Using Cinema Film

The film I'm talking about is processed in a lab for still
photography, who are a bit more open minded than a few guys here, I
must say.
The process is done without involving other people's film, and the
result is worth it. Still I would be happy to get some info from
anyone who has done this before (leaving the backing in the process).

Tal.

On 13 Oct 2004 07:03:17 -0700, (Tal) wrote:

The film I'm talking about is processed in a lab for still
photography, who are a bit more open minded than a few guys here, I
must say.
The process is done without involving other people's film, and the
result is worth it. Still I would be happy to get some info from
anyone who has done this before (leaving the backing in the process).

Tal.

The biggest problem with leaving the AH layer on movie film is in
machine processing. It comes off and gums up the immersed working
parts of the machine. That's why MP labs remove it in the first step.
Pf it is left on in small tank developing, it can be removed after the
development has been arrested and before drying. Both sides of the
film have to be swabbed, not just the base, as there is usually some
deposition of backing all over the film. Sounds ugly, I know, but
it;s no big deal if you work gently.

I used a divided color negative developer for all my color negative
processing and had good results. I had conjured up my own formulae in
the early 60s, but can't find the documentation. If you find the
Dignan formula somewhere, that should work well too.

There's no big secret to cooking up a divided version of any
developer, just increase the developing agent(s)by about 50% or more
and double the Alkali in the B bath, with some Sulfite, if it's for BW
film or paper. Sulfite is a no-no for color, as it inhibits dye
formation. That should get you into the ballpark on the first try;
after that, it's all tweaking.

Heck, my first attempt was just to split the stuff into two baths
using the same quantities of everything. I got thin negs with
beautiful color that printed with soft gradation. A little too soft,
though.

Good luck to anyone who tries it.

Robert Vervoordt, MFA

"Tal" wrote in message
om...

The film I'm talking about is processed in a lab for still
photography, who are a bit more open minded than a few guys here, I
must say.

I used Eastmancolor 5254 and 5247 back in the 70s. It was movie film that
was bought in bulk and put into cartridges by such labs as Seattle Color
Works, RGB Color Lab and Dale Labs. They all touted the fine grain and
true-to-life colors of this film. It also was processed to make both slides
and prints from the same roll.

Truth was, Kodak declined to process it, explaining that they had other
films designed for still photography. The Eastmancolor emulsion was
optimized for a single shutter speed (movie cameras shoot all frames at the
same speed), and the emulsion was not any finer-grained than any other Kodak
film. In fact, if you look at movie film you will see that the image on any
individual frame is not really that fine-grained at all. It is the
projection of the individual frames onto the screen, at high speed, that
gives the perception of sharpness.

The slides that were produced from those negs were not archival at all. I
have many of them from the mid-70s where NO image is left. It is as though
the images just vaporized, leaving only the base film left.

The color masking on those negs was unlike any ordinary Kodak film, making
it difficult to produce well-balanced prints from any lab other than those
few that were set up to handle that type of film. Your typical drugstore
lab, with their machine-made prints, did a bad job with this film.

The film itself was often purchased from movie studios as leftover film
stock. It might have been carried on location to the Sahara Desert, for all
anyone knew. The film studio sold it to the film labs for next-to-nothing.
The film labs then cut it and spooled it into their own cartridges, and sold
it to their customers.

There was no way to determine how the film had been handled prior to sale to
the customer. A professional photographer, that could not tolerate bad
film, would never use that stuff.

It did offer an advantage to the processor: they had a monopoly on the
stuff, and could count on their customers continual business once they got
them hooked on the stuff. The customer could not take it to a drugstore,
there were no "one-hour" labs back then, and Kodak refused to process it.

Of course, the customer thought he was using a superior product. And it was
a bit cheaper than buying film from the normal Kodak distribution channels.
And the problems with the images disappearing from the slides did not become
apparent until years later.

I was one of those users, and I regret having been taken in by that hype.
My old Kodachromes are saturated and crisp. My 5254/5247 stuff is badly
degraded.

What's that old saying, "The grass is always greener . . . ?"

On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 18:39:53 GMT, "Jeremy" wrote:

I was one of those users, and I regret having been taken in by that hype.
My old Kodachromes are saturated and crisp. My 5254/5247 stuff is badly
degraded.

What's that old saying, "The grass is always greener . . . ?"

Yeah, I tried that stuff a few times years ago. I found the idea of
getting both slides and prints was very attractive. The reality was,
I never seemed to be able to get good quality in both simultaneously.
I got either washed-out slides or prints on the muddy side. Gave up
after a few rolls.

DaveT

In article . net,
"Jeremy" writes:

I used Eastmancolor 5254 and 5247 back in the 70s. It was movie film that
was bought in bulk and put into cartridges by such labs as Seattle Color
Works, RGB Color Lab and Dale Labs. They all touted the fine grain and
true-to-life colors of this film. It also was processed to make both slides
and prints from the same roll.

I used ECN II process film (5247, 5294, and later 5296) in the mid '80s
up to about 1990, from the same sources. Note that the slides were
copies, made much like duplicate slides, but using a special copy
negative film. The same process can be used with ordinary print film. In
fact, some labs today can do this. These include at least two that you've
mentioned: Seattle Film Works (now called PhotoWorks,
http://www.photoworks.com) and Dale Labs (http://www.dalelabs.com). They
no longer deliver ECN II (5247/5296/whatever) film, but ordinary C-41
film. The last I checked, both delivered Ferrania film in return, but
under their own house brands. PhotoWorks, at least, will omit the "free"
film and drop the processing price a bit if you ask them to, but they
hide this option in the fine print on the order form.

The slides that were produced from those negs were not archival at all. I
have many of them from the mid-70s where NO image is left. It is as though
the images just vaporized, leaving only the base film left.

That's an issue with the copy film they used, not the original negative
film. I'd guess the copy film is the same stuff that's used for making
prints from movie negatives, but that's just a guess. FWIW, my Dale and
SFW slides from the mid-1980s still have good color. Maybe they improved
the stock in the decade between our experiences, or maybe a massive
decline occurs in the third decade, or maybe something about your storage
method has affected the copy slides but not the Kodachromes that you say
are fine. As a practical suggestion, if your negatives are still in good
shape, you could have new slides made from them.

The color masking on those negs was unlike any ordinary Kodak film, making
it difficult to produce well-balanced prints from any lab other than those
few that were set up to handle that type of film. Your typical drugstore
lab, with their machine-made prints, did a bad job with this film.

This was true in the 1980s and early 1990s, too. I've not tried getting
any commercial prints or enlargements made from this type of negative
since the early 1990s. I have recently begun scanning my old negatives,
including my ECN II stuff. My software (VueScan) doesn't seem to have any
settings for this specific film, but I usually get good results with the
Kodak Commercial 200 setting, or by setting the "Restore Colors" option,
which bypasses the film type setting altogether.

In other words, if you've got negatives of this type, they CAN be dealt
with today by scanning them yourself. You might need to fiddle with the
color settings, but you should be able to get decent results.

I was one of those users, and I regret having been taken in by that hype.
My old Kodachromes are saturated and crisp. My 5254/5247 stuff is badly
degraded.

Note that I'm not trying to say ECN II film made a good consumer film for
still photography. I agree with most of your assessments, which I've
snipped. If I could re-live the 1980s, I think I'd stick with more
conventional films, which tended to be finer-grained. At the time, I was
obsessed with higher-speed films, and the ASA 640 rating on 5294/5296 was
appealing to me. It was also cheaper to order slides and then get
reprints only of those shots that I liked than to get prints from
everything. (I was in college at the time, so cost was very important to
me.)

I'll add one complaint to your list: I've found that my ECN II negatives
have more in the way of scratches than my C-41 negatives from the same
period or before, so I suspect the stuff is less scratch-resistant.

--
Rod Smith,
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

In article . net,
"Jeremy" writes:

I used Eastmancolor 5254 and 5247 back in the 70s. It was movie film that
was bought in bulk and put into cartridges by such labs as Seattle Color
Works, RGB Color Lab and Dale Labs. They all touted the fine grain and
true-to-life colors of this film. It also was processed to make both slides
and prints from the same roll.

I used ECN II process film (5247, 5294, and later 5296) in the mid '80s
up to about 1990, from the same sources. Note that the slides were
copies, made much like duplicate slides, but using a special copy
negative film. The same process can be used with ordinary print film. In
fact, some labs today can do this. These include at least two that you've
mentioned: Seattle Film Works (now called PhotoWorks,
http://www.photoworks.com) and Dale Labs (http://www.dalelabs.com). They
no longer deliver ECN II (5247/5296/whatever) film, but ordinary C-41
film. The last I checked, both delivered Ferrania film in return, but
under their own house brands. PhotoWorks, at least, will omit the "free"
film and drop the processing price a bit if you ask them to, but they
hide this option in the fine print on the order form.

The slides that were produced from those negs were not archival at all. I
have many of them from the mid-70s where NO image is left. It is as though
the images just vaporized, leaving only the base film left.

That's an issue with the copy film they used, not the original negative
film. I'd guess the copy film is the same stuff that's used for making
prints from movie negatives, but that's just a guess. FWIW, my Dale and
SFW slides from the mid-1980s still have good color. Maybe they improved
the stock in the decade between our experiences, or maybe a massive
decline occurs in the third decade, or maybe something about your storage
method has affected the copy slides but not the Kodachromes that you say
are fine. As a practical suggestion, if your negatives are still in good
shape, you could have new slides made from them.

The color masking on those negs was unlike any ordinary Kodak film, making
it difficult to produce well-balanced prints from any lab other than those
few that were set up to handle that type of film. Your typical drugstore
lab, with their machine-made prints, did a bad job with this film.

This was true in the 1980s and early 1990s, too. I've not tried getting
any commercial prints or enlargements made from this type of negative
since the early 1990s. I have recently begun scanning my old negatives,
including my ECN II stuff. My software (VueScan) doesn't seem to have any
settings for this specific film, but I usually get good results with the
Kodak Commercial 200 setting, or by setting the "Restore Colors" option,
which bypasses the film type setting altogether.

In other words, if you've got negatives of this type, they CAN be dealt
with today by scanning them yourself. You might need to fiddle with the
color settings, but you should be able to get decent results.

I was one of those users, and I regret having been taken in by that hype.
My old Kodachromes are saturated and crisp. My 5254/5247 stuff is badly
degraded.

Note that I'm not trying to say ECN II film made a good consumer film for
still photography. I agree with most of your assessments, which I've
snipped. If I could re-live the 1980s, I think I'd stick with more
conventional films, which tended to be finer-grained. At the time, I was
obsessed with higher-speed films, and the ASA 640 rating on 5294/5296 was
appealing to me. It was also cheaper to order slides and then get
reprints only of those shots that I liked than to get prints from
everything. (I was in college at the time, so cost was very important to
me.)

I'll add one complaint to your list: I've found that my ECN II negatives
have more in the way of scratches than my C-41 negatives from the same
period or before, so I suspect the stuff is less scratch-resistant.

--
Rod Smith,
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

In article . net,
"Jeremy" writes:

I used Eastmancolor 5254 and 5247 back in the 70s. It was movie film that
was bought in bulk and put into cartridges by such labs as Seattle Color
Works, RGB Color Lab and Dale Labs. They all touted the fine grain and
true-to-life colors of this film. It also was processed to make both slides
and prints from the same roll.

I used ECN II process film (5247, 5294, and later 5296) in the mid '80s
up to about 1990, from the same sources. Note that the slides were
copies, made much like duplicate slides, but using a special copy
negative film. The same process can be used with ordinary print film. In
fact, some labs today can do this. These include at least two that you've
mentioned: Seattle Film Works (now called PhotoWorks,
http://www.photoworks.com) and Dale Labs (http://www.dalelabs.com). They
no longer deliver ECN II (5247/5296/whatever) film, but ordinary C-41
film. The last I checked, both delivered Ferrania film in return, but
under their own house brands. PhotoWorks, at least, will omit the "free"
film and drop the processing price a bit if you ask them to, but they
hide this option in the fine print on the order form.

The slides that were produced from those negs were not archival at all. I
have many of them from the mid-70s where NO image is left. It is as though
the images just vaporized, leaving only the base film left.

That's an issue with the copy film they used, not the original negative
film. I'd guess the copy film is the same stuff that's used for making
prints from movie negatives, but that's just a guess. FWIW, my Dale and
SFW slides from the mid-1980s still have good color. Maybe they improved
the stock in the decade between our experiences, or maybe a massive
decline occurs in the third decade, or maybe something about your storage
method has affected the copy slides but not the Kodachromes that you say
are fine. As a practical suggestion, if your negatives are still in good
shape, you could have new slides made from them.

The color masking on those negs was unlike any ordinary Kodak film, making
it difficult to produce well-balanced prints from any lab other than those
few that were set up to handle that type of film. Your typical drugstore
lab, with their machine-made prints, did a bad job with this film.

This was true in the 1980s and early 1990s, too. I've not tried getting
any commercial prints or enlargements made from this type of negative
since the early 1990s. I have recently begun scanning my old negatives,
including my ECN II stuff. My software (VueScan) doesn't seem to have any
settings for this specific film, but I usually get good results with the
Kodak Commercial 200 setting, or by setting the "Restore Colors" option,
which bypasses the film type setting altogether.

In other words, if you've got negatives of this type, they CAN be dealt
with today by scanning them yourself. You might need to fiddle with the
color settings, but you should be able to get decent results.

I was one of those users, and I regret having been taken in by that hype.
My old Kodachromes are saturated and crisp. My 5254/5247 stuff is badly
degraded.

Note that I'm not trying to say ECN II film made a good consumer film for
still photography. I agree with most of your assessments, which I've
snipped. If I could re-live the 1980s, I think I'd stick with more
conventional films, which tended to be finer-grained. At the time, I was
obsessed with higher-speed films, and the ASA 640 rating on 5294/5296 was
appealing to me. It was also cheaper to order slides and then get
reprints only of those shots that I liked than to get prints from
everything. (I was in college at the time, so cost was very important to
me.)

I'll add one complaint to your list: I've found that my ECN II negatives
have more in the way of scratches than my C-41 negatives from the same
period or before, so I suspect the stuff is less scratch-resistant.

--
Rod Smith,
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

In article . net,
"Jeremy" writes:

I used Eastmancolor 5254 and 5247 back in the 70s. It was movie film that
was bought in bulk and put into cartridges by such labs as Seattle Color
Works, RGB Color Lab and Dale Labs. They all touted the fine grain and
true-to-life colors of this film. It also was processed to make both slides
and prints from the same roll.

I used ECN II process film (5247, 5294, and later 5296) in the mid '80s
up to about 1990, from the same sources. Note that the slides were
copies, made much like duplicate slides, but using a special copy
negative film. The same process can be used with ordinary print film. In
fact, some labs today can do this. These include at least two that you've
mentioned: Seattle Film Works (now called PhotoWorks,
http://www.photoworks.com) and Dale Labs (http://www.dalelabs.com). They
no longer deliver ECN II (5247/5296/whatever) film, but ordinary C-41
film. The last I checked, both delivered Ferrania film in return, but
under their own house brands. PhotoWorks, at least, will omit the "free"
film and drop the processing price a bit if you ask them to, but they
hide this option in the fine print on the order form.

The slides that were produced from those negs were not archival at all. I
have many of them from the mid-70s where NO image is left. It is as though
the images just vaporized, leaving only the base film left.

That's an issue with the copy film they used, not the original negative
film. I'd guess the copy film is the same stuff that's used for making
prints from movie negatives, but that's just a guess. FWIW, my Dale and
SFW slides from the mid-1980s still have good color. Maybe they improved
the stock in the decade between our experiences, or maybe a massive
decline occurs in the third decade, or maybe something about your storage
method has affected the copy slides but not the Kodachromes that you say
are fine. As a practical suggestion, if your negatives are still in good
shape, you could have new slides made from them.

The color masking on those negs was unlike any ordinary Kodak film, making
it difficult to produce well-balanced prints from any lab other than those
few that were set up to handle that type of film. Your typical drugstore
lab, with their machine-made prints, did a bad job with this film.

This was true in the 1980s and early 1990s, too. I've not tried getting
any commercial prints or enlargements made from this type of negative
since the early 1990s. I have recently begun scanning my old negatives,
including my ECN II stuff. My software (VueScan) doesn't seem to have any
settings for this specific film, but I usually get good results with the
Kodak Commercial 200 setting, or by setting the "Restore Colors" option,
which bypasses the film type setting altogether.

In other words, if you've got negatives of this type, they CAN be dealt
with today by scanning them yourself. You might need to fiddle with the
color settings, but you should be able to get decent results.

I was one of those users, and I regret having been taken in by that hype.
My old Kodachromes are saturated and crisp. My 5254/5247 stuff is badly
degraded.

Note that I'm not trying to say ECN II film made a good consumer film for
still photography. I agree with most of your assessments, which I've
snipped. If I could re-live the 1980s, I think I'd stick with more
conventional films, which tended to be finer-grained. At the time, I was
obsessed with higher-speed films, and the ASA 640 rating on 5294/5296 was
appealing to me. It was also cheaper to order slides and then get
reprints only of those shots that I liked than to get prints from
everything. (I was in college at the time, so cost was very important to
me.)

I'll add one complaint to your list: I've found that my ECN II negatives
have more in the way of scratches than my C-41 negatives from the same
period or before, so I suspect the stuff is less scratch-resistant.

--
Rod Smith,
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

"Rod Smith" wrote in message news:ah6982-

As a practical suggestion, if your negatives are still in good
shape, you could have new slides made from them.


Unfortunately I was not as thoughtful back then, and I have misplaced and
lost some of my negatives. Mea culpa.

Those were cult emulsions, and I took the bait. Some of the labs'
advertising made it look like Kodak was refusing to process the film out of
some motivation to keep it under wraps. The truth was that there WERE
better Kodak films for still photography. Kodak said as much.

I remember reading in one of the photo mags that consumer labs' machines
were not set up for the masking on those negs, and could not do a good job
making prints or enlargements from those films.

I am most embarrassed over the fact that I went out of my way to acquire
those films, waited for them to be processed and returned to me via mail,
didn't save much, and ended up getting slides that faded and shifted color
balance. Meanwhile, the "guy next door" bought a roll or Kodachrome or
Ectachrome, had it processed via a local store, got his slides back in a
couple of days, and got a better result that lasted longer.

And I thought I was the smart one . . .



The color masking on those negs was unlike any ordinary Kodak film,
making
it difficult to produce well-balanced prints from any lab other than
those
few that were set up to handle that type of film. Your typical
drugstore
lab, with their machine-made prints, did a bad job with this film.

This was true in the 1980s and early 1990s, too. I've not tried getting
any commercial prints or enlargements made from this type of negative
since the early 1990s. I have recently begun scanning my old negatives,
including my ECN II stuff. My software (VueScan) doesn't seem to have any
settings for this specific film, but I usually get good results with the
Kodak Commercial 200 setting, or by setting the "Restore Colors" option,
which bypasses the film type setting altogether.

In other words, if you've got negatives of this type, they CAN be dealt
with today by scanning them yourself. You might need to fiddle with the
color settings, but you should be able to get decent results.

I was one of those users, and I regret having been taken in by that
hype.
My old Kodachromes are saturated and crisp. My 5254/5247 stuff is badly
degraded.

Note that I'm not trying to say ECN II film made a good consumer film for
still photography. I agree with most of your assessments, which I've
snipped. If I could re-live the 1980s, I think I'd stick with more
conventional films, which tended to be finer-grained. At the time, I was
obsessed with higher-speed films, and the ASA 640 rating on 5294/5296 was
appealing to me. It was also cheaper to order slides and then get
reprints only of those shots that I liked than to get prints from
everything. (I was in college at the time, so cost was very important to
me.)

I'll add one complaint to your list: I've found that my ECN II negatives
have more in the way of scratches than my C-41 negatives from the same
period or before, so I suspect the stuff is less scratch-resistant.

--
Rod Smith,
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

"Rod Smith" wrote in message news:ah6982-

As a practical suggestion, if your negatives are still in good
shape, you could have new slides made from them.


Unfortunately I was not as thoughtful back then, and I have misplaced and
lost some of my negatives. Mea culpa.

Those were cult emulsions, and I took the bait. Some of the labs'
advertising made it look like Kodak was refusing to process the film out of
some motivation to keep it under wraps. The truth was that there WERE
better Kodak films for still photography. Kodak said as much.

I remember reading in one of the photo mags that consumer labs' machines
were not set up for the masking on those negs, and could not do a good job
making prints or enlargements from those films.

I am most embarrassed over the fact that I went out of my way to acquire
those films, waited for them to be processed and returned to me via mail,
didn't save much, and ended up getting slides that faded and shifted color
balance. Meanwhile, the "guy next door" bought a roll or Kodachrome or
Ectachrome, had it processed via a local store, got his slides back in a
couple of days, and got a better result that lasted longer.

And I thought I was the smart one . . .



The color masking on those negs was unlike any ordinary Kodak film,
making
it difficult to produce well-balanced prints from any lab other than
those
few that were set up to handle that type of film. Your typical
drugstore
lab, with their machine-made prints, did a bad job with this film.

This was true in the 1980s and early 1990s, too. I've not tried getting
any commercial prints or enlargements made from this type of negative
since the early 1990s. I have recently begun scanning my old negatives,
including my ECN II stuff. My software (VueScan) doesn't seem to have any
settings for this specific film, but I usually get good results with the
Kodak Commercial 200 setting, or by setting the "Restore Colors" option,
which bypasses the film type setting altogether.

In other words, if you've got negatives of this type, they CAN be dealt
with today by scanning them yourself. You might need to fiddle with the
color settings, but you should be able to get decent results.

I was one of those users, and I regret having been taken in by that
hype.
My old Kodachromes are saturated and crisp. My 5254/5247 stuff is badly
degraded.

Note that I'm not trying to say ECN II film made a good consumer film for
still photography. I agree with most of your assessments, which I've
snipped. If I could re-live the 1980s, I think I'd stick with more
conventional films, which tended to be finer-grained. At the time, I was
obsessed with higher-speed films, and the ASA 640 rating on 5294/5296 was
appealing to me. It was also cheaper to order slides and then get
reprints only of those shots that I liked than to get prints from
everything. (I was in college at the time, so cost was very important to
me.)

I'll add one complaint to your list: I've found that my ECN II negatives
have more in the way of scratches than my C-41 negatives from the same
period or before, so I suspect the stuff is less scratch-resistant.

--
Rod Smith,
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking