Identifying an old colour negative emulsion

ChrisR

ChrisR

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I'm just rescanning some old negatives that I only did at 1200 dpi; it turns out that a couple are among my favourite shots, so I want a higher resolution scan for printing etc. I've no separate record of the original negative type, and Jessops did the processing. The negatives have a bar code on one edge, and on the other edge the legend "8 1 8 4 ISO100/21". Any idea what the film type is? Probably bought in the UK (film taken in Scotland, but not long after we moved back from Oz).

I tried various resources, but can't find that code anywhere. I'd be inclined to think Agfa. I'm scanning them with Vuescan using Generic, and the results look better than any of Vuescan's presets that I've tried so far. I'm pleased to be getting fewer blown highlights with Vuescan than I did with Silverfast (but that was probably fairly early in my Silverfast learning curve). Oh, using the same Plustek 7500i scanner...
 
Have a look at the barcode, then divide the long number by 16 and record the number before the decimal. Multiply the number after the decimal by 16, this could give you a result such as 18 and 2.

The first number is the film manufacturer:
18 is 3M
17 or 49 is Agfa
80, 81, 82 or 88 is Kodak

The second number is the multiplier, for example 2 is 200 ISO
 
Try this:

http://www.imageaircraft.com.au/DXsim/

If the negs have the little pattern of bars along the edge by the perforations then you can put the pattern in on the calculator (on the diagram above where it says 'frame number', click to add/remove bars) , and it should tell you the emulsion (assuming of course the negs were taken after the DXn standard came out).
 
kendo1 said:
Have a look at the barcode, then divide the long number by 16 and record the number before the decimal. Multiply the number after the decimal by 16, this could give you a result such as 18 and 2.
Click to expand...

Surely the barcode is on the film canister? This was shot in 1992... I don't have the canister...
s162216 said:
Try this:

http://www.imageaircraft.com.au/DXsim/

If the negs have the little pattern of bars along the edge by the perforations then you can put the pattern in on the calculator (on the diagram above where it says 'frame number', click to add/remove bars) , and it should tell you the emulsion (assuming of course the negs were taken after the DXn standard came out).
Click to expand...

Yes, I found this from somewhere else in another thread on here, and I gave it a go. But the app won't let me make a pattern as is on this film; near the RHS (of the pattern on the strip), the app refuses to let me add a "bridge" on the picture side, that is on the film. Also, there are more bars on the app than there are on the film.

I might try scanning the rebate and pattern of bars tomorrow on the all-in-one; will post if I do.

Thanks for the input, though. (PS, I haven't dragged the images into Aperture yet to compare, but so far the images scanned with Vuescan on generic colour neg are coming out pretty close to whatever preset I used with Silverfast... unrecorded, but I often found one of the Ferrania ones gave good results.)
 
I thought you had the canister :( as you mentioned 'barcode'
Should have read it properly.
 
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If Jessops did the processing I'd bet 90% chance of it being one of their films. I've always found the generic setting on vuescan to be fine. It's only really Kodachrome and a few others that need specific settings. If it looks ok then it probably is :)
 
ChrisR said:
Surely the barcode is on the film canister? This was shot in 1992... I don't have the canister...


Yes, I found this from somewhere else in another thread on here, and I gave it a go. But the app won't let me make a pattern as is on this film; near the RHS (of the pattern on the strip), the app refuses to let me add a "bridge" on the picture side, that is on the film. Also, there are more bars on the app than there are on the film.

I might try scanning the rebate and pattern of bars tomorrow on the all-in-one; will post if I do.

Thanks for the input, though. (PS, I haven't dragged the images into Aperture yet to compare, but so far the images scanned with Vuescan on generic colour neg are coming out pretty close to whatever preset I used with Silverfast... unrecorded, but I often found one of the Ferrania ones gave good results.)
Click to expand...

I had a similar problem when I tried it at first, and then I worked out that you had to enter it starting at the bottom, not the top of the bar pattern. Have you tried that?
 
s162216 said:
I had a similar problem when I tried it at first, and then I worked out that you had to enter it starting at the bottom, not the top of the bar pattern. Have you tried that?
Click to expand...

I've just tried again, and I was starting from the bottom. There's a pattern that looks like a M on its side, that appears unchangeable and is presumably the starting point. If I count both bars and spaces from the first bar of that M, I'm OK for the first 21, but at that point the app won't let me make the pattern I see.

Wikipedia says the DX no was introduced in 1983, and this film was shot in 1992; I didn't buy expired film back then, so it definitely post-dates DX. I'll try to scan the code later.

srichards said:
If Jessops did the processing I'd bet 90% chance of it being one of their films. I've always found the generic setting on vuescan to be fine. It's only really Kodachrome and a few others that need specific settings. If it looks ok then it probably is :)
Click to expand...

Film was widely available in those days, and I don't think I'd normally have gone into Jessops for it, but who knows! There are definite colour differences from the original Silverfast scans, but I haven't done any adjustment of the new shots in Aperture yet; I'll put up a couple of comparison shots later.
 
ChrisR said:
I've just tried again, and I was starting from the bottom. There's a pattern that looks like a M on its side, that appears unchangeable and is presumably the starting point. If I count both bars and spaces from the first bar of that M, I'm OK for the first 21, but at that point the app won't let me make the pattern I see.

Wikipedia says the DX no was introduced in 1983, and this film was shot in 1992; I didn't buy expired film back then, so it definitely post-dates DX. I'll try to scan the code later.
Click to expand...

Only the bars up to just after the second perforation are needed (the 16th bar starting from the sideways M shape which is the entry pattern), after that the bars only identify the frame number. The DXn simulator linked should then have two DXn number parts showing, and also what the film type was (if its in its database). I've got a list of film emulsions which are identified from those two number parts, so if you give them to me I should be able to find what the emulsion is.
 
s162216 said:
Only the bars up to just after the second perforation are needed (the 16th bar starting from the sideways M shape which is the entry pattern), after that the bars only identify the frame number. The DXn simulator linked should then have two DXn number parts showing, and also what the film type was (if its in its database). I've got a list of film emulsions which are identified from those two number parts, so if you give them to me I should be able to find what the emulsion is.
Click to expand...

Here's the image of a film strip:



Can you make anything of that? (Edit: all the bar code thingies are identical, so there's clearly no frame number encoded here, which is part of what makes the DX app not work, I think.)
 
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So, here are two versions of the same frame. The first was scanned at 1200 dpi on the Plustek 7500i with Silverfast SE Plus 6.something, and processed (probably very little) in iPhoto. I have no idea of the Silverfast settings, but by now I'd probably scanned 500 slides and a good thousand or so negatives; it was likely that some sort of multiscan was used.



The second was scanned on the same device with Vuescan Pro at 4800 dpi and 2x size reduction, since I read somewhere that was preferable to multiscan... however, I did also use multiexposure.



I'm not sure how it will show up here, but in Aperture the new 4800->2400 dpi scan looks softer than the 1200 dpi older scan. I have tried a bit of edge sharpen in Aperture with no visible benefit! I am confused...
 
It's an Agfa emulsion, though probably someone else's rebrand thereof if they've not used the frame numbers.
 
Kodak and Fuji both use identifiers to show it is their product- Kodak and F !!
So definitely not theirs
 
Well its an Agfa emulsion, as identified by the Part 1 number of 17, but I don't think we'll be able to get any further than that as the bars have nothing for the second number which identifies the actual emulsion.For 100 speed however the possibilities are Agfacolour XRG 100, Agfacolour XRS 100 Professional or Agfacolour HDC-100 according to my list. I would probably say the 1st two are more likely as my list from 2009 has them both listed as discontinued.

BTW, regarding the size reduction, that will reduce noise a bit, but its probably better to use 4 or more scanning passes to reduce the noise. I would not bother with the multi-exposure as it has no benefit with negative film.
 
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Thanks Samuel. I think I did try some of the Agfa 100 presets in Vuescan, and didn't like them as much as generic negative. But it looks like I'll have t have another go at scanning these, then!
 
Just found and tried to run the DX app. Insisted on Internet Explorer so I loaded that in the latest Windows 10. I then had to download the latest version of Java, and that will not let the DXsim run. says it is insecure... so there seems to be no way to run the app in the latest version of Windows 10 with the current version of Java. Tried to change the Java security settings and even that does not work. http://www.imageaircraft.portfairy.town/DXsim/ is the current location of the app.
 
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RsH said:
Just found and tried to run the DX app. Insisted on Internet Explorer so I loaded that in the latest Windows 10. I then had to download the latest version of Java, and that will not let the DXsim run. says it is insecure... so there seems to be no way to run the app in the latest version of Windows 10 with the current version of Java. Tried to change the Java security settings and even that does not work. http://www.imageaircraft.portfairy.town/DXsim/ is the current location of the app.
Click to expand...

IIRC someone posted a barcode reader and I thought I'd saved the link but erm can't find it :rolleyes:
 
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