhouse? 100 ASA? Triacetete base?

Guys, it's so obvious. I would bet any money that it is Orwo UN54. The only remaining German film manufacturer is Filmotec, successor of the East German Orwo company. They produce black and white film for movies.

This is good news because it is a very good film. I saw results that were pretty impressive, even in good ol' Rodinal. I never tried it myself because it has only been available in rolls of 100' and more, and I just don't like to roll my own films, but I look forward to trying it as soon as it's available.
 
Aurelien said:
"Made in Germany" can only mean that is it cut and transformed in Germany ... This is German law about that !
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Or transformed and then cut?
When the film is good and the price is right.. who cares where the film was made?
 
Klopstock after rereading the original post by Mirko I believe you might have a point, the specs look a lot like Orwo UN54 ISO100 negative and reversal, Agfa Formula Orwo = Agfa, Modified APX is marketing speak adding more silver or another silver concentration has a huge impact on the emulsion and makes it a different film.
"Silvermax will be available only from ADOX/Fotoimpex" means they are the only one selling it as Silvermax nothing more.

But maybe I am wrong and even if it is UN54 that wouldn't necesseraly be a bad thing.

Dominik
 
So if it is an already known film, do we know how that film responds to ordinary developers instead of special ones?

D76? Rodinol? Xtol?
 
And you trust every person who is not MACO? Aren't you naive?

Fotokemika has just announced the ceasing of their production, and a few days later, a new film is announced to replace the ISO 100 !

Do you know how a film is made, and how long maturation is?

Please, think twice !
 
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Actually they stated that they were working on this film since half a year.

Aurelien said:
Please, think twice !
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Always a good advice. Do you follow it?

I prefer to draw my conclusions after the film is available. ADOX announced to have samples at Photokina and it will not take too long until the first people have compared it to KB100, UN54, APX100, Kentmere 100.
 
I went with the Rollei Retro 80s (Agfa) for ~100 iso shots, bought 3x17 meters and have shot the first rolls @160 this weekend, will be interesting to see how it works with HC-110 (Inspired by Aureliens tests).

But it will for sure be interesting to try this new film, if it comes in bulk rolls that is...

 
Aurelien said:
And you trust every person who is not MACO?
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No, that was just a pun to say that I have more trust in every other vendor. Maybe you don't like my humour.

Aurelien said:
Aren't you naive?
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No. I don't fall easily for marketing bla. If I were naive my last sentences above would be different, more like the nonsense that claqueur trolls post in forums.

Aurelien said:
Fotokemika has just announced the ceasing of their production, and a few days later, a new film is announced to replace the ISO 100 !

Do you know how a film is made, and how long maturation is?

Please, think twice !
Click to expand...

Do you?

Well, Photokina is 'fun' every two years. They found a good point of time for the announcement. The death of Plus-X would have been another good opportunity. At least they don't call it "the APX successor" or make similar use of other companies' achievements.

I guess it won't be as cheap as the last remainings of APX. They will not only max the silver content but also the price if they can show it's better.
 
Aurelien,
If You want to story-tell your mind to Adox (or any other company)..this is the wrong thread, many of us, film enthusiast, would not understand You properly.
Lets try the film first, then talk/conspire, OK?

Thanks
 
Actually they do, Mirko called it a modified version of APX, this means APX successor, does it not. Marketing is lies I don't trust Maco's marketing nor do I believe in the Fairy Godmother. More Silver than original APX means different than original APX.

Dominik
 
If this film is a modified APX100 it might be the closest thing to APX100 we have today.
Personally I'm not interested in APX100 (too grainy for my taste) and the need to use the special developer to get the claimed advantages is a minus for me.
If the (claimed) finer grain is achievable with standard developers like XTOL, I might test it and see if I like the combination of image and price.
 
OK, let's stop bickering about the pointless and complicated life of eastern European photo companies, and think about the film instead.

I'll repeat what I posted on other forums, but I don't see the point of this film.

It sounds interesting in theory, but what's the point of having 14 zones if your paper can't print them all?

All photographic films can be already be developed to cover a range of densities that is commensurate with the exposure range of a paper. That's why you can have full black, full white, and all the grey tones in between.

So what are you going to do? Develop to a lower contrast? But then you'll end up with the same Dmax as any other film, and bad tone separation.

You don't need extra zones to print silver gelatin. The only reason I know to have film developed to a very high Dmax is when you are printing on a soft-contrast paper, such as platinum/palladium, Van Dyke brown, etc.

But these processes are mostly sensitive to UV light, and are very slow, which preclude enlargement printing, unless you have a UV-source light in your enlarger. 35mm contact prints are a bit tiny.

It could be a film designed to do slides (in which case you do need the extra Dmax); it could also be a film designed to do copy work (like the late Tech Pan, which could build an impressive contrast), but I see nothing to this effect in the press release.

I smell a gimmick.
 
Michel Hardy-Vallée said:
It sounds interesting in theory, but what's the point of having 14 zones if your paper can't print them all?
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For me the point is burning in e.g. a sky.
But so far Acros and Delta 100 had more that sufficient headroom for this.
 
ath said:
For me the point is burning in e.g. a sky.
But so far Acros and Delta 100 had more that sufficient headroom for this.
Click to expand...

Good point--but as you say, current films can build enough density before hitting the shoulder in the H&D curve.

I expect something about the murky concept of "tonality" to soon pop up as explanation...
 
There's a distinction between a film being able to hold a long range of values due to compression ("minus" and/or compensating development with its inevitable compression of midtone microcontrast)
and a film which will actually carry a very wide range of values upon a relative straight part of the
curve. To my knowledge, the only current ultrafine-grained film which will do this is the now defunct
Efke 25 (about 12 stops). Otherwise, you're speaking about old-school thick-emulsion coarse films like Super-XX, Bergger 200, and Fomapan 200. I obviously have no idea of how the new film in question factors into this.
 
Oh, and Michel - tonality is the name of the game. The distinction I just referred to makes a significant difference in real world printing. There's nothing murky about it. And no, you can't do the
same kind of thing with Delta 100 or ACROS etc (fine films in their own right, but not the same kind
of thing at all).
 



Drew - Forgive my basic question, but when you say compression are you talking about a traditional film (eg PanF+, Tri-X) vs a tabular (Tmax, Delta, Acros)? If yes, do you think this new film is a traditional film (I believe Mirko said it was based on APX100)?
 
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Taken from our press release:

"SILVERMAX is coated onto clear triacetate and can be reversal processed"

So, yes, this is ofcourse one of the reasons for the extra silver and DMAX.
We tried to make a film for good negative and reversal processing.

Mirko
 
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