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Non-Kodak Film Stocks

I was wondering what was out there for information/availability of non-Kodak/Fuji/Agfa film stocks. Like, Russian, Chinese, other Asian or East European. I know there's the Russian QuarzChrome s8mm, for instance, 16/35mm Svema B&W, Orwo.

More interested in color, though.

Tim Sassoon
SFD Vfx & creative post
Santa Monica, CA


A few time ago, ILFORD, had a very nice B&W film stock. I don't know if it's still available

Pol Turrents
HD DoP
Barcelona - Spain


Pol Turrents wrote:

>A few time ago, ILFORD, had a very nice B&W film stock. I don't know if >it's still available

Not long ago Ilford stopped making motion picture film stocks. You can still buy it at many places but if you use it be sure to buy more than you think you need.

Jess Haas
Austin, Tx


Ilford not only 'stopped making film stocks' they stopped making anything : they are in receivership.

The Ilford HP5 stock was nice photographically speaking but it was nearly impossible to run it in a modern camera.

Dirk DeJonghe
www.color-by-dejonghe.com


Many, many years ago (in the 1950's) I had a traumatic experience with Ilford stock.

When I was a Movietone news cameraman I had been filming the Cowes yachting regatta and chose to use Ilford stock because it had a kinder contrast gradient than Kodak at that time. When I had finished shooting I was told to take it directly to the BBC news at Alexander Palace with whom Movietone had a deal at that time.

There they processed the film on some special new high speed Ãclair 'Aiglon' processing machines.

While waiting for the film to be processed I went into the neg developing room to see it coming out of the machine and on to a roll.

To my horror I saw that the emulsion was floating off the film base and in to the wash in great slabs.

I pointed to it and, as I saw three days of work literally being flushed down the drain, said to the guy in charge 'My God! What is happening?

He said it’s the fixer ... you can see, its not fixing the emulsion to the film properly!'

I swear the truth!

David Samuelson


Dirk DeJonghe wrote:

>The Ilford HP5 stock was nice photographically speaking but it was >nearly impossible to run it in a modern camera.

What causes problems?

I recently shot HP5 in an Eclair ACL and the only problem we had was with the footage counter being off.

Does the stock being thinner cause registration problems in other cameras? Of course the ACL is not exactly a modern camera.

Jess Haas
Austin, Tx


There was no anti-halation backing. Put it in a camera like an Aaton with a reflective pressure plate (stainless steel vertical rails) and you'll get an unusable image filled with vertical bars.

Mitch Gross
NYC DP



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