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Russian Film

Dave Pritchard

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May 24, 2009
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Location
North Caroli
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I found a roll of 120 film in a Kiev 88 which I just got. I wanted to see what the words on the label meant, so went looking for translations.

ЭКСПОНИРОВАНО is EXPOSED.

ЧЕРНО-БЕЛАЯ is BLACK AND WHITE.

ФОТО-64 is FOTO-64.

The film was, indeed, black and white. I developed it, but did not get good images. I mostly wanted to know if was color or B&W.
 
Dave Pritchard said:
ЭКСПОНИРОВАНО is EXPOSED.
Click to expand...

Э К С П О Н И Р О В А Н О = eh k s p o n ee r o v a n o

Sometimes just a phonetic/alphabetic transliteration can make Russian suddenly quasi-understandable when the words are similar, which for technical terms they often are. The Russians aren't borrowing the terms from American English, but from English English.

But sometimes not, unless you know some Russian geography and history...

Б Е Л А Я = b e l a y
Ч Е Р Н О = ch e r n o

Often fraternity names (Greek alphabet) can help decode a word:

Epsilon
Kappa
Stigma (not in many frat names)
Pi
Omnicron
... and one can guess the rest when the word is found at the end of a roll of film.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

I tried the transliteration first, but don't know much Russian history. Cherno-Belay did not ring a bell with me.
 
Maybe your film was from Chernobyl and exposed by gamma rays through an unopened shutter. That would explain the quality of the images.

A friend of mine once brought me a roll of Svema 35mm film from a trip to Russia. It came out totally blank, and I know it went through the camera properly. Go figure.

Peter Gomena
 
Both russian manafacturers made a b&w negative film called FN 64.
 
Russian film speed before 1987 was GOST (Russian acronym for "State Standard") which differed from ASA. According to Wikipedia on film speed, GOST numbers are lower than ASA. For example, a GOST of 65 is an ASA of 80, so I bet the film was underexposed.

I found this a while back while researching film speeds. Hope it helps!

Michael
 
Michael,

don't trust Wikipedia. I have got quite different numbers than you...
Anyway, as the GOST system uses a different speed testing system as DIN as well as ASA, comparative tables are always tricky as the shape of the characteristic curve plays a certain role.
 

The practical difference between a speed of 65 and 80 is negligible.
 
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