OK, here are some of the B&W cine films I've been testing...
SO-291 and 2360 Direct MP Film (probably the same thing) - This produces a positive image via normal dev/stop/fix developing! The ISO is something around .5 (yes, meter using ISO 6 on your camera meter, add 3 stops of light, and maybe add a little more...) Red tinted, needs to be washed out in prewash. Base is very thin and very clear, seems to pipe light so maybe no antihalation layer. Tricky to use as a camera film, best to bracket exposures by half stops, but since you're almost certainly using a tripod on fixed subjects because of low speed, not that big a deal. Haven't tried this yet, but should make quite excellent contact-print film to turn negs into slides (which is essentially what it was designed for, after all!) instead of having to reversal-process your original camera film.
SO-379 Fine Grain Release Positive. This is probably the prototype version of what became 5302/2302 release print film. Orthochromatic (really just blue-sensitive, then tails off quickly.) Resulting negatives have grey base, seemingly pretty normal contrast. ISO of around 6. Would seem to have little or no antihalation layer.
SO-331 High Contrast Pan Intermediate, which I believe is the same thing as 2369 High Contrast Panchromatic Film (I have both, and the results were very similar.) An intermediate film intended for making mattes and such. ISO of about 25, relatively panchromatic. Very clear base with little or no antihalation layer. Developed in something like recommended manner and indeed the resulting negatives were fairly high contrast. Have not yet tried lower contrast developing schemes.
5246 Direct Positive Panchromatic. Despite the name, develops as a negative film under normal processing. (You're supposed to reversal-process it to make it live up to its name.) ISO of 80. I'm not so sure this was really a cinema film, since it has X/XA frame number markings on edge! Grey base. Unlike all those lower speed films above, you can actually see some grain with this, though it's still quite fine grained. Grey base, seems to have normal antihalation layer. Normal contrast negs.
2238 Panchromatic Separation Film. ISO 25, panchromatic, fairly normal contrast. Fine grained, though it's no Tech Pan. See my other thread on this for more info.
5222 (aka Double-X) - This is supposed to be a camera negative film so nothing tricky here. ISO 250 though my tests for some reason indicate it was behaving more like ISO 400 (or maybe I was just somehow overdeveloping it a bit.) Normal contrast, fairly grainy, seems like a good film.
And that brings up an answer to "why mess with these films when they aren't supposed to be camera films?" Slow speed and insanely fine grain - surely there's a place for that in the world! Now that Tech Pan is no longer made. And heck, even Tech Pan was not intended to be a normal contrast pictorial film; photographers have had to do a lot of experimenting to use it in that fashion, and put up with the slow speed and strange developing regimen. So my tests with these intermediate and print films have been along those lines - trying to come up with a new use for something beyond what it was designed for.
If anyone wants a 100'-ish roll of any of the above films (other than 5222) to play with let me know. I'll send one in the US, including shipping, for $40-$50 depending on the exact film and how much it cost me.
I have also shot a whole pile of ECN-2 color cinema negative films but those tests are ongoing. That's a whole different ballgame - using films that were intended as camera negative films, but then dealing with processing and printing them in still film lengths and such. I'll definitely be selling 100' rolls of those once I complete my tests and make sure they're all still good... since a lot of them I got as short ends and from unknown storage conditions.... and there's just no way I'll ever personally need the thousands and thousands of feet of those that I have.
Duncan
