Ultrafine Plus 100 120 film -- Garbage

JW PHOTO · Feb 27, 2015

pentaxuser said:
They sold most of that 212 batch of film to Roman soldiers who wanted to send shots of Hadrian's Wall on Ilford postcard paper back to their folks in sunny Italy.

Of course Ilford were very small then but every week it despatched a man called Simon with a horse and cart from Cheshire to sell to the Romans. Woad toning was another popular line He eventually persuaded the Romans to switch to HP5+ which could withstand the extreme climate and the rest is history

pentaxuser

I just love you history-buffs. It all makes sense now that we have the historical facts all laid out for us. John W

Simon R Galley · Feb 27, 2015

Dear Pentax user.....

How very near the truth you are ! I was born and lived for the first 30 years odd of my life not 5 miles from the Eastern end of Hadrians Wall, the niftily named town of Wallsend!.

( I lived at Cullercoats / Tynemouth ).

Simon ILFORD Photo / HADRIAN technology Limited :

MattKing · Feb 27, 2015

212 is clearly wrong.

CCXII is what you need

newcan1 · Feb 27, 2015

Well putting aside the laughs about my typo, my rehalogenation experiment appears to have been a total success. I have negatives without clumpy grain nor frame numbers. The film lost a bit of speed - I would probably expose it next time at 64 ASA instead of 100, and develop for say 12 mins instead of 10.5. But for a little effort, the film can be reclaimed to use with good results. I'll post an image or two tomorrow.

AgX · Feb 27, 2015

Could you inform us about that rehalogenisation experiment?

Richard S. (rich815) · Feb 28, 2015

newcan1 said:
Well putting aside the laughs about my typo, my rehalogenation experiment appears to have been a total success. I have negatives without clumpy grain nor frame numbers. The film lost a bit of speed - I would probably expose it next time at 64 ASA instead of 100, and develop for say 12 mins instead of 10.5. But for a little effort, the film can be reclaimed to use with good results. I'll post an image or two tomorrow.

And the process too please!

newcan1 · Feb 28, 2015

I will. I probably won't get back to this until tomorrow. Basically I mixed a ferricyanide/potassium bromide bleach, the sort that would be listed in some early C41 recipes (I can post what formula I used when I get back to my darkroom). I removed the film from its backing paper and loaded it into a tank. I bleached for 30 seconds then washed, then dried the film in total darkness and re-rolled it with the backing paper. I took some test shots and developed conventionally. Some of the test shots were a bit thin; the clumpiness and frame numbers were totally gone.

I plan 2 follow up tests. (1) to shoot a roll without bleaching, and develop with the addition of benzotriazole (not sure how much), and see if this restrains development of the backing paper fogging (maybe expose at 50 or 64 ASA for this), and (2) bleach, expose at 64 ASA, and develop for say 12 minutes instead of 10.5. If BZT is not effective and I have to bleach, I may try follow-up tests with weaker bleach.

At any event, the film is very useable, but if I have to bleach, I need to be able to streamline the process to make it worthwhile time-wise.

mrred · Feb 28, 2015

I can partially verify this "magic" as I have about 150 rolls of GP3 100/120 crapped out in the same way, and for the neigh-sayers, it happened before it expired. I didn't notice initially because I mostly did reversals with it. The reversal bleach step got rid of the problem too.

As far as Kodak is concerned, I will use every other manufacturer first as they stopped making my preferred film a while ago. I get fine results through technique and better adapted chemistry. The price of TriX is absurd and as far as IQ is concerned, GP3 is a good film (out side of this issue).

fotch · Feb 28, 2015

Gerald C Koch said:
You get what you pay for. If you want quality backed up by a reputable company then stick with film from a first tier manufacturer like Kodak or Ilford. If we don't support these companies then they will go out of business and we will be left only with crap.

Less is more. I would rather have quality than quantity. I only buy Kodak & Ilford, although I use to buy Agfa before it disappeared.

newcan1 · Feb 28, 2015

If you look at an unexposed area of the film, the clumpiness and frame numbers are extremely faint. I am hoping that Benzotriazole does the trick, as that would eliminate the time needed for the bleach treatment.

mklw1954 · Mar 1, 2015

Yes the Plus film is poor but their Xtreme film is excellent.

newcan1 · Mar 1, 2015

Test shot from rehogenated roll.

newcan1 · Mar 1, 2015

Just tried 25mg bezotriazole in 16oz of working strength D76 (1:1)...way too much bzt...even at 64 ASA the negatives were extremely thin (but no base fog). Trying 5mg next....

newcan1 · Mar 1, 2015

exposed at 64 ASA, D76 1:1 with 5mg benzotriazole per 16oz working solution; development time 14 mins. The negatives looked perfect.

newcan1 · Mar 1, 2015

I think for my next test I'll try 3mg BZT and expose at 80 ASA; keep dev time at 14min

Roger Cole · Mar 1, 2015

mrred said:
I can partially verify this "magic" as I have about 150 rolls of GP3 100/120 crapped out in the same way, and for the neigh-sayers, it happened before it expired. I didn't notice initially because I mostly did reversals with it. The reversal bleach step got rid of the problem too.

As far as Kodak is concerned, I will use every other manufacturer first as they stopped making my preferred film a while ago. I get fine results through technique and better adapted chemistry. The price of TriX is absurd and as far as IQ is concerned, GP3 is a good film (out side of this issue).

I'm not sure about Canada but in the US (and don't many Canadians simply order film from B&H like those of us on the US side?) Only in 35mm bulk and sheets (TXP in that case) is Tri-X significantly more expensive than other name brand film. This thread is about 120. At B&H currently TX is $4.89. HP5+ is $4.09. TMY-2 is $4.59 and Delta 400 is $4.95. None of those differences are enough to make a selection based on cost.

I can't find what this "Ultrafine Plus" actually costs because they don't list it in 120, but whatever it is, it's more than it's worth. If I have to unroll my film, chemically treat it, dry it in the dark, then respool it in the dark manually, forget about it.

If you want to save some money on film and get a film that works ok, use the Arista branded Foma, or maybe the new incarnation of Shanghai which good things are being posted about on here.

"You get what you pay for. You get what you pay for. You get what you pay for...."

Roger Cole · Mar 1, 2015

newcan1 said:
View attachment 104377

exposed at 64 ASA, D76 1:1 with 5mg benzotriazole per 16oz working solution; development time 14 mins. The negatives looked perfect.

That's a lot better than having to pre-treat it. For someone who already has a fair amount of this film I'd look into this method.

newcan1 · Mar 1, 2015

OK for my final test, I exposed at 80 ASA, put 3mg/16oz into the working strength D76, and developed for 14 min. Results were very good.

Richard S. (rich815) · Mar 1, 2015

Got any from those tests with open skies or at least large open areas?

mrred · Mar 1, 2015

Roger Cole said:
I'm not sure about Canada but in the US (and don't many Canadians simply order film from B&H like those of us on the US side?) Only in 35mm bulk and sheets (TXP in that case) is Tri-X significantly more expensive than other name brand film. This thread is about 120. At B&H currently TX is $4.89. HP5+ is $4.09. TMY-2 is $4.59 and Delta 400 is $4.95. None of those differences are enough to make a selection based on cost.

I can't speak for others here, but I didn't buy the bricks based on cost. GP3 is actually a beautiful film for reversals. I have a bunch of TMY and ACROS that do not reverse well at all. What you need for reversals is an old thin coating that you can build a lot of developing time on. The Kodak TriX (still version) TMY, TMX and ACROS have too thick of an emulsion to do reversals without having to add an excessive amount of solvent. The highest IQ comes from using no (or little) solvent at all. PlusX and Neopan400 were perfect, but exist no more.

So... the old school films are where I want to be. GP3 was a reasonable price for a great reversal film.

I can understand why people who shoot negs don't see why I shoot this stuff. But with reversals, I get a higher IQ than with (negs) TmY or ACROS.

mrred · Mar 1, 2015

newcan1 said:
OK for my final test, I exposed at 80 ASA, put 3mg/16oz into the working strength D76, and developed for 14 min. Results were very good.View attachment 104397

What would be the normal dev time?

Roger Cole · Mar 1, 2015

I get it for reversal if it reverses better. Since I enjoy shooting slides for projection and projecting them, this is something I want to get into eventually.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk and 100% recycled electrons - because I care.

Athiril · Mar 2, 2015

Acros will need its own formulated developer, I've got a formula that works really well for T-Max 100 and Delta 100, Acros looks bad in it.

newcan1 · Mar 2, 2015

Richard Sintchak (rich815) said:
Got any from those tests with open skies or at least large open areas?

Yes, and the negatives look good. I will post a scan later today.

newcan1 · Mar 2, 2015

mrred said:
What would be the normal dev time?

10.5 mins I believe

Ultrafine Plus 100 120 film -- Garbage

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