Rollei R3 film.

[thefizz]

I would love to hear from anyone who has tried out the Rollei R3 film. I believe it's sensitivity cutoff is near 710/730nm which must make it very similar to Ilford's SFX film.

Any thoughts?

Peter

 

[Amund]

I have tried a couple of rolls in 35mm. Developed as suggested by Rollei in D76, one roll at EI200 and one EI 400. Horrible results, extremely ugly looking grain and weird skintones whenever a person was in a image. From what I`ve heard it much better in the chemistry made for it, but I have yet to see an online image that looks good from this film... I still have a couple of rolls in 120 that I don`t know what to do with, I don`t want to buy those chemicals just for two rolls until I see some good results...
So if anyone has had sucess in other soups, let me know...

 

[honerich]

Rollei R3 has the same emulsion as Maco Cube 400c, a traffic surveilance film with increased red sensitivity. I had some rolls of the Cube 400c, even developed in the recommended LP Supergrain Developer (=Rollei High Speed) it was terrible! Now I know why I they call this soup "Supergrain".
Erich

 

[smudwhisk]

Couple of examples posted on rangefinderforum:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=24847&cat=500&ppuser=707

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=24848&cat=500&ppuser=707

I PM'd the guy to find out what he thought of the film, he advises it's less grainy at 100-200 iso and he only uses the Rollei developers. Haven't tried it myself yet but am interested as replacement for Ilford SFX 120.

 

[P C Headland]

I've only shot one roll (120) so far, and have one more left.

I shot it at 200 and had it developed commercially, so I don't know what developer they used. The tonality was ok, and grain not noticable (but then it's not usually in issue with 6x9), but it didn't make me go wow!

If it were priced more comparable to other films, it would be a good multi-purpose film to have on hand. Given its price, I'd rather use something like TriX coupled with a specific developer for when I want flexibility in speed but only want to carry one film.

 

[Amund]

Couple of examples posted on rangefinderforum:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=24847&cat=500&ppuser=707

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=24848&cat=500&ppuser=707

I PM'd the guy to find out what he thought of the film, he advises it's less grainy at 100-200 iso and he only uses the Rollei developers. Haven't tried it myself yet but am interested as replacement for Ilford SFX 120.

Those example looks good, a million times better than I got out of the R3.

 

[Fotohuis]

You can get good results out of the R3, but NOT with D76/ID11.

Like the SFX also the R3 is a T.S.F., sensible till approx. 710-730nm.
It has a 3 layer cubic emulsion of iso 50, 150 and iso 500. You need a depth developer for a suitable development: CG-512 (at 24 degrees C.) aka Rollei Low Speed (E.I. 50-200) or the AM74 (Amaloco) 1+7, aka Rollei High Speed (E.I. 200 till approx. 1000 which is a +2 push already). If you are going to a high dilution with AM74 (1+19), it is working as surface developer and it's not working anymore in the way it should with this special R3 film.

An E.I. over iso 1600 I can not recommend. Same why I do not understand the D76 recommendation of Rollei/Maco, worthless!

Best regards,

Robert

 

[nworth]

Mark Blackman did some tests with 8X10 R3 film last year and posted his results on the f32.org large format discussion form (http://www.f32.net/cgi-local/discus/discus.cgi, see under "film"). The results were quite remarkable at the higher emulsion speeds, but I thought the intermediate speeds left something to be desired.

 

[thefizz]

Thank you all for sharing your views of the film.