Rollei Infrared - Loving it!

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photogdave

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So I tried out a roll of Rollei IR film on my vacation in the Okanagan wine region. This is really cool film! Much like Ilford SFX, it doesn't need to be loaded in subdued light. It can be shot as nominal ISO 400 B&W film without a filter, which provides a nice medium constrast negative. Shot with an R72 filter I found my best exposures at ISO 8. The film seems to record futher in the IR spectrum than the Ilford but not quite as far as Kodak. It provide a much finer grain than Kodak.
I shot with a Leica Summaron 35, which I had heard was really good for IR film. In the frames of the vineyard I focused right on the little handwritten sign and did not adjust focus for IR at all, and set the aperture to f/8.
I didn't get into the scientific mumbo jumbo - just bracketed and shot - but I'm very happy with this film and will use it instead of the Kodak from now on.
 

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I have used HIE in the past, and found that it was just too tricky for me. This looks good, maybe I'll try it. I used one roll of MACO IR a couple of years ago and didn't like the almost TriX look with a red filter, but after fighting with HIE, those pictures don't look bad. What did you develop it in?
 
That's a good start with a very nice film! The highlight transitions are very nice, not just obviously blown. Well done.

I recently tested a new Rollei IR film that may be out soon. It is quite a bit more IR sensitive than the current one, so the effect with the rm72 is more like what I got with a #87 using the current Rollei IR film. So it'll be possible to do handheld IR at reasonable apertures. Apparently the new one will be on a thicker base, which is good news for sheet users. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it does come out soon.

P.S. Charjohncarter, I usually develop the sheet stuff in acu-1.
 
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gdi said:
Very nice shots - you are making good use of the subtle IR effect with this film. I still have a roll - but have been using mostly Efke for the stronger effect.
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Thanks for the compliment. Can Efke be shot as regular B&W on the same roll as well? That's one of the things I like about the Rollei.
 
In Calgary, the Camera Store is the (much) better of the two stores. I actually try avoiding Vistek if at all possible due to lousy customer service. Once I start doing my own E-6 and C-41 processing, I can disown them forever 🙂 Perhaps I may try Leo's if The Camera Store can't special order it.
 
raid said:
I have a brick of Kodak IR film. Maybe I start using it.
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Is it 35mm HIE, Raid? (Is a brick 20 rolls?)

If so use it but don't waste it - there will be no more! I just bought around twenty rolls to freeze. I was just looking at a couple of canvas prints with it and it is depressing tht it is gone now.

BTW, I don't find it a big deal to deal with - just have to take care to load and unload in complete darkness ! 😀 But it is as easy to develop as any other B&W:

IR-HIE-Leicaflex-28-brody-1-crop.jpg
 
gdi said:
I have never used the IR Ektachrome - should be nice! Of course it is mostly long gone now!
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I still have a few rolls of color IR film frozen. Does anyone still develop such film?
 
photogdave said:
So I tried out a roll of Rollei IR film on my vacation in the Okanagan wine region. This is really cool film! Much like Ilford SFX, it doesn't need to be loaded in subdued light. It can be shot as nominal ISO 400 B&W film without a filter, which provides a nice medium constrast negative. Shot with an R72 filter I found my best exposures at ISO 8. The film seems to record futher in the IR spectrum than the Ilford but not quite as far as Kodak. It provide a much finer grain than Kodak.
I shot with a Leica Summaron 35, which I had heard was really good for IR film. In the frames of the vineyard I focused right on the little handwritten sign and did not adjust focus for IR at all, and set the aperture to f/8.
I didn't get into the scientific mumbo jumbo - just bracketed and shot - but I'm very happy with this film and will use it instead of the Kodak from now on.
Click to expand...

The pics look good. I much prefer the Kodak HIE. Just burned a roll today. I use a changing bag, so that I can load and unload anywhere. I burn my Kodak HIE @ 320 through a deep red #29 filter. I think the Ilford SFX, SUCKS! Not even close to true IR film. It's too bad that the Rollei film has the anti-halation backing. No more "glowing" highlights. But I may have worked out a solution to get the "glow" with the Rollei film. I've still got some Kodak HIE, so I'll continue with that, until it's depleted. It also responds quite well to souping in D-76.

Russ
 

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>I still have a few rolls of color IR film frozen. Does anyone still develop such film?

The later stuff (Kodak EIR) was E6 - no problems there. For a long time, the colour IR film was E4 process (2236 among others) - Tetenal used to make a kit or you can process it yourself using Tertiary Butyl-Amine Borane as the redeveloper. Rocky Mountain Film Laboratory in Aurora, Colorado (USA) also process E4 films:
http://www.rockymountainfilm.com/e4.htm

You can also mix the chemistry yourself from these formulae:
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/cis111/cis111.jhtml
Kodak were legally bound to support E4 process for 30 years after it stopped being the 'normal' colour reversal process, but this ended in 2006.

Whatever process is used you need to be careful that the film stays taped into its container and is only removed in darkness, then processed in an environment free of IR light. Some processors use IR illumination to control the flow of film through the processor or to allow the operators to visualise the process with night-vision like equipment.

Marty
 
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