ortho, not pan film

Claudia Moroni · Oct 8, 2013

Sorry, it took me a while, but I've finally processed the Ilford Ortho sheets, so that I can update this thread and show you the results.

I did a 3 minutes pre wash and then I developed them in Rollei Low Contrast 1+4 (300ml of solution) using the Jobo CPE-2 and continuos agitation at 20 °C for 9 and a half minutes

The films were exposed at 50 iso.

Katie · Oct 8, 2013

These look great!

Claudia Moroni · Oct 21, 2013

Thanks!

I fell in love with this combination, I'm not great at developing and all the shots I took following this process came out very well.

Gerald C Koch · Oct 23, 2013

I personally do not mourn the loss of orthochromatic film having had to use it for many years. With the advent of panchromatic film gone are the featureless skies and exaggerated skin blemishes. Good riddance. Orthochromatic film has very little to recommend its use.

ntenny · Oct 23, 2013

Gerald C Koch said:
I personally do not mourn the loss of orthochromatic film having had to use it for many years. With the advent of panchromatic film gone are the featureless skies and skin blemishes. Good riddance. Orthochromatic film has very little to recommend its use.

I don't know---I use ortho film for landscapes routinely, and I wouldn't call the resulting skies "featureless".

I'm not sure how much the Rollei/Maco/Adox stuff represents a typical pictorial-ortho film, but it has the virtues of really fine grain, really high dynamic range, and interestingly high but still pictorial contrast.

-NT

Gerald C Koch · Oct 23, 2013

ntenny said:
I don't know---I use ortho film for landscapes routinely, and I wouldn't call the resulting skies "featureless".

View attachment 75958

I'm not sure how much the Rollei/Maco/Adox stuff represents a typical pictorial-ortho film, but it has the virtues of really fine grain, really high dynamic range, and interestingly high but still pictorial contrast.

-NT

The virtues that you describe are not restricted to orthochromatic films but rather to their emulsion design. What is marketed as an ortho film may not be a true ortho film. It all depends on the spectral response of the sensitizing dye(s).

ntenny · Oct 23, 2013

Gerald C Koch said:
The virtues that you describe are not restricted to orthochromatic films but rather to their emulsion design. What is marketed as an ortho film may not be a true ortho film.

Well, in principle they're not unique to ortho films, but what would you nominate as a pan film with all those traits? The combination of contrast and dynamic range is pretty unusual---I don't know if it's more difficult to do that with full pan sensitization, or if it's an historical accident that document/repro films have been orthochromatic, or what. But as far as I know, in the real world that particular combination of virtues actually *is* restricted to ortho films, or nearly so.

Rollei are wonderfully inconsistent in their descriptions, but it seems that their film is sensitive up to 610 nm (I can't find the shape of the curve). Whether you consider that "true" ortho is down to your definition of the term, I suppose, but to my eye 610 nm is orange. I think the late lamented "orthopanchromatic" Efke 25 reached up to 650 nm.

-NT

Photo Engineer · Oct 23, 2013

It is just as easy to find a pan film you like and then put the right filter over the lens!

PE

Gerald C Koch · Oct 23, 2013

To make everything clear.

orthochromatic film sensitivity 375 to 560 nm
isochromatic film range extended to 620 - 650 nm
panchromatic film range extended to 660 - 730 nm

Sorry to be negative about ortho films but I have been going thru some of my older photos and find that they are not as good as they could have been if a better panchromatic film had been used. Of course my choices were limited at the time. On doing further research and looking at the films I used my comment about "featureless skies" may have been caused by the sensitivity of early panchromatic films. Early panchromatic films were overly sensitive to blue light and therefor did not represent colors in the correct shades of gray.

lensmagic · Oct 23, 2013

As to orthochromatic film, I am curious not so much about the colors filtered in or out, but rather about the contrast produced. Is it true that orthochromatic films are higher in contrast than panchromatic films?

Claudia Moroni · Oct 24, 2013

Personally I like the way orthochromatic film picks up the skin details (o blemishes, depending on the model).
It's probably not the most flattering film out there to use for portraits, but I like the sense of texture that it gives to the skin and I think it works very well with the right subjects.

I only tried Ilford Ortho Plus, so I'm not sure how the other films vary.
I bought it because I was curious to try something different and I wanted to recreate a certain effect that you get when using emulsions with reduced sensitivity to certain bandwidths.

Regarding contrast, I used a low contrast developer and very soft light, maybe next time I should try to see how contrasty it is with a normal developer.
Any recommendations?

Another question for the experts: if the results of using ortho film are exactly the same as using pan film with the right filter, why is ortho film still sold? isn't there anything that distinguish ortho from pan other than the sensitivity to red?

AgX · Oct 24, 2013

Gerald C Koch said:
To make everything clear.

orthochromatic film sensitivity 375 to 560 nm
isochromatic film range extended to 620 - 650 nm
panchromatic film range extended to 660 - 730 nm

-) there is no general definition of those terms, let alone with that precision.

-) the spectral sensitivity spread within the ranges varies substantially between films. Also the typical curves changed over time.

-) a film designated as panchromatic b&w typically reaches as far as 660nm

removed account4 · Oct 24, 2013

Gerald C Koch said:
To make everything clear.

orthochromatic film sensitivity 375 to 560 nm
isochromatic film range extended to 620 - 650 nm
panchromatic film range extended to 660 - 730 nm

Sorry to be negative about ortho films but I have been going thru some of my older photos and find that they are not as good as they could have been if a better panchromatic film had been used. Of course my choices were limited at the time. On doing further research and looking at the films I used my comment about "featureless skies" may have been caused by the sensitivity of early panchromatic films. Early panchromatic films were overly sensitive to blue light and therefor did not represent colors in the correct shades of gray.

gerald:

you mean, you didn't combination print them with a cloud screen?

john

Vaughn · Oct 24, 2013

I enjoyed using Kodak Copy film http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/f17/f17.pdf

From the above link:

"With most black-and-white films, the contrast of
negatives is controlled by development. However, with
KODAK Professional Copy Film, contrast in the copy
negative is controlled by both exposure and development.

Development controls the contrast of the midtone and
shadow regions of the negative (and to a slight extent, the
highlight region), while exposure primarily controls the
contrast of the highlight. For a given development condition,
as the exposure increases, highlight density increases at a
faster rate than shadow density, increasing the overall
contrast."

I do not know if it had to do with it being a ortho film, but it was very useful in getting greatly increased highlight contrast, or density in the highlights, for making carbon prints. One had to be careful using it -- a little more exposure and a little more development and the highlights would take off like a herd of wild horses. But it was great for expanding a normal contrast scene, yet keeping a nice even tonality.

I have a Kodak Copy Film negative that one needs a very bright light behind to see anything in the highlights...they looked blocked-up. But the resulting carbon print kept wonderful detail and separation of the tones in the highlights (sun-lite granite).

I tried some of the Rollei Ortho 25...not the same stuff as the Kodak Copy and I did not have enough of it to tame the horses properly.

ntenny · Oct 24, 2013

Gerald C Koch said:
To make everything clear.

orthochromatic film sensitivity 375 to 560 nm
isochromatic film range extended to 620 - 650 nm
panchromatic film range extended to 660 - 730 nm

Source? I tried yesterday (in a fairly shallow way) to find a standard definition for the terms and came up empty.

(If you take Rollei at their word that the sensitivity stops at 610 nm, by these definitions that would make it "not quite isochromatic". I suppose you can insist on rigorously distinguishing it from "true ortho" on that basis, but I'm not sure why it's important.)

-NT

Gerald C Koch · Oct 24, 2013

ntenny said:
Source? I tried yesterday (in a fairly shallow way) to find a standard definition for the terms and came up empty.

-NT

From the following site.

http://dacnard.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/the-real-shades-of-gray-bw-film-is-a-matter-of-heart-pt-1/

ntenny · Oct 24, 2013

Gerald C Koch said:
From the following site.

http://dacnard.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/the-real-shades-of-gray-bw-film-is-a-matter-of-heart-pt-1/

...whose apparent source is an article by Torsten Andreas Hoffmann, and I don't know what Hoffmann's source for the numbers was---but even that says "approximately 560-600 nm" for the ortho ceiling.

We're totally splitting hairs here, I know, but I think it's kind of unreasonable to pick a lower bound from a source of nonobvious provenance, drop the word "approximately", and say "the hard limit is X, full stop"!

-NT

Gerald C Koch · Oct 24, 2013

ntenny said:
...whose apparent source is an article by Torsten Andreas Hoffmann, and I don't know what Hoffmann's source for the numbers was---but even that says "approximately 560-600 nm" for the ortho ceiling.

We're totally splitting hairs here, I know, but I think it's kind of unreasonable to pick a lower bound from a source of nonobvious provenance, drop the word "approximately", and say "the hard limit is X, full stop"!

-NT

When you specify a range of values that is the equivalent of saying approximately. I too am tired of splitting hairs. I posted a personal opinion which has taken on another aspect.

Photo Engineer · Oct 24, 2013

lensmagic said:
As to orthochromatic film, I am curious not so much about the colors filtered in or out, but rather about the contrast produced. Is it true that orthochromatic films are higher in contrast than panchromatic films?

NO!

Photo Engineer · Oct 24, 2013

Here we go again.

Here are spectral curves and definitions of the various types of film.

PE

lensmagic · Oct 24, 2013

Photo Engineer said:
NO!

That answers that!

ntenny · Oct 25, 2013

Photo Engineer said:
NO!

Well, except for the ones that actually exist, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only ortho films still standing are either "line" films (Ilford, Rollei/Maco) or litho. So the answer might be more "in principle, NO!, but in practice, coincidentally yes".

Why *are* document films ortho, anyway? Is there something about pan sensitization that makes some of the document-film characteristics harder to achieve, or is it just on the assumption that any document with colors in it would need to be reproduced in color?

-NT

Vaughn · Oct 25, 2013

ntenny said:
Well, except for the ones that actually exist, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only ortho films still standing are either "line" films (Ilford, Rollei/Maco) or litho. So the answer might be more "in principle, NO!, but in practice, coincidentally yes".

Why *are* document films ortho, anyway? Is there something about pan sensitization that makes some of the document-film characteristics harder to achieve, or is it just on the assumption that any document with colors in it would need to be reproduced in color?

-NT

I have heard/read that slower films tend to have higher contrast -- most ortho films are slow, thus they tend to be higher contrast?

Ortho films would tend to hid the blue cutlines on white paper better than pan films, perhaps?

cliveh · Oct 25, 2013

For me the spectral sensitivity of ortho is not all that important. What makes this a usable film for me is the fact that you can develop it like paper and see what you are doing. All my Van Dyke browns are produced post pan to ortho.

Photo Engineer · Oct 25, 2013

One overall comment! Any film sensitivity can be built to have any contrast at any speed. To have a special feature, it is necessary to have a special need. Then that need is satisfied by design. (or sometimes by accident)

PE

ortho, not pan film

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