New C-41 Color Negative Film Available

[Mackinaw]

Popho Luminar 100. It's respooled Kodak Aerocolor IV 2460 film.

Revealing Popho Luminar 100 Color Negative Film

Popho is Excited to Announce a New Color Film! Last updated: 2022-12-15 Popho Luminar 100 is an ISO 100 speed daylight-balanced color negative film stock is a respooled Kodak Aerocolor IV 2460 color negative aerial photography film*. The film offers medium saturation and contrast and is...

popho.ca

Jim B.

 

[luuca]

nice to know! better one more than one less.
let's wait for price and availability.
what is an "aerial film"?

 

[Mackinaw]

nice to know! better one more than one less.
let's wait for price and availability.
what is an "aerial film"?

Film that is specifically designed for aerial photography. Looking at the Kodak data sheet, exposure for this film is optimized at 5,000 feet.

https://www.kodak.com/content/products-brochures/Advanced-Materials/KODAK-AEROCOLOR-III-Negative-Film-2460-datasheet.pdf

Jim B.

 

[x-ray]

I worked with a research firm in the early 70 and did aerial photography. We shot 70mm and 9x9 inch in several aerial emulsions including Kodaks aerocolor neg. Of course the film is different now over fifty years later but aerial films are designed to have less blue sensitivity to help reduce effects of the haze layer at higher altitudes. I don’t remember shooting any of the 70mm for non aerial images but would guess it might be a little deficient in blues and a touch more contrast.

 

[hap]

Well, then can you do without a UV haze filter?

 

[das]

A company called Flic Film is also respooling Aerocolor and selling it for $12+ per roll. What would be nice is if Kodak could just sell it to the public in 100 foot rolls. These resellers acting as a middleman and jacking up the price should be cut out for those of us who can roll their own film.

 

[Mackinaw]

I suspect that Aerocolor is special-order only. You tell Kodak what you want, and they'll coat it for you. Most aerial film is probably 8X10, maybe 70mm. Maybe Popho is having Kodak coat the film in 35mm.

Jim B

 

[neal3k]

Santacolor of Finland is also Aerocolor and is sold in bulk and 100' rolls. I got in on the crowdfunding and got a bulk roll but the price has gone up now. Still not too bad though but shipping is $20 to USA..

 

[x-ray]

I suspect that Aerocolor is special-order only. You tell Kodak what you want, and they'll coat it for you. Most aerial film is probably 8X10, maybe 70mm. Maybe Popho is having Kodak coat the film in 35mm.

Jim B

I don’t remember seeing any aerial film in 35mm. The company I worked for bought directly from Kodak and I don’t recall sizes other than 9” x 400’ rolls, 5” x 400’ (think it was 400’) and 70mm in cassettes and 100’ rolls. 35mm wasn’t a format used in the aerial research and mapping world.

Film based metric mapping and research photography is pretty much all digital now. I’d guess this is old stock that didn’t sell and someone is slitting and respooling it in 35mm.

All of the aerial emulsions I worked with in B&W, color neg, color transparency and IR color and B&W had low blue sensitivity and higher contrast. Haze is a huge problem when looking through the atmosphere from a thousand feet up to 10,000 feet or more. Some times it like looking into a bowl of milk trying to see the bottom of the bowl. A lot of factors are involved here and in aerial mapping an actual ISO is not assigned to an emulsion. There’s an aerial exposure index that was plugged into a device much like a circular slide rule. Altitude, time of day, month of year and geographic location go into calculating exposure. In this case for non aerial use a simple iso can be applied but still it’ll be a bit more contrasty and have deuces blue sensitivity.
To answer a question about UV filter, no for general photography a UV filter isn’t needed.

 

[das]

I don’t remember seeing any aerial film in 35mm. The company I worked for bought directly from Kodak and I don’t recall sizes other than 9” x 400’ rolls, 5” x 400’ (think it was 400’) and 70mm in cassettes and 100’ rolls. 35mm wasn’t a format used in the aerial research and mapping world.

Film based metric mapping and research photography is pretty much all digital now. I’d guess this is old stock that didn’t sell and someone is slitting and respooling it in 35mm.

All of the aerial emulsions I worked with in B&W, color neg, color transparency and IR color and B&W had low blue sensitivity and higher contrast. Haze is a huge problem when looking through the atmosphere from a thousand feet up to 10,000 feet or more. Some times it like looking into a bowl of milk trying to see the bottom of the bowl. A lot of factors are involved here and in aerial mapping an actual ISO is not assigned to an emulsion. There’s an aerial exposure index that was plugged into a device much like a circular slide rule. Altitude, time of day, month of year and geographic location go into calculating exposure. In this case for non aerial use a simple iso can be applied but still it’ll be a bit more contrasty and have deuces blue sensitivity.
To answer a question about UV filter, no for general photography a UV filter isn’t needed.

This makes sense as the data sheet on Aerocolor discusses contrast grades and not ASA. Kodak says that Aerocolor should use the AN-6 process but can also use C41. However, developing it in C41 at the standard 3.5 minutes actually may not be ideal for the film for general, everyday 35mm use. The resellers are all saying to shoot it at 100, though. I'm sure someone figured it out.

 

[x-ray]

When I was involved in aerial work Aerocolor was processed in the old C-22 chemistry. It was a nice lower temp process but negs of that era weren’t very stable. Colors faded over a decade or so depending on how they were stored.

The transparency film Ektachrome aero and Ektachrome IR were all E-3 process and had to be exposed to a bright light after the 1st developer, just prior to the color developer, to reverse the film. With the introduction of E-4 then E-6 the reversal was chemically done. E-3 was a nice lower temp process as well and easy to control but again film faded more readily than E-4 and especially E-6.

Kodak made some really interesting films for high altitude work. One was a spin-off of aerial recon work and was around ISO 3 and on a super thin estar base. In 70mm you could load over 200 shots in a standard 15’ cassette. It was too high contrast t shoot on the ground but from high altitude it was amazing what you could capture. I never used it in 9” but shot 70mm for a few projects from 15,000’. The Kodak name was simply a number, 1515. I think it was originally used in the cameras of a U2 spy plane. In a 9” metric camera like a Zeiss RMK I have no doubt you’d be able to distinguish makes of cars from 20,000’.

I worked for the DOE for a while in the 70’s and saw classified high altitude imagery from around 50-60,000’. It was a continuous strip of film much like a circuit camera neg. The lens and film were so good that it was easy to tell the kinds of cars in parking lots. We also had satellite imagery that could resolve a golf ball on a football field from 100 miles out. This was highly classified at the time but no longer.

 

[luuca]

When I was involved in aerial work Aerocolor was processed in the old C-22 chemistry. It was a nice lower temp process but negs of that era color wasn’t very stable. Colors faded over a decade or so depending on how they were stored.

The transparency film Ektachrome aero and Ektachrome IR were all E-3 process and had to be exposed to a bright light after the 1st developer, just prior to the color developer, to reverse the film. With the introduction of E-4 then E-6 the reversal was chemically done. E-3 was a nice lower temp process as well and easy to control but again film faded more readily than E-4 and especially E-6.

Kodak made some really interesting films for high altitude work. One was a spin-off of aerial recon is recon work and was around ISO 3 and on a super thin estar base. In 70mm you could load over 200 shots in a standard 15’ cassette. It was too high contrast t shoot on the ground but from high altitude it was amazing what you could capture. I never used it in 9” but shot 70mm for a few projects from 15,000’. The Kodak name was simply a number, 1515. I think it was originally used in the cameras of a U2 spy plane. In a 9” metric camera like a Zeiss RMK I have no doubt you’d be able to distinguish makes of cars from 20,000’.

I worked for the DOE for a while in the 70’s and saw classified high altitude imagery from around 50-60,000’. It was a continuous trip of film much like a circuit camera neg. The lens and film were so good that it was easy to tell the kinds of cars in parking lots. We also had satellite imagery that could resolve a golf ball on a football field from 100 miles out. This was highly classified at the time but no longer.

and this was in the 70's with film cameras... amazing