Want to Buy WTB Aerial film

[terratek]

I am in search for aerial film in 5" and 9,5" format (the roll film for orthophoto/mapping cameras, K-20/aerotechnika cameras among others), especially color negative (ordinary camera stock) but also color positive (Kodak Aerochrome and AGFA Avichrome). I will also be interested in purchasing some lab. films (duplicating film) and b&w. Any direction to where to find is appreciated. There is some duplicating film on ebay, but camera stock is my main goal. Have a look in the freezer please!

 

[darkroom_rookie]

PM sent.

 

[gzinsel]

why don't you contact agfa directly? Agfa Aviphot 80,200,400 comes in rolls of of 76 ft. by 9.5 inches. Last time i checked aviphot 200, for a roll could be had for $600-700 USD. you can buy directly from Agfa. You can contact their facilities, I think,, , , its in s.carolina. check their web site.

 

[terratek]

Thanks for info!, and actually I have done just that, and have been able to secure some color film to a reasonable price! Now I am just looking for short ends of color neg. to top up supply...

I also found reasonable fresh & unopened 5" Kodak Aerographic from UK at great price - and they had several more rolls in stock. A little weired, as far older 5" duplicating aerographic film in same length is selling from Ebay US for 3x the price of the fresher camera-ready film...

A very cool addition to the aerial supply is a roll of the slightly wider (5,5 inch I belive) Kodak double X for the Fairchild K-20 aerial camera. I were able to secure an unopened roll with the following info on box; "develope before 10-1946..." Someone had a bunch of these and listed on ebay with initially only 10$$ a roll buy it now price, so no reason not to bag one of them. I will se if I end up trying it or keeping it unopened. Having used 30+ years outdated film before (got a bunch of 1970- and 80 dated 70mm aero-film at one time) with good results, I am quite sure I would be able to get some faded images from it somehow...

I have the Jobo RO spool for wide-film long roll developement arriving from US within soon, so testing is not too far away in time I hope.

 

[frobozz]

I have had great success with expired film, even very expired film, but I have also had some very unpleasant experiences with roll film older than the 1960s. For instance, I had a couple of 100' spools of Background-X I was very excited to play with. But despite being factory sealed (or possibly because of it...) this brand new never exposed film had developed the dreaded "vinegar syndrome" and was just a big sticky gooey stinky mess. I mean seriously, I couldn't get that smell out of my nostrils for a week. So I hope you have better luck with your 1940s film than I had with mine!

Seems like too much of a coincidence - are you by any chance the person who bought my 70mm Jobo reels on ebay? Is your plan to make a taller center hub to allow you to load 5" or 5.5" film? I'll be very interested to hear how well that works.

Duncan

 

[gzinsel]

terratek may the force be with you.

 

[terratek]

hehe! world is getting smaller every day! Yes, Duncan, its me! I did not make the connection to your name myself, but of course, users of wide format long-roll cameras is not too many I guess, so it happened! Since I use 70mm film already, but is missing a Jobo spool for this, I guess I will rebuild one of the spools to 5" and keep the other for 70mm and make a custom tank using one of my 3000-series lids to complete a tank that can fit my Autolab ATL-3. I will also have to fix myself a loading arrangement for the spools, at least for the 5" size (the 70mm I guess I can load manually as I do with standard/stainless ones). I guess customizing a spool will be rather straightforward as I understand that is how Jobo could supply so many different sizes/film widths in their RO kits. With fresh film now in house, spools on their way (currently in Norwegian customs...), complete documentation for the Aero-Technika 45EL supplied by Linhof Germany and arriving today! (needed for arranging power to the vacuum rollfilm back) ridiculous good service by the people at Linhof by the way!!! bits and pieces is nearly assembled, and within soon (after the last customizing of reel, power supply, tank etc is finished..) a bit of testing on ground of camera-system and subsequent testing of development-procedures etc should be underway. However, I dont expect to bring BigDaddy to the air until late summer at best. Have to earn money to pay for the puzzle as well, even though AeroTechnikas have been going for very acceptable amounts the latter years - so while my initial investment were quite acceptable, the subsequent hunting down of film, dev. spools, more film, Linhof spooling device for 70mm/5" film, developer, an old Color Kardan 4x5" body bought to get a technika GG back for the 45EL but also to get a monorail camera where to use the Rollex vacuum-film holder and last an extra lens did take its toll, but great fun. And - having played with aerial film before and cutting it to 8x9,5" and 4x5" sheet, I am sure to be able to use the hefty supply of recent film now secured even if it have to go through the Sinar (or the old Color Kardan.

Thanks for advice, and I will keep you posted on how it works out with the reels!

By the way; wonder how many others is on the AeroTechnika route in 2014-2015; obviously Agfa must have had some demand for 5" aero-rollfilm when they produced the 2014 (expiration year) lot of Avicolor X100 which I have secured a few spools of. Interesting enough, Linhof describes the Jobo RO kit/reel as alternative developing system for handling film from the AeroTechnika 45EL in the manual I just got, so maybe a few user have this system up & going still!

So long

Tor

 

[frobozz]

I pondered keeping one or both of the 70mm reels myself, as I recently acquired a 10" Cirkut camera and need some way to develop 10" Cirkut film and 9.5" aerial film, and I also have an ATL-3. I just don't think film that wide (and in the case of the aerial stuff, that THIN) is going to work in a standard spiral, so I'm mulling over other ideas. I'll be very interested to hear of your success rate with the narrower 5" film. I hope Customs lets you have your box soon!

Duncan

 

[allanedgar]

Hi I have some 5 inch Kodak Aerographic Direct film . Its positive .
So sharp its breathtaking . Does that interest you ?
Allan

 

[terratek]

Hello Allan, and thanks for offer on Kodak Aerographic film! I am primarily interested in camera stock in 5" and 9,5", not the lab films, as my film is to be used in aerial camera where high film speed (for acceptable shutter speed) and standard conditions (daylight balanced) apply, so I will not be able to use any slower lab-films. Thanks anyway!

Duncan; cool that you have a circuit camera up & going (?)! I agree that spiral reels will probably be to stretch it far for 9,5", so I would advice you to consider making yourself an old Kodak color processor type of machine if you need continuous agitation and low developer use, or make yourself a small rewind processor; in the first, the film is mounted back-in on the outside of a drum, and the drum is mounted horizontal over a small tray with developer and rotated slowly for continuous wetting of film (development in total darkness); max film length is depending on drum diameter for wide films, while small films may be spiraled on outside of the drum. Hideous amount of Kodak Color Processors on this principle were sold in 1960-70 and may be found, but should be easy to assemble yourself for a manual winding model. Rewind processors is the old/manual way of developing long-roll film incl aerial film, and many Morse and Zeiss processors for up to 9,5" is around, but they are for long lengths of film and introduce a perverse vaste of developer if used for short lengths of 9,5" film. However; two 10" pieces of 2" PVC tubing mounted on axels and fitted standing and close to each other in a suitable box (chemicals must cover the spools) could be made to function as short-length rewind processor! Have a look on the web about rewind processing of aerial film for more info. Nowadays, these are used for 8mm and 16mm (up to 35mm) movie film development and still made & sold (Gordon Morse).

Good luck!

Tor

 

[frobozz]

Tor,

The tracking says your reels have cleared customs, so it should not be long before you see them!

I have seen (back before I was interested in them) aerial rewind processors on ebay - stainless, 9.5" deep, even more compact than the Morse ones. They look to have been for use by the military in the field. If I could pick one of those up I might do it just to experiment with. For B&W I am OK with the "big rubber tub" method, running it back and forth by hand, drooping down from outstretched arms. For color, I am thinking perhaps an RA-4 tabletop processor could be regeared to make it a C-41 roller transport processor. I have a couple of ACP-200s but those only handle 8" width, drat. I was offered a real C-41 12" wide roller transport processor for free, and it is probably still there, but it is the size of a small car, and I just do not have room for it.

Duncan

 

[terratek]

Hello again, Duncan! Reels arrive and perfect state, thanks!
I forgot something when writing the other mail about possible development for your circuit camera film; the first color processor I owned, about 15 years ago, were a Colenta 30 color processor. Fully automatic, I used it for E6 (tetenal). On this one, film were mounted emulsion out on a plastic "reel" looking like a paddleboat-wheel but with thin frames. Film were mounted with clips, and the diameter of the wheel accommodated different film sizes as well as sheet film. Wheel rotated slowly and only the very lowermost part contacted the chemistry, making it very economical. Not so big (30kg I belive, and table top), I used mine for 35mm and 120 film, but it would be easy to customize one of the wheels (made of see-through plastic, acrylic I would belive) to be fit for a slice of wide format roll-film. I don't remember the size of the wheel, so you would have to search for it. I belive that - in addition to the Colenta processors, also processors from Autopan and Mafi/Mafina were on this principle. Only trouble I ran across using this one were that one of the plugs controlling chemistry got worn and started leaking; this processors let chemistry in and out by gravity, not pumps as in the Jobo ATLs, thus a minor leak from one chamber of chemicals would enter the processor chamber, especially critical wit E6, I ended up fixing this nicely by just adding (belive it vas...) the bleach-fix after color processing were finished and thus preventing any contamination of color dev. Otervice, nice, easy to use, reliable, thermostad vontrolled and even had built in lamp in the processor chamber that could be put to switch on for some time as part of program for re-exposure for reversal-processing! I had two of these, one bought from a professional photographer retiring, and the other from the militarys lab, so they were in widespread use. Just a thought.
Good luck on fixing a processor for the big one!, I am nearly there I guess; hideous numbers of Unicolors C41 1L kits arrived with last batch yesterday.. now just fixing the reels and adapting tank..


Tor

 

[frobozz]

Tor,

I could probably work it out exactly with some geometry calculations, but I believe the "paddleboat wheel" required to hold 3 to 6 feet of film would be very large indeed!

Glad to hear the reels made the trip safely.

Duncan

 

[terratek]

Hello Duncan!
I would not try to make the "paddleboat" wheels myself if I were you, they were quite elaborate pieces of acrylic, but rather try to track down a working or repairable Colenta or Mafi as they should cost next to nothing nowadays. The wheels for the Colenta were probably about 30cm in diameter as one 120 film ( 75cm long ) would fit around it heads to tail without overlap (so you could develop 3 or four 120 films at a time, do not remember exact number) while the 35mm 36exp rolls had to go in spiral fashion (about two rounds) around the wheel. Thus, a 3 feet length might be just a tad long, but a 2,5 feet would make it on standard wheel in the Colenta.

By the way, one of the 70mm Jobo long reels is now rebuilt for 5" film; quite easy, core is cut in two parts just aside the film-clip, a 16mm stainless-steel tube cut to 6" lengt fits xactly through core-center, and I made a 6mm threaded (M6) hole through each of the two core-halfs from outer surface to center and fittet a set-screw in both for precise arresting their position on the stainless tube at exactly 126mm. Using a shorter tube, the kit can be rebuilt back to 70mm again. Now I just have to replicate that loading apparatus by Jobo to be able to perform the nerve-wrecking loading of 50 exposures 4x5" in one move..

 

[frobozz]

Glad the conversion of the reel went so smoothly - now we need pictures of it

I have successfully hand-loaded 100+ frames of 35mm into the Jobo long reel for that format, but I can see where that would be much harder or impossible with 5" wide film. The Jobo loader design is pretty basic, I hope you can replicate it.

Duncan

 

[removed account4]

mrFoto1 used to sell lots and lots and lots of aero film
http://mrfoto1.com
you might drop him a line and see if he has what you are looking for.

good luck !
john

 

[terratek]

and how the "#¤%& do I add pictures to this forum? I tried once, and were asked to some URL to images that I were unable to produce... I am rather analogue that way... Give me a clue, and pictures will be on the way soon!

Tor

 

[removed account4]

hi tor

click on "go advanced"
below box you are typing in you will see additional options
and manage attachments below it ..
ifyou click on manage attachments there
is a set of buttons to click, and you can search
your computer for whatever files you have
click on them, then click on upload and you will see
them in icon form under the text box .. preview post lets you see how they look
submit post locks them onto your post ...
you can remove the attachments either by editing the post look for
the remove image button, or go into your settings ( under classifieds ) and in the left sidebar
you will see manage attachments, which gets them out of your post as well ...
if you upload as a hot link to a webpage you have to load the url where it asks
or you upload your file to your server and assign the image with html source code
"adding attachments" ( the first method ) is a piece of cake.

good luck !
john