Orwo/Inoviscoat Wolfen NC500--any tips for using this film?

I bought a few rolls of the relatively new Wolfen NC500 film at a discount. I already know this film is desaturated and very grainy, but I think if it's used for the right subjects and settings that could be used as an advantage. Having said that, does anyone use this film and have any advice to offer?

The box speed is 400ISO but I've heard of people rating it at 200 or 320 as well. I also heard the latitude isn't so great, so I'm a bit worried if I meter at 200 I may end up messing up the highlights, but I don't know for sure. I also saw someone talking about how they noticed it seemed to need different metering based on different types of lighting, so if anyone knows about that some information would be helpful.

Thanks.

Minolta93 said:

I also saw someone talking about how they noticed it seemed to need different metering based on different types of lighting

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I wouldn't put too much stock in that sort of thing. People say lots of things.
I plotted the curves of NC400 and NC500 from their datasheets against each other here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...with-35-70mm-vario-elmar.213441/#post-2892644
As you can see, NC500 is a reasonably well-behaved CN film. You could shoot it at box speed or overexpose it some for more robust shadows. I wouldn't make things more complicated beyond that. Just go ahead and have fun with it.

koraks said:

I wouldn't put too much stock in that sort of thing. People say lots of things.
I plotted the curves of NC400 and NC500 from their datasheets against each other here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...with-35-70mm-vario-elmar.213441/#post-2892644
As you can see, NC500 is a reasonably well-behaved CN film. You could shoot it at box speed or overexpose it some for more robust shadows. I wouldn't make things more complicated beyond that. Just go ahead and have fun with it.

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Thank you. I will probably overexpose it 1/2 to 1 stop just to give myself some leeway because I'll be shooting without a meter using sunny 16.

There's a thread here on the forum about Sunny 16; I think the gist of it is that it's important to realize what Sunny 16 means for the kind of place you're at. For instance, where I live, it's mostly 'Sunny 11 and a bit' or something along those lines.

koraks said:

There's a thread here on the forum about Sunny 16; I think the gist of it is that it's important to realize what Sunny 16 means for the kind of place you're at. For instance, where I live, it's mostly 'Sunny 11 and a bit' or something along those lines.

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I've been able to get great results by eyeballing scenes with my Contina in the past, but I was using Kodak film and from what I understand, Orwo doesn't have the same latitude. But, I'll be using the NC500 tomorrow in overcast conditions outdoors, so I may not have to worry about high contrast scenes too much.

FWIW, f/16 has indeed worked fine in California where I live.

From what you've told me I feel fine about shooting this film, I think maybe I got a bit scared after I read some other people's reviews.

I'm sorry, I got them mixed up earlier; NC500 is actually the less well-behaved one of the two. NC400 is reasonably linear; NC500 is the one that slopes off really weirdly:

This means that it'll give pretty wonky results either way. Either you give just enough exposure to get the job done and you end up with a kind of a weird toe and compressed highlights, or you expose more liberally and basically just everything compresses except for the shadows and lower midtones.

Minolta93 said:

Orwo doesn't have the same latitude

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Latitude is a difficult construct, especially in the case of a film like this. I'd rather not think in those terms. You can to an extent pick the space on a film's curve you'd like to work at. That's a more realistic approach than thinking in terms of latitude. The problem with the construct of latitude is that it implies that it doesn't matter much what you do as long as you remain within a certain bandwidth. That's virtually never the case with film, since you always have a toe and a shoulder to contend with.

As to high-contrast scenes - you can expect these to compress effectively.

Btw, all the talk about curves is a lot less relevant if you scan than if you print optically. If you scan, you just adjust contrast (and saturation) in whatever way you please. In that sense it really doesn't matter all that much what you do, provided you give sufficient exposure to get the shadows to differentiate to your liking. Fix the rest in post.

In my (limited) experience it behaves almost like a tungsten balanced film, which makes sense as it's supposed to be derived from one. Haven't done it myself yet but I've seen some good results from other people using an 85B warming filter with it for a bit more "normal" colours.

I recently commented on another thread that my experience with one roll at box speed was underexposure-artefact-type blue mottling throughout the roll, very conspicuous in darker areas and discernible in the lighter areas. Ten301 replied that they shoot it at EI 250.

I tried to develop this film in C-41. and make prints out of it. I didn't like the results very much. It looked quite muddy. Maybe something like ECN-2 with a slightly extended developing time would produce better pictures. I haven't tried this though, as I do not normally store chemistry for this process.

Minolta93 said:

I bought a few rolls of the relatively new Wolfen NC500 film at a discount. I already know this film is desaturated and very grainy, but I think if it's used for the right subjects and settings that could be used as an advantage. Having said that, does anyone use this film and have any advice to offer?

The box speed is 400ISO but I've heard of people rating it at 200 or 320 as well. I also heard the latitude isn't so great, so I'm a bit worried if I meter at 200 I may end up messing up the highlights, but I don't know for sure. I also saw someone talking about how they noticed it seemed to need different metering based on different types of lighting, so if anyone knows about that some information would be helpful.

Thanks.

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It's a very interesting film. I've been using more and more of it lately. I set my F90X to centre-weighted metering, EI 200, and fire away.

Do you develop your own C41 or use a trustworthy lab which uses fresh chemistry and correct processing? If not, you should.

Do you scan your film yourself? If not, you should.

I use a good lab I trust, and scan my film, and in my fixed, calibrated scanning setup (in which I employ minimal post-processing) this film has a reproducibly distinctive look, one I'm not interested in achieving by using other film, and then tinkering around with the sliders in Photoshop. Note: the look (let's call it "signature") is not given by colour only.

If you are able to, and/or interested in, creating your vision via post-processing, go ahead and pick the cheapest film you can source, and then massage it lightroom to get your favourite 'Orwo 500' look or the 'Portra 400' look.

I can't do that, and I'm not interested at all in doing that, so I buy the film I like, and keep everything I can in my workflow as controlled as possible, and I DO see differences across film types that make me want to go back, or not go back, to that film.

Observe the film rendition in your own closed, controlled workflow, and decide whether you like what you see or not.