Deciding between Ultrafine Xtreme 400 or Arista EDU Ultra 200

kb244

kb244

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With the next payroll coming up I'm wanting to get a bulk roll of something 'fresh' that I bought new to use for regular use (most the stuff I have is expired or 'untested' currently).

If I had my way I would get some Kodak Tri-X 400 and use that, but the crazy thing is nearly twice as expensive in 100 feet than it is in (18) 135-36 rolls.

So I've narrowed it down to two emulsions that seem to have a "School friendly" price in bulk, and also seems to have fairly decent review among their speed choices.

Ultrafine's Extreme 400 seems to get better review than their 100s (better implementation of annihilation layer, and seems to be better grain pattern). Which seems like it's cheaper, but the company charges $14.99 to ship. So it puts it about the same price as the Arista EDU 200 from either B&H or Freestyle.

And Arista EDU Ultra 200 is the other I'm leaning towards, seemed to be preferred out of the 100,200,400 selection as it has a tabular foma-like grain (more ... retro-pan-ish?) and good overall contrast. Kind of leaning towards this one especially if it has favorable results to being pulled closer to 100 or pushed closer to 400. About $44.09 at the current price and there's always something $5 or more I can add to get the free shipping from B&H.

I'm primarily using my Canon 7 these days (maybe use the Mercury II half frame camera once in a while) with a Canon 50mm f/1.8 Type-6, and a Canon Serenar 35mm f/2.8 (and having tested both with Kodak UltraTec, they seem to be very sharp [more so the 35 than the 50mm] around the middle that it resolves very nicely and crisp on ultratec).

In the past I've preferred the following :
400 Speeds : Much preferred Tri-X over either HP5+, Delta 400 or TMax 400
100 Speeds : Fuji Neopan Arcos (or Ilford FP4+) over TMax 100/etc (Dunno if Neopan is more expensive now, or I just had more expendable income back then)

Other Formats : Really liked Tri-X Pro 320 in 4x5, as well as Tri-X 400 in medium format. Really liked Kodalith in 4x5 mainly because it gave me longer exposure in daytime while also being very crisp/contrasty.

Developers I'll primarily be using : Kodak HC-110 from Concentrate, or what the school provides with is the Sprint film developer (1:9 dilution is what they usually use). But I have access to several boxes of Ilford Microphen just sitting in the back that will not be used since the department switched to Sprint.
 
I believe Arista's EDU line = Foma. I shot through a bulk roll of Foma 200 and it seemed excessively grainy for it's speed using it in D76 1:1 and HC110. I also liked pulling it to 100 vs box speed and it definitely looks "old" to me compared to anything Kodak/Fuji make, closer to PanF 50 to my eye.

I haven't used as much of it but I would take a look at Kentmere's 100 or 400, same price at Freestyle as the Foma AKA Arista. Flickr has good examples of each.
 
Fixcinater said:
I believe Arista's EDU line = Foma. I shot through a bulk roll of Foma 200 and it seemed excessively grainy for it's speed using it in D76 1:1 and HC110. I also liked pulling it to 100 vs box speed and it definitely looks "old" to me compared to anything Kodak/Fuji make, closer to PanF 50 to my eye.

I haven't used as much of it but I would take a look at Kentmere's 100 or 400, same price at Freestyle as the Foma AKA Arista. Flickr has good examples of each.
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Oddly the excessively grainy bit is what I heard about the 100, and not the 200. Just from the usual googling.
 
I would recommend trying rollei retro 80s in bulk from Macodirect - contrasty relatively cheap in the UK but has just a beautiful quality to it, used it primarily in my canon 7 to shoot at 0.95 during daytime and fell in love with it.

As for your suggestions id go for ultrafine 400 - ive shot a few rolls of it and its a good performer although I didnt find it to be anything mind blowing.
 
kb244 said:
Oddly the excessively grainy bit is what I heard about the 100, and not the 200. Just from the usual googling.
Click to expand...

I've not used very much of the 100 but what I did I also found to be effectively half-speed, same with what little 400ASA I shot. I like to get more mid tones than most people might, for most of my work, and I use HC110 which is known for not giving as much film speed as other developers might so you might find it entirely acceptable.
 
Deciding between Ultrafine Xtreme 400 or Arista EDU Ultra 200

I pleased with my results from Arista EDU Ultra 200 exposed at 100 and developed in Xtol 1:3.
However, the film has quality control problems. Random, microscopic zits in the emulsion that took forever to fix in Lightroom.
I suggest: Buy 5 rolls of the Arista EDU Ultra 200. Pick 1 or maybe 2 developers and see how you like the film. I would not invest in a 100 foot roll until I was totally in LOVE with the film and developer.
Good luck.
Wayne


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
kb244 said:
In the past I've preferred the following :
400 Speeds : Much preferred Tri-X over either HP5+, Delta 400 or TMax 400
100 Speeds : Fuji Neopan Arcos (or Ilford FP4+) over TMax 100/etc (Dunno if Neopan is more expensive now, or I just had more expendable income back then)
Click to expand...

Color shooter chiming in. A bit OT.
I really should go B&W for a period and was doing some prospecting. Main interest on 120 though.
Fomapan (Arista) is the cheapest B&W in Europe, around 3-3.5 Euro per roll. I was thinking, not a bad option as 120 offsets grain, and keeping costs lower helps because of the lower shots per roll.

I went into Archive.org and loaded some film shop sites, B&H of 2009. Acros 120 at $2.95/roll. Nowadays it sits along color film prices. Fomapan doesn't seem to have risen prices much.
Arista used to have a line that was rebranded Tri-X and Acros.

Had to sigh seeing 220 Ektachrome at the price of a single 120 nowadays, cheap C41 films, a few products gone... Sorry for the nostalgia!

Ultrafine's film what is it? The advantage of knowing that private label film has a direct equivalent (same product) branded, may make for a seamless transition if/when you move out of it.
 
I haven't used Arista EDU ultra 200 much but I have used the (Foma) 100 and the 400 a lot as when I order chemicals from Freestyle to get to the minimum order I throw in a Arista film. Each I shoot at 1/2 speed. It is for me way to Blue sensitive so I have to use a Orange filter or Red to tame the over exposure to blue sky, but you should get more shadow detail, but for me is not there. I don't have too much trouble with grain but that may be because the real ISO is half the speed.

Arista EDU ultra 100 is a struggle for me *I'm still tweaking the development time.

Here are a couple both with an Orange filter:

Arista EDU ultra 400 HC-110h by John Carter, on Flickr

That was 400 not too much grain and now a 100 (again at half speed with an Orange filter), This is a horrible photo, one I'm ashamed to put up except to show why I'm struggling with this film. I will later put one up that was with a Red filter to show the difference:

Arista EDU ultra 100 Arista Liquid Developer by John Carter, on Flickr

And now the same film with a Red filter:

AristaEDUultra100 AristaDeveloper by John Carter, on Flickr

In my opinion these films a great for rainy days, and indoors. I struggle in full sun. But as you can see from these images I am not happy with the shadow detail. You would think that at a minimum you would get better shadow detail, but for me it isn't happening.
 
Any reason for not considering Kentmere? Around here at least it is in the price range you are talking about. It devs nicely in D76 (thus I assume HC110). It's cheap, easy to work with, grain is quite pleasant in darkroom prints (visible in 5x7, apparent but not "bad" in 8x10).

I am also a huge fan of Retro 80S, Rollei RPX 400/100, all of which are close to Foma in price around here.

I keep thinking I'll stick to a single vendor to support them (if I only ever shot Delta400 I'd probably be a perfectly happy man), but I just have too much fun playing with all the different film stocks.
 
defconfunk said:
Any reason for not considering Kentmere? Around here at least it is in the price range you are talking about. It devs nicely in D76 (thus I assume HC110). It's cheap, easy to work with, grain is quite pleasant in darkroom prints (visible in 5x7, apparent but not "bad" in 8x10).

I am also a huge fan of Retro 80S, Rollei RPX 400/100, all of which are close to Foma in price around here.

I keep thinking I'll stick to a single vendor to support them (if I only ever shot Delta400 I'd probably be a perfectly happy man), but I just have too much fun playing with all the different film stocks.
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I'm in the US. Rollei seemed more on the expensive side (No less than $85 for bulk, no less than $7 or so for 36ct roll, most around $9), and I figured Kentmere was just more of the same re-branded 'something'.

Arista EDU Ultra being said to be Foma Re-branded is about 10$ cheaper for their 100' compared to Foma 200. And Ultrafine (least 400 in 35mm) seemed to get good reviews for their price.
Figured if I go with anything more expensive I can just get individual rolls down the road, like how I have two rolls of Foma RetroPan 320 I haven't gotten around to yet. But I would rather something cheaper in the long run if I'm just going to shoot thru it either for assignments or just non-scientifically checking out a camera.
 
I haven't tried Ultrafine. But I do use Arista EDU 100 a lot. I really like what I get with it using Diafine. You also get a slight speed boost to ISO 160
 
kb244 said:
I'm in the US. Rollei seemed more on the expensive side (No less than $85 for bulk, no less than $7 or so for 36ct roll, most around $9), and I figured Kentmere was just more of the same re-branded 'something'.
Click to expand...

Kentmere is it's own thing. Designed by Ilford specifically to be an economical to produce film. Ilford has stated many times on APUG that Kentmere is not rebranded anywhere.

Personally, it fits the bill when people talk about wanting a high contrast visible grain image. http://mattkrull.tumblr.com/search/kentmere

If you have access to an enlarger, I find Kentmere to be really enjoyable to use - the contrast and grain make using a grain focuser really easy.

Kentmere is the cheapest bulk roll at BH right now ($39.99). It might be worth your while to grab a few rolls ($4/each) just to try it out before committing to a 100' roll.
 
Never used AEU200 but I do use a lot of Arista EDU Ultra 400 film and get decent results. I usually expose at EI200 though it works pretty well at box speed as well if I am using it indoors.

I develop in D76 or D23 1:1 at 12 minutes, more or less, depending on solution temperature. I rarely adjust the development time whether I shoot at EI200 or 400 so sometimes will mix up film speeds on the same roll. I have never really tried any other developer like Microphen with this film since these work quite well. In the early days I did use Arista EDU developer mixed at 1:9, which I think is similar to Sprint, but wasn't really impressed.

I typically adapt for contrast with my agitations. If I know the film was shot in low contrast than I increase my agitations during development from 2 inversions to 3 or 4 inversions every minute. If it was exposed in high contrast, snow or bright sunlight then I find that reducing the agitations from two per minute down to one agitation is helpful. This film responds pretty well to 1 hour stand development in Rodinal 1:100 if it was shot in very bright sunlight but you will need to ensure the developer and film is kept at a constant temperature throughout the hour.

I get such good results from AEU400 I have never tried the ISO 200 version. There are a lot of very good films out there and I use a bunch of them but the Arista EDU Ultra films are very good cost/quality values. If you are able and willing to experiment with different developers and different developing techniques then you will usually find a good combination for your film and your shooting styles.
 
defconfunk said:
Kentmere is it's own thing. Designed by Ilford specifically to be an economical to produce film. Ilford has stated many times on APUG that Kentmere is not rebranded anywhere.

Personally, it fits the bill when people talk about wanting a high contrast visible grain image. http://mattkrull.tumblr.com/search/kentmere

If you have access to an enlarger, I find Kentmere to be really enjoyable to use - the contrast and grain make using a grain focuser really easy.

Kentmere is the cheapest bulk roll at BH right now ($39.99). It might be worth your while to grab a few rolls ($4/each) just to try it out before committing to a 100' roll.
Click to expand...

Enlargers... what are those? (Sarcasm)

What I have access to :

sMR6wVY.jpg


(we replaced the safelight since that picture, no longer needing to turn the red one on, and the one off the ceiling replaced with a new one with the actual glass in top closed)
 
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