What's up with rebranded film? (IMAGO 320)

Arctic amateur said:

If I understand correctly, the only reason to think this film is relabeled Retropan is the 320 ISO designation?

From the datasheets of both, I find this info:
Imago 320: Offered in 135 format on 120 micron acetate base, and 120 format on 100 microns base. Suggested development: HC-110(B) 5 mins 30 sec or Microphen stock 6 mins 30 sec, red-cutoff 680 nm
Foma Retropan 320: Offered in 135 format on 125 micron acetate base, and sheet film on 175 micron. Suggested development: HC-110(B) 7-8 minutes or Microphen stock 10-11 mins, red-cutoff around 670 nm

Other developers are suggested on the datasheet, but those two are the only ones in common.

Regarding 5222: FPP's markup is 40% from EK list price, not 100% as Trendland claims. The current Eastman Kodak list price is $645 for 1000 feet (https://www.kodak.com/uploadedFiles...ucts-Price-Catalog-US-Prices_Sept_2017_V7.pdf, page 18).

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Well - from all parameters you mentioned as comparison between both films - thank you for this information Arctic amateur - the red cut of has the most impact to me.
That both films aren't the same.
Because of : 120 micron acetat base to 125 micron acetat base - (to me) it is the same.
Who will messure micron (in mm) ? I guess you have allways a tollerance of min. 1-2 micron - am I right ?

The difference in recomanded developing times I absolute would not care about.
Have you ever reached optimal results with allways same times as recomanded
artic amateur?
Sometimes we all noticed bad published (wrong) times. Thats realy relative.
But the infrared sensitivity up to 670nm vs 680nm that make a real difference from the film.
If we can say it precisly it may be a films
"fingerprint" ( films with allways exact 675,8 nm redcut)
On the other hand this may be also in concern to production tollerance.
You will never see all emulsion numbered films with 675,82 nm for example.
I can't say in what form the ability in IR depends to aged films - may be it increases very little like ISO sensitive in bw.
So we are just at the beginning - because
670nm vs. 680nm is relative and may be the same.......
Does not anybody tryed this film meanwhile and has also experience with Retro320?
I just have still one Retro320 remaining
but I will not buy this new film (as I sayd before)
Otherwise we may speculate about origin of this new emulsion much longer behind the film is discontinued - what may be happend meanwile with Retro320.
But this makes the speculation about - real interisting, because both issues may come together then.

with regards

pentaxuser said:

I read Ko.Fe.'s post with interest but one question arose in my mind. If you buy master rolls and assuming that when you do the "master" asks no questions of you, isn't the maker's name on the film? This would certainly seem to be the case with Ilford and Kodak but other film makers may not put their names on the edges. If they don't and don't mind someone buying say a 10,000 feet roll then rebadging is certainly possible but what are the facts about this.

Secondly it appears that this film is yet to be processed by anyone in this thread so presumably we don't know what will appear on the edges. If for instance Foma doesn't bother to mark its film and is happy to sell master rolls to Mr X then it would appear to run the real danger of Mr X selling the same film re-badged at possibly a lower price.

This behaviour on the part of a recognised film maker resembles the missionary's action in the joke: The missionary, knowing the tribe who has captured him will deliver one swift blow to instantly kill him because they want his skin to make their canoes, produces a knife and proceeds to stab himself repeatedly unto death, crying " you not going to make me into a canoe"

pentaxuser

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I am not sure when master rolls are marked with the manufacturer's name but I do know that Arista EDU Ultra film does show up with the Fomapan brand on the film edges on the 120 format at least. I shoot a lot of this film, and I'm not sure it happens all the time, but I have seen it.

Which brings up an interesting point. Freestyle has rebranded and resold film for years and years and no one has blinked an eye. In fact, for quite awhile, Freestyle sold Kodak TriX under the Arista Premium brand. In all the time that Freestyle has been doing this it has never (at least to my knowledge) been an issue with anyone.

Why is rebranding OK for one company and not for another?

I would be happy to try this film out and compare it against Retro 320 but when I try to order the Imago 320 it is no longer in stock. Obviously a very limited edition.

Maybe someone else is going to test it for us.

It is ok to the One company if they make
nice pricing (so I understand your sympathy to Freestyle - or did they priced Kodak films much higher than Kodak itself in the past) - I can't say I haven't bought Freestyle up to now.
It is ok to the Other company if they make nice pricing with old stuff of old masterrolls (from me) also ok with very old films if they are still usable - to extrem nice price - why not.
But it is (to me) not ok if the one Other company is doing the oposite (old stuff higher priced).
It everybody should think : THIS can't be true - it can't happen we are no idiots thats impossible - I state it happens.
And that's a little bit complete new situation.
Allways from the same type :
1) new film
2) phantastic new abilties (various speed a.s.o)
3) funky design, hipster name
4) expensive
5) short after introduction discontinued,
meanwhile not avaible.

And therefore it is an urgent need the manufacturer has to say from what film it is. FROM reasons of comparability.
Well - as we see AgfaCT100 Precisa for example nowbody will carte about it isn't from Agfa because it is
1) the better film
2) nice priced
3) avaible since many years
4) I don't carte about if it is Fuji Provia RDP II or meanwhile RDP III
5) I also don't carte about Agfa and Fuji will not tell us - because we know this meanwhile.
Notice : Such phantasy films are to a short time on the market (1-2, max.3 years) I want to know what it is exactly.
with regards

PS : We live in a film desert where every week a new oasis is oppened.
With allways 2 products :

1) coke ($ 95,- L)
2) water ($ 40,- L)

and both is water ! The coke is just darkened water......

Pioneer said:

I am not sure when master rolls are marked with the manufacturer's name but I do know that Arista EDU Ultra film does show up with the Fomapan brand on the film edges on the 120 format at least. I shoot a lot of this film, and I'm not sure it happens all the time, but I have seen it.

Which brings up an interesting point. Freestyle has rebranded and resold film for years and years and no one has blinked an eye. In fact, for quite awhile, Freestyle sold Kodak TriX under the Arista Premium brand. In all the time that Freestyle has been doing this it has never (at least to my knowledge) been an issue with anyone.

Why is rebranding OK for one company and not for another?

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The re-branding isn't a problem if the re-brander has a long history of both doing it and standing behind the results.
And when the product isn't re-branded, but instead simply coated and finished to specifications, that is fine too.
There does seem to be a fair amount of re-purposing though - films designed for one purpose (such as aerial recognizance) being marketed for another (such as general purpose photography), with the resulting strange results being trumpeted as "features".

Arctic amateur said:

If I understand correctly, the only reason to think this film is relabeled Retropan is the 320 ISO designation?

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I stand corrected

MattKing said:

The re-branding isn't a problem if the re-brander has a long history of both doing it and standing behind the results.
And when the product isn't re-branded, but instead simply coated and finished to specifications, that is fine too.
There does seem to be a fair amount of re-purposing though - films designed for one purpose (such as aerial recognizance) being marketed for another (such as general purpose photography), with the resulting strange results being trumpeted as "features".

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Again I have to confess a bit of confusion. Rebranding is ok but repurposing is not. This sounds a lot like meaningless semantics.

Adox CMS 20 appears to be the perfect example of this repurposing, is it not? Yet this film is currently used very successfully totally outside of its original purpose as a (incorrect characterization of this film as a surveillance film) document film. Certainly it can be a bit tough to expose or develop properly. In fact its resolution is so high that most photographers may not have adequate technique to get the best out of it. But that doesn't make it any less valuable to those who do know how to use it, nor should it be kept from people who need to up their game to use it properly.

In my opinion, setting ourselves up as judge and jury on which films should or should not be sold, rebranded or repurposed is just another way of unnecessarily limiting everyone's options. What we end up with is an entire group of perfectly good companies or individuals being misrepresented and attacked for providing us these films. Finally, as is the way of internet forums, it begins to turn into a situation where people begin running things down even though they really have no idea whether or not a given product or company is good or bad. A lot of companies that currently support the analogue film market are actually pretty small operations. An undeserved bad rep started on this forum could reduce their business enough to put them out of business. And for all we know one of these new companies who are rebranding and/or repurposing some particular film may be one of the big players in this market a decade or more down the road.

This forum has traditionally supported analogue film products. We need to be very, very careful to provide a fair and honest assessment and discussion of new products in the market, whether we personally have any intention of using them or not. There is absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out the possible pitfalls, but not to attack the companies or their products, oftentimes before anyone has even had a fair chance to try the given product out or test it. It seems we are turning into a bunch of grumpy old men who want to spend our last few years ranting against Lomo, hipsters or anything else that doesn't resemble what we remember from 30 or 40 years ago when we started our own photographic journeys.

If that is what everyone here really wants then this forum will become less and less influential and will end up dying on the fringes of what we claim to be supporting.

Pioneer said:

Again I have to confess a bit of confusion. Rebranding is ok but repurposing is not. This sounds a lot like meaningless semantics.

Adox CMS 20 appears to be the perfect example of this repurposing, is it not? Yet this film is currently used very successfully totally outside of its original purpose as a surveillance film. Certainly it can be a bit tough to expose or develop properly. In fact its resolution is so high that most photographers may not have adequate technique to get the best out of it. But that doesn't make it any less valuable to those who do know how to use it, nor should it be kept from people who need to up their game to use it properly.

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My concerns with re-purposing are with films that are presented as being one thing, while actually really being another.
Adox CMS 20 is an example of a film that can succeed in a special purpose role - slow speed, fine grain - so it fills a useful niche, and that is the niche it is promoted for. The fact that it was originally developed for another niche is immaterial.
Any and all my concerns with these films arise from misdirection (where it occurs) and not from the origin or original use for films.
If they are accurately described and appropriately supported by the supplier, I'm all for them.

Gerald C Koch said:

It was out of date you would would expect some fog. I have used Double XX 5222 for several years and find it to be an excellent film. However you get what you pay for. There are several sites that sell it on the web either as bulk or in cassettes. Try a roll or two and see if you like it now. BTW Kodak rates the RMS granularity at 14 (very fine), finer than that of Tri-X.

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It wasn't that out of date, perhaps a couple of years or so, I cannot exactly remember after all these years. It wasn't so much a fogging it was an all over very even grey mask. I think I managed to recover a few frames with very careful use of Farmer's reducer.

I believe it was seperceded by the 1st version of TriX

I will stick with Delta thank you, I know it is a lovely film.

Pioneer said:

Again I have to confess a bit of confusion. Rebranding is ok but repurposing is not. This sounds a lot like meaningless semantics.

Adox CMS 20 appears to be the perfect example of this repurposing, is it not? Yet this film is currently used very successfully totally outside of its original purpose as a surveillance film.

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That film never was designed as surveillance film.

Furthermore even the original manufacturers sold some of their films under different names for different uses.

CMS 20 is some sort of microfilm, no?

I do apologize for spreading my own type of misinformation.

I stand corrected. Adox CMS 20 was not designed nor used as a surveillance film.

Thank you all for your corrections.

BMbikerider said:

It wasn't that out of date, perhaps a couple of years or so, I cannot exactly remember after all these years. It wasn't so much a fogging it was an all over very even grey mask. I think I managed to recover a few frames with very careful use of Farmer's reducer.

I believe it was sepercede by the 1st version of TriX

I will stick with Delta thank you, I know it is a lovely film.

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If I am interpreting your posts correctly you appear to be confusing the cine film Eastman Double X available only in 35 and 16 mm formats with with the long extinct sheet film with a similar name but marketed under the Kodak name. The two films are not the same and never were.

Cine Tri-X did not supercede Double-X they were both available at the same time, still are. Double-X appeared 5 years after Eastman released Tri-X. It's very confusing when the same names are used for different products. Plus-X also existed as both Kodak and Eastman products.

Here is a historical list of various manufacturers B&W cine films.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motion_picture_film_stocks

Up until now I had no idea how much film stock there was out there, but what was produced mostly seems not to have been available over the counter in UK in the early 60's and may not have been readily available over the counter in UK.

I remember Trix being proclaimed as "a new film for all times" when I bought my 1st 35mm camera around 1962."XX" under whatever name, Kodak or Eastman was simply not available in the high street and as I said I bought mine in a 30m bulk roll from an outlet specialising in out of date ex military stock.

I seem to remember it cost me £3 (about 4$ in today's money) They even sold a "Waterproof" printing paper, long before resin coated was readily available with 'Ilford' lightly printed on the back. This had washing times similar to present day multigrade papers, but no where nearly as refined.

I ran across this thread doing research on the ARS Imago 320 emulsion. Has anybody developed or used this film? It looks like freestyle currently has it in stock and I was thinking of picking up a brick or two to test it. I'll have to see if they've added it to their wholesale catalog. If it's good, I might put it in stock.

@Pioneer +1 on your posts for this thread.

Not to sound ranty, but I find it really odd that as soon as someone does something like Imago 320 or Streetpan 400 a bunch of people here on this forum tear them to shreds with what is effectively a collective "how dare they do that!" Seriously? Get. a. life. It's not that hard to get a coating done for 10,000 rolls of 135-36, and if somebody was able to do that with an emulsion that isn't currently being coated on anything else, good for them! That's an emulsion I wouldn't be able to buy otherwise. If it's a rebrand, well, that's a way for people to support a specific brand, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you really care in helping film as a whole, buy 10 rolls, pick your favorite developer, make a set of speed/characteristic curves for dev time and temp and submit it either here or to massive dev chart so we all benefit from it, otherwise, as Pioneer said, you're just being incredibly counter productive and possibly damaging someone who cares enough about film to go to the trouble, which by the way, is more than you care because you didn't go to the trouble.