Does anyone make ...

On 8/19/2010 2:43 PM, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
In ,
Doug wrote:
On 8/17/2010 12:09 AM, wrote:
Doug McDonald wrote:

I used negative film. Kodak never made any 4x5 color negative that offers
the critical rendition of greens that their 35 mm films do. It's not
subtle.

That sounds more like an issue with differences in processing than the
films themselves..

Stephaney

No, it was the films themselves.

The results were the exact same if I processed the films myself
using Kodak chemicals, had them processed at a Chicago pro lab,
or processed them myself using solutions made from raw
solid chemicals.

In that case, your processing was imaginary, since you can't _get_
the exact same raw chemicals Kodak uses to manufacture their color
developers -- or even the exact formulae -- and even small differences
in color chemistry will produce detectable differences in the negatives,
though usually small enough that closely matching prints can be obtained
regardless.

It was NOT imaginary.

Kodak does indeed not give out the formulas for C-41.


But they DID sell the color developer and the ferric EDTA bleach.
Other people have figured out the formula. As long as the pH
is correct, I could not tell the difference in the
negatives developed in actual Kodak chemical kits and the ones I made
myself. This was by densitometry. Sure, since I was
hand-timing there were small differences from batch to batch, but the
between chemical set difference was no larger.

Doug

Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
In article ,
Doug McDonald wrote:
On 8/17/2010 12:09 AM, wrote:
Doug McDonald wrote:

I used negative film. Kodak never made any 4x5 color negative that offers
the critical rendition of greens that their 35 mm films do. It's not
subtle.
That sounds more like an issue with differences in processing than the
films themselves..
Stephaney
No, it was the films themselves.


Clearly you believe this. I found it interesting in one post you say the
results were "The exact same", then one post later say "Sure, since I
was hand-timing there were small differences from batch to batch"?

I've never seen what you are talking about shooting color neg films. I
also find it hard to imagine Kodak would cook up some special color
emulsion for 4X5 films either.

Stephaney

On 8/24/2010 11:21 PM, wrote:
Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
In article ,
Doug McDonald wrote:
On 8/17/2010 12:09 AM, wrote:
Doug McDonald wrote:

I used negative film. Kodak never made any 4x5 color negative that offers
the critical rendition of greens that their 35 mm films do. It's not
subtle.
That sounds more like an issue with differences in processing than the
films themselves..
Stephaney
No, it was the films themselves.


Clearly you believe this. I found it interesting in one post you say the results were "The exact
same", then one post later say "Sure, since I was hand-timing there were small differences from
batch to batch"?

I've never seen what you are talking about shooting color neg films. I also find it hard to imagine
Kodak would cook up some special color emulsion for 4X5 films either.



In some cases it was available in 120 or 35mm also.

You should compare images made in the 70s on Ektacolor
4x5 with KodacolorII 35mm.


The greens resulting from the 4x5 are dull, somewhat
of a dirty army-green tone, while those of the amateur film are
much brighter, saturated, and accurate. The 35 ones are more
like Ektachrome was.

Doug McDonald

In article ,
Doug McDonald wrote:


In some cases it was available in 120 or 35mm also.

You should compare images made in the 70s on Ektacolor
4x5 with KodacolorII 35mm.

So, you have been making claims that X was always different, Kodak
"never" made Y, etc etc etc.

And now it degenerates to "two particular emulsions made in the 1970s
were different from each other".

Um. Okay. It is probably not worth continuing this discussion at this
point.

--
Thor Lancelot Simon
"All of my opinions are consistent, but I cannot present them all
at once." -Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On The Social Contract

On 8/25/2010 2:46 PM, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
In ,
Doug wrote:


In some cases it was available in 120 or 35mm also.

You should compare images made in the 70s on Ektacolor
4x5 with KodacolorII 35mm.

So, you have been making claims that X was always different, Kodak
"never" made Y, etc etc etc.

And now it degenerates to "two particular emulsions made in the 1970s
were different from each other".

Um. Okay. It is probably not worth continuing this discussion at this
point.

I was merely giving an EXAMPLE.

In general, the "amateur" films produced better greens
that the specifically "pro" ones. I've not changed my tune.

It continued well after that era.

Doug McDonald

On 8/25/2010 2:08 PM, Doug McDonald wrote:
On 8/24/2010 11:21 PM, wrote:

I've never seen what you are talking about shooting color neg films. I
also find it hard to imagine
Kodak would cook up some special color emulsion for 4X5 films either.



In some cases it was available in 120 or 35mm also.

You should compare images made in the 70s on Ektacolor
4x5 with KodacolorII 35mm.


Why would I want to compare images created from 2 different film types
made 40 years ago? I've shot a lot of 4X5 color neg film and just never
seen these "bad greens" you are talking about. I don't use "portrait"
low contrast films and maybe that is what you have seen? The normal
contrast film greens seen the same as the other format's neg film to me.
YMOV from mine.

Your initial statement was

"There is an answer to that: becasue even to this day, 4x5 films
are simply inferior to 35mm ones"

I've never seen what you are talking about.. Maybe in the 1970's there
was an issue I'm not aware of but in recent times, their 4X5 films seem
no different to their smaller format ones.

Stephe

Quoth Doug McDonald :
....
| This was most prominent in the early to late 1970s, when the 4x5 offerings
| were grossly inferior to the latest 25mm ones. At one time Kodak did
| offer a somewhat moderately high contrast 4x5 called "commercial"
| (as I recall, it was ASA 160) but it was not the same as the then-current
| 35mm "amateur" offerings. They did offer a similar (to the 4x5)
| 35mm film, but not identical.

So when I looked at Kodak large format in the '80s, it was "Vericolor" -
I think Vericolor II ISO 100 tungsten balance, and Vericolor III
ISO 160 daylight balance. That was it, as far as I knew. The color
rendition of these films was somewhat conservative, which I have
always thought of as a trait of professional emulsions in general.
People had various ideas about how to compensate for that by over-
exposing, using tungsten balance in daylight and compensating in
the print, etc., but with various degrees of success probably depending
a lot on the subject. Good luck with natural foliage. So I gather
amateur films of that time may have been better for the kind of
photography amateurs do? Go figure!

Since then ... I would have thought large format film was going to be
just getting scarcer, but it sounds like you can now get any emulsion
in large format? I haven't been keeping track, but if there's now no
difference between what you can get in 35mm and 4x5, either 4x5 is
flourishing past expectations or 35mm has suffered worse than I imagined.

Do any of you guys actually use this stuff?

To be honest, I haven't bought film in years, and I somehow have
a suspicion that some of the main parties to this discussion haven't
really been shopping very hard recently for color negative emulsions,
for use in outdoor natural light photography, in 35mm AND large format.
If anyone who has would like to discuss current offerings in those
terms, I think that would be interesting.

Donn

In article nc,
Donn Cave wrote:

So when I looked at Kodak large format in the '80s, it was "Vericolor" -
I think Vericolor II ISO 100 tungsten balance, and Vericolor III
ISO 160 daylight balance. That was it, as far as I knew. The color
rendition of these films was somewhat conservative, which I have
always thought of as a trait of professional emulsions in general.

The 160 speed professional film lasted for many years almost unchanged.
Its tungsten counterpart was replaced by VPL, which was tweaked for better
performance with very long exosures. VPL had color balance somewhat closer
to that of the amateur films, and more contrast, but not as much as
Vericolor Commercial film (VCS) which at some point was replaced by VHC,
a higher-contrast film with more saturated color meant for fashion work.
Also briefly available in 4x5 (as well as roll sizes) was the 400-speed
VPH, a faster daylight balanced film with color rendition more like that
of VPL. VPH was eventualy replaced by Pro 400MC which was initially only
available in roll sizes but was available in 4x5 and 8x10 for a few months
before it in turn was cancelled and replaced.

VPS and its 160-speed predecessors were always meant for portraiture and
other low-contrast work and were balanced primarily to offer pleasing
renditions of skin tones. As nobody in the world has green skin this
did indeed lead to unusual green reproduction when these films were
(inappropriately!) used for certain other types of photography under
uncontrolled lighting conditions. Pretty nifty results could be had in
nasty weather, though, with storm clouds and the like. Very ominous,
if also somewhat unreal.

The last set of adjustments to Kodak's product lines replaced all the
traditional daylight-balanced professional films with "Portra NC" and
"Portra VC" films. The "VC" films had considerably more contrast and color
saturation, but the 160-speed "NC" film remains markedly similar to the
old Vericolor III and VPS and the 400-speed "NC" film remains not too
different from VPH! Grain is better in all the new films and the color
rendition of the 160 speed NC with subjects that aren't white people is
a little less quirky. All these films are available in sheet sizes unless
Kodak has cancelled them in the last year or so; I tend to buy in bulk
and it lasts me a while.

So anyway I think that's about 1/2 the history of Kodak professional
color negatice films since the ancient days we're evidently
supposed keep foremost in our minds (rather than what Kodak's actually
made in *this* decade, boggle). The other half of course would
be the Ektapress films, which were more similar to the consumer films
but offered some qualities not available elsewhere such as extreme
speed and short shelf life for optimal color balance, but acceptable
tolerance to room-temperature storage. These were occasionally coated
on sheets and I have seen some very interesting work done on 11x14
Ektapress 1600.

But never mind that. All Kodak film is exactly like it was in 1970,
everything they coat on sheets is totally different from what they coat
on rolls, and it's all crap. Why bother with the facts when one can
spew half-remembered nonsense on the Internet?

Sigh.
--
Thor Lancelot Simon
"All of my opinions are consistent, but I cannot present them all
at once." -Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On The Social Contract

Quoth (Thor Lancelot Simon):
....
| The last set of adjustments to Kodak's product lines replaced all the
| traditional daylight-balanced professional films with "Portra NC" and
| "Portra VC" films. The "VC" films had considerably more contrast and color
| saturation, but the 160-speed "NC" film remains markedly similar to the
| old Vericolor III and VPS and the 400-speed "NC" film remains not too
| different from VPH! Grain is better in all the new films and the color
| rendition of the 160 speed NC with subjects that aren't white people is
| a little less quirky. All these films are available in sheet sizes unless
| Kodak has cancelled them in the last year or so; I tend to buy in bulk
| and it lasts me a while.

So we're looking at Portra VC as the LF choice for more vivid color,
vs. what in roll films? Is VC as vivid as PRN? What is Portra UC?

Donn

Quoth "Donn Cave" :
....
| So we're looking at Portra VC as the LF choice for more vivid color,
| vs. what in roll films? Is VC as vivid as PRN? What is Portra UC?

Oops, sorry - while browsing around for more on these matters, I see
that this very spring, Kodak reportedly introduced Ektar 100 in
4x5 and 8x10 sizes.

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQueri...00688a80c839bd

What do you know, after all these years, maybe Kodak's LF color negative
options really are catching up with roll film?

Donn