New films, then?

ChrisR

ChrisR

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There do seem to be quite a few new ore re-badged films coming out these days, and rather than one thread for each film, I wondered about a thread where we can talk about our experiences with new films.

As a starter, I finished a roll of FilmFerrania ORTO, which was started on the Castleton day out. It's a 50 ISO black and white orthochromatic film, supposedly closely related to P30 (so high silver content again). I've seen one or two really positive reports about it, and a couple of lovely images. However, I'm struggling to find development information. I only have HC-110 at the moment, and the only info they give on that film is for dilution G stand. And, oddly, all the times given for ORTO development at https://www.filmferrania.com/pages/ortonseem to be 18 or 19 minutes! [EDIT: This was NOT true, see post 3!]

Has anyone else used it?
 
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Having just watched a video on ORTO (https://figitalrevolution.com/2023/04/03/ferrania-orto-film-review/) I've got a bit of s sinking feeling... when I loaded the ORTO in my MX, I left the yellow filter on my lens because, well, it just stays there. So I'm guessing there's a fair chance I won't see much on the film if ORTO is insensitive to yellow as well as red!
 
I have just tried (and failed! - the story of my life) to find a data sheet for the film. It appears that Ferrania only produce film and not data sheets...

HOWEVER from the meager information I have picked up, Lina Bessonova may supply a crumb of comfort:

www.linabessonova.photography

B&W FIlm Types - Ortho / Orthopan / Panchro / Superpanchromatic — Lina Bessonova

An easy, comprehensive guide to decoding all the graphs and terminology in the black-and-white films' datasheets. We are looking into spectral sensitivity related to analog photography. Orthochromatic, orthopanchromatic, panchromatic and superpanchromatic (infrared) - what is the practical differe
www.linabessonova.photography www.linabessonova.photography

You may be sort of OK with a yellow filter. Let us know - you're breaking new ground for us. Remember, film is never wasted - it's either a masterpiece or a learning experience. And just reflect on how James Clerk Maxwell managed to get the first colour photo using blue sensitive plates... There's a lesson in that...
 
"Old Photographers never die; they just stop developing" Donna D. Conrad, quoted in The Film Developing Cookbook, 1998, p104
 
The other "new" film I've tried recently is REFLX LABs XX. Like Cinestill's BWXX, it's a re-spooling of Eastman 5222 stock. It was quite a bit cheaper than the Cinestill version, at $8.95 plus $5 delivery anywhere in the world, I've used a few rolls of BWXX and really like it, but it costs £15.50 a roll from AW! I enjoyed my first roll, and had no difficulty devving it in HC-110 dilution E. I had trouble with the second roll, however, as the guillotine in my Rondinax couldn't cut the film from the spindle. I had to put it in a dark bag and cut it off with scissors. It turned out therre was a short length of polyester attached to the spindle. The first roll had no edge markings that I can see, while the second had incomprehensible markings, facing both ways!

It seems like a useful offering, and a good film stock to have affordable access to, but overall a lower quality job than BWXX for its lower price, I thought.

2$04CPMXBW04 Church REFLX.jpg

Local chapel, REFLX DOUBLE X in my Pentax MX with a SMC Pentax K 55/1.8 lens, yellow filter. Devved in HC-110 dilution E.
 
They were at the Photography Show - I had a chat with them, and have the tote bag to prove it. I was interested, but not being a 35mm user it was for learning for future reference.
 
auntiemaryscanary said:
I did note they re-use 35mm cannisters so may affect your Rodinax use if the XX is taped to the end of the previous film.
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Not too many films are polyester, so it's not a bad bet. The strip on the spindle of one of the two rolls of REFLX DoubleX so far was clear plastic, not film AFAICS. I've got 3 more rolls, so we'll see, but I like XX and will almost certainly try your suggestion, thanks.
 
Another film released recently was Film Ferrania P33, an ISO 160 black and white film, apparently designed to be a bit more forgiving than P30. I've been looking for a few rolls for a while now. I even had a couple of rolls in my basket at AW, but while I was trying to work out what to add to get free shipping, someone else bought it under my nose! I put it on back order, but have heard nothing for a few weeks, so I decided to do another search. Ferrania themselves had some in stock but the shipping was stupid. Then I saw a company called The Little British Camera Company had some in stock. I'd never heard of them, but I went ahead and ordered three rolls plus five Kentmere 100 anyway. I was slightly anxious, but a couple of days later I had notification from RM and then they arrived at my door. OK, they do exist!

Opening the box was initially disappointing, as there was only room for 7 rolls and that's all there were (5+2). There was a phone number on the invoice, so I rang them up; very apologetic, said they would send me another roll right away, and drop in another roll of P33 to try to make up for the aggravation! That arrived this morning, so I now have 4 rolls of P33. I'll be loading them soon, but it might take a while before you see them (my workflow is, um, rather protracted!).
 
To add (slightly) to my disappointment above, the 5 Kentmere rolls were 24-frame for £6. But that was my mistake, not reading the listing properly. They don't offer 36-frame rolls of K100 for some reason. I used 2 in the Lakes, the rest will probably get reserved for test films.
 
I have done a LOT of searching in the past week for someone with experience of developing Ferrania P33 in the UK. It seems certain that Analogue Wonderland have done some, but their turnaround seems to be quite slow normally and must have ballooned with the PhotoWalks. Ferrania only offer guidance for Kodak D76, Bellini Eco and Rodinal 1+25. I asked Filmdev and they replied "P33 is one which we can develop but have not developed before so we have no definitive developing time so would have to use a generic one so if you are ok with this that is fine."

I also did lots of searches for any individuals who have devved P33. I only found one person who'd used HC-110 (the only developer I have at the moment), but he used HC-110 1:90 for 18 minutes (a recipe he uses for all unknown films).

I wasn't sure about sending it off to Filmdev or anyone else in the absence of guidance, since I wouldn't know what they'd done. So I decided to do it myself in HC-110 dilution B (at least then I can adjust for the other rolls, one of which is part finished). Looking at Ferrania's recommended dev times for D-76 stock, it's 6 minutes for P30 & 10 minutes for P33. Few other comparable times, but MDC has Rodinal 1+25 at 8 minutes for P30, while Ferrania has it at 8.5/10 (whatever that means) for P33. So, they're suggesting P33 dev times a bit longer (maybe 50% or so) than for P30.

Given my time for P30 in HC-110 B is 5 minutes, I decided to do the first roll at somewhere from 7-8 minutes and see. All at 20C.

Today I developed my Film Ferrania P33 film in Kodak HC-110 dilution B (1+31) for nominal 7 minutes 30 seconds (reduced to 6 minutes 22 seconds because of near continuous rotation in my Rondinax. I make a small partial rotation every second throughout the development time). I have images! The negatives are now dried and sleeved, and spending a day or so under a heavy book (probably not necessary because they sat pretty flat). To my extremely unskilled eye, they look OK. Definitely plenty of contrast.

EDIT: In case anyone comes across this, I decided after some research to reduce the nominal time by 30 seconds, and the results are better. See below.
 
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ChrisR said:
To add (slightly) to my disappointment above, the 5 Kentmere rolls were 24-frame for £6. But that was my mistake, not reading the listing properly. They don't offer 36-frame rolls of K100 for some reason. I used 2 in the Lakes, the rest will probably get reserved for test films.
Click to expand...

For Kentmere I use Morco Photographic. They are about 20 miles from me so I could collect if needed. However they do economy (2nd class) postage for £4 so it's not worth the petrol to pick it up. I buy 10 rolls minimum so that's 40p extra on each of the 10 rolls.

120 and 36 exp are a fiver each. They are v competitive on Ilford and Foma too. They don't seem to have any non mainstream offerings (P33 etc) though.
 
I don't know anything about it, but I note that Shanghai now has a colour film. I might like to try that.
 
ChrisR said:
I have done a LOT of searching in the past week for someone with experience of developing Ferrania P33 in the UK. It seems certain that Analogue Wonderland have done some, but their turnaround seems to be quite slow normally and must have ballooned with the PhotoWalks. Ferrania only offer guidance for Kodak D76, Bellini Eco and Rodinal 1+25. I asked Filmdev and they replied "P33 is one which we can develop but have not developed before so we have no definitive developing time so would have to use a generic one so if you are ok with this that is fine."

I also did lots of searches for any individuals who have devved P33. I only found one person who'd used HC-110 (the only developer I have at the moment), but he used HC-110 1:90 for 18 minutes (a recipe he uses for all unknown films).

I wasn't sure about sending it off to Filmdev or anyone else in the absence of guidance, since I wouldn't know what they'd done. So I decided to do it myself in HC-110 dilution B (at least then I can adjust for the other rolls, one of which is part finished). Looking at Ferrania's recommended dev times for D-76 stock, it's 6 minutes for P30 & 10 minutes for P33. Few other comparable times, but MDC has Rodinal 1+25 at 8 minutes for P30, while Ferrania has it at 8.5/10 (whatever that means) for P33. So, they're suggesting P33 dev times a bit longer (maybe 50% or so) than for P30.

Given my time for P30 in HC-110 B is 5 minutes, I decided to do the first roll at somewhere from 7-8 minutes and see. All at 20C.

Today I developed my Film Ferrania P33 film in Kodak HC-110 dilution B (1+31) for nominal 7 minutes 30 seconds (reduced to 6 minutes 22 seconds because of near continuous rotation in my Rondinax. I make a small partial rotation every second throughout the development time). I have images! The negatives are now dried and sleeved, and spending a day or so under a heavy book (probably not necessary because they sat pretty flat). To my extremely unskilled eye, they look OK. Definitely plenty of contrast.
Click to expand...

I'm using Ferrania P33. Extraordinary film. A true 160 ISO - so far I'm preferring it even to FP4+, which in my workflow is an 80 ISO-equivalent film to achieve comparable shadow detail to the Ferrania.

I'm having excellent results in ID11 1+1 following the manufacturer's times for D76.
 
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ChrisR said:
I also did lots of searches for any individuals who have devved P33. I only found one person who'd used HC-110 (the only developer I have at the moment), but he used HC-110 1:90 for 18 minutes (a recipe he uses for all unknown films).
Click to expand...
I had a reply on Mastodon from a guy in Canada called Alex Luyckx, who does a lot of reviewing and testing of films and developers. He wrote "Have them use the listed times for Ilford SFX 200, it seems to work with P33. Xtol Stock would be 7 minutes, 1+1 is 9. DD times Stock is 8.5. 9 Minutes for HC-110 B Hope this helps!"

This worried me a bit since:

ChrisR said:
Today I developed my Film Ferrania P33 film in Kodak HC-110 dilution B (1+31) for nominal 7 minutes 30 seconds (reduced to 6 minutes 22 seconds because of near continuous rotation in my Rondinax. I make a small partial rotation every second throughout the development time). I have images! The negatives are now dried and sleeved, and spending a day or so under a heavy book (probably not necessary because they sat pretty flat). To my extremely unskilled eye, they look OK. Definitely plenty of contrast.
Click to expand...

So Alex was suggesting 9 minutes to my 7 minutes 30. I'm immediately wondering how I can tell if my negatives are under-developed. I found this advice from marcmarc on Photrio from 2010:

"If you have adequate shadow detail then your negs are properly exposed. What is adequate? That's your choice. Now for the highlights, the very unscientific way for checking them I picked up was to lay the negative on a white page with black printed lettering. You should be just barely able to make out the words in the dense parts of the negative. If you cannot, the neg is over developed; likewise if you can easily seen the words your neg is under developed."

So this morning I had a look at the P33 negatives from that point of view. This was the image I picked; it shows some but not the best shadow detail, and some detail in the cloud highlights (this is as scanned, before any PP except for re-size/export):

2406BPMXBW08 P33 image.jpg

Here is an image showing the negative laid over some small dark text on a white envelope:

IMG_2076.jpeg

Now I can't read the text under the highlight part of the negative, so that's suggesting to me my negatives are over-developed rather than under-developed!

I have another roll to develop soon, so any comments would be welcome.
 
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ChrisR said:
I had a reply on Mastodon from a guy in Canada called Alex Luyckx, who does a lot of reviewing and testing of films and developers. He wrote "Have them use the listed times for Ilford SFX 200, it seems to work with P33. Xtol Stock would be 7 minutes, 1+1 is 9. DD times Stock is 8.5. 9 Minutes for HC-110 B Hope this helps!"
Click to expand...

I would take anything Alex Luyckx says about film, developers and testing, with a huge grain of salt. I think his results speak for him much more than his blog's wordy content. IMHO.
 
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trypdal said:
I would take everything Alex Luyckx says about film, developers and testing with a huge, huge grain of proverbial salt.
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Interesting, any specific thing to point at? (EDIT: noting that the advice I'm quoting above is also from some random guy on t'internets, although it was corroborated by some other random guy, and Photrio folk often seem to know what they're about!)
 
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ChrisR said:
...Now I can't read the text under the highlight part of the negative, so that's suggesting to me my negatives are over-developed rather than under-developed!

I have another roll to develop soon, so any comments would be welcome.
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It occurred to me that maybe there were exposure problems with that frame affecting the results, so I checked a few more. Seems like a slightly more cloudy sky means I _can_ see through the dense parts; with a more bright sky I can't see through. I'm thinking reduce development by maybe half a minute?

(Checking results may be complicated as I want to develop the next roll in dilution E 1+47, whose times _should_ be 50% longer than for B!)
 
ChrisR said:
Interesting, any specific thing to point at?
Click to expand...

I think most of what he's seeing and describing is likely due to poor developing and scanning technique and very little to inherent characteristics of the consumables he's testing.

We don't get to see his negatives so we don't know if the abundance of clipped highlights, blocked shadows, muddy midtones in his samples is him messing around in Photoshop or overcooked negatives etc.

For film comparison purposes a better resource is an old Norwegian comparative test published a few years ago. This resembled much more a proper scientific controlled experiment. I will see if I can find it. Sadly it won't have Ferrania P33 amongst the tested stocks.

EDIT here it is https://fotoimport.no/fktmax
 
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@trypdal What do you think of the approach that marcmarc on Photrio suggested, above (unaffected by scanning technique)? Another bloke going by Mahler_one posted adjacent and just before: "Don't forget Phil Davis's method of approximating densities without a densitometer....place the negative, emulsion side down, on a newspaper. Read the type through the highlight densities. If the type ["] shows clearly and you can read the words without difficulty, the density if probably less than 0.8. If the type is visible, but not easily readable, the density if between about 0.8 and 1.0. A density of more than about 1.2 will obscure the type completely." I didn't quote that one because I don't really know what those densities mean in practice, but I'm guessing it concurs...
 
trypdal said:
For film comparison purposes a better resource is an old Norwegian comparative test published a few years ago. This resembled much more a proper scientific controlled experiment. I will see if I can find it. Sadly it won't have Ferrania P33 amongst the tested stocks.

EDIT here it is https://fotoimport.no/fktmax
Click to expand...
Ah, my Norwegian isn't what it was! (Well actually it is what it was, ie non-existant!)
 
Completely agree with marcmarc. You determine 'underexposure' by assessing the areas of the negative which are in shade. What's 'underexposure' here, as he correctly says, depends on what your final goal is. If you wanted no detail in those shadows, and your negatives are semitransparent in those shadows, then exposure is fine. If you wanted detail in those shadows, and your negatives are close to transparent in those areas, then you have underexposed.

Now regarding development. Development mostly affects density of the highlight portions of the negatives (and to a certain extent, the midtones). What marc marc is suggesting is a good rule of thumb: you really, really don't want too much density in those highlights.

Now the above has been true pre-scanning, and was used as a rule of thumb whether you enlarged with diffuser or condenser head. It still applies when scanning, and - contrary to beliefs - a scanner sensor, being a completely linear device down to thermal noise, will be just as sensitive to negative quality as photographic paper + enlarger. Perhaps more.

But to go back to your test above - yes - I agree with your that your negatives are NOT underdeveloped - if anything, I'd say they're slightly overdeveloped if purpose is scanning.

I checked A. Lucky's blog here

www.alexluyckx.com

New Film, Who's This | First Look at Ferrania P33

A brand new film stock is always good news! And while I won't get around to completing a full four roll review until next year. I wanted to get my first look out in 2024!
www.alexluyckx.com

And you can see an image of some Ferrania negatives hanging to dry. I don't know if these are the ones he used to produce his 'review' but if so, I stand by my point before: these are hopelessly overdeveloped and will scan poorly, especially on consumer equipment such as the v700 flatbed he's using.

I would continue with your testing - I think you're on the right path.
 
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ChrisR said:
Here is an image showing the negative laid over some small dark text on a white envelope:

Now I can't read the text under the highlight part of the negative, so that's suggesting to me my negatives are over-developed rather than under-developed!
Click to expand...

Those negs certainly look to have good density, and the edge signing is fully developed. So definitely no underdevelopment. Hard to tell definitively from that pic, but those negs look pretty good to me, if maybe slightly too dense.
 
ChrisR said:
I have done a LOT of searching in the past week for someone with experience of developing Ferrania P33 in the UK. It seems certain that Analogue Wonderland have done some, but their turnaround seems to be quite slow normally and must have ballooned with the PhotoWalks. Ferrania only offer guidance for Kodak D76, Bellini Eco and Rodinal 1+25. I asked Filmdev and they replied "P33 is one which we can develop but have not developed before so we have no definitive developing time so would have to use a generic one so if you are ok with this that is fine."

I also did lots of searches for any individuals who have devved P33. I only found one person who'd used HC-110 (the only developer I have at the moment), but he used HC-110 1:90 for 18 minutes (a recipe he uses for all unknown films).

I wasn't sure about sending it off to Filmdev or anyone else in the absence of guidance, since I wouldn't know what they'd done. So I decided to do it myself in HC-110 dilution B (at least then I can adjust for the other rolls, one of which is part finished). Looking at Ferrania's recommended dev times for D-76 stock, it's 6 minutes for P30 & 10 minutes for P33. Few other comparable times, but MDC has Rodinal 1+25 at 8 minutes for P30, while Ferrania has it at 8.5/10 (whatever that means) for P33. So, they're suggesting P33 dev times a bit longer (maybe 50% or so) than for P30.

Given my time for P30 in HC-110 B is 5 minutes, I decided to do the first roll at somewhere from 7-8 minutes and see. All at 20C.

Today I developed my Film Ferrania P33 film in Kodak HC-110 dilution B (1+31) for nominal 7 minutes 30 seconds (reduced to 6 minutes 22 seconds because of near continuous rotation in my Rondinax. I make a small partial rotation every second throughout the development time). I have images! The negatives are now dried and sleeved, and spending a day or so under a heavy book (probably not necessary because they sat pretty flat). To my extremely unskilled eye, they look OK. Definitely plenty of contrast.

EDIT: In case anyone comes across this, I decided after some research to reduce the nominal time by 30 seconds, and the results are better. See below.
Click to expand...
After quite a lot of discussion, here and on Mastodon, I decided to develop my second roll in HC-110 dilution B (+31) at 20C for 30 seconds less, ie a nominal 7 minutes. In practice I reduced this time by 15% because of continuous (gentle) rotation in my Rondinax tank. I scanned it last nigh, and apart from a lingering suspicion that my Plustek 7500i is beginning to give up on me (which I might discuss elsewhere on here), I'm pretty happy. This is maybe a bit grainy, but as a quick example, I really like it now. I concur with Trypdal:

trypdal said:
I'm using Ferrania P33. Extraordinary film. A true 160 ISO - so far I'm preferring it even to FP4+, which in my workflow is an 80 ISO-equivalent film to achieve comparable shadow detail to the Ferrania.
Click to expand...

Jut one for now:

2407APLXBW34 P33 Constantine.jpg

Pentax LX, SMC Pentax M 28 f/2, yellow filter, Ferrania P33, dev in HC-110 dilution B for nominal 7 minutes at 20C, scanned with Vuescan Plus on my slightly dodgy Plustek 7500i.
 
ChrisR said:
After quite a lot of discussion, here and on Mastodon, I decided to develop my second roll in HC-110 dilution B (+31) at 20C for 30 seconds less, ie a nominal 7 minutes. In practice I reduced this time by 15% because of continuous (gentle) rotation in my Rondinax tank. I scanned it last nigh, and apart from a lingering suspicion that my Plustek 7500i is beginning to give up on me (which I might discuss elsewhere on here), I'm pretty happy. This is maybe a bit grainy, but as a quick example, I really like it now.
Click to expand...

Hi Chris, glad you're enjoying it. Great results in HC110, seems to be a good match,

I've been testing it in my usual ID11 1:1 (9 minutes for this roll) and I stand by my initial observations so far. Looks great exposed at box speed, beautiful panchromatic response, nice grain structure when scanned with a dedicated film scanner similar to the one you're using.

WOaMRRS.jpg
 
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