Arista EDU Ultra B&W 100 $23.99 for 50 sheets any good?

[mentalcrisis00]

I'm looking for cheap (but good) 4x5 B&W film and came across this stuff. Anyone ever used Arista EDU Ultra B&W 100? 50 sheets of it only $23.99, Kodak Tmax 100 is $54-$64 for a 50 sheet box at most places. Basically looking for a fine grain landscape film.

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/190145-Arista-EDU-Ultra-BandW-100-iso-4x5-50-sheets

[gevalia]

The arista ultra edu 100 is good stuff as far as I am concerned but I could never get its reciprocity down right so I do not use it when I need a long exposure film. For long exposures, I'll use Acros or Efke pl25. I have tried it souped in Pyrocat-HD and Rodinal. I've been hooked on Adox CHS 25 (which is the same as Efke 25 PL) for the past 2 years and that's also pretty inexpensive and always available. As far as a faster film, I'll use HP5+ which is not inexpensive. I do have a box of the 4x5 arista ultra edu 400 but have not developed it yet so I cannot comment. Do a search here for posts using the arista 100 - you'll see a few guys use it quite a bit.

[mentalcrisis00]

I like the price on the Arista, I've used Efke 35mm film before and it worked out good but I can't find it in 4x5 anymore. I looked at some fuji 4x5 film only a month ago but it is also gone on B&H. B&W 4x5 film on ebay goes pretty cheap but a lot of the time it's either open or old. Although I just recently used some Kodak Tmax that expired 4 years ago and it came out fine, other than I screwed up a few developments cause of technique. However that wasn't the films fault. I'll do some more research on it and see what I find.

[BetterSense]

It is beautiful film! Wonderful, if you can work around its limitations.

It is slow. I consider it 50. Or 25.

It has horrible reciprocity. Seriously bad. Worst reciprocity I've personally seen. Shadow detail disappears for long exposures, and by 'long' I mean 'starting at 1/2 second'.

It has short development times and it's easy to block up the highlights.

I've experienced one minor emulsion defect in this film. But is an emulsion defect minor when it happens in the sky of your photograph? Some of us can't use a clone tool...

It's beautiful film but it's not versatile enough for me to use for everything, so I use Tmax.

[mentalcrisis00]

Ah thanks that's very helpful. I do night shots and some long exposures so this probably wouldn't be the film for me either. Maybe I'll try a pack and see how it goes, will probably end up buying more Tmax.

[SamReeves]

Fantastic film for the price. I ran my EI test and it came to 100. Shot a few sheets and it looks great.

[Heespharm]

It's fomapan 100 so use that for the basis of your searches... I like it for most formats except 35mm

[gevalia]

Ah thanks that's very helpful. I do night shots and some long exposures so this probably wouldn't be the film for me either. Maybe I'll try a pack and see how it goes, will probably end up buying more Tmax.

Hmmm. Night shots and long exposures? Fuji Acros has about the best reciprocity characteristics I have come across. I have also found Efke 25 to be quite good as well but have only tested it to 12 minutes.

[Jim Noel]

Arista edu ultra in sheet film is a very nice film for printing in gelatin silver. Since it seems to be an older style emulsion I use older style developers with it. In D-76 I get an EI of 100. In Rodinal 1+50 it is 1/3 stop slower at 80.
My only problem with it is that at this point I have not been able to achieve sufficient D-max for use with palladium, and certainly not for salt prints. I intend to continue experiments to solve this problem.

[mentalcrisis00]

I've also looked at the Efke PL 100 M, 50 sheets of that is only $40, anyone know what the reciprocity and contrast is like on that? My friend has used efke in 35mm for years and swears about it because of the high silver content. However he doesn't do landscapes or long exposures as I do. Are these high silver films more susceptible to scratching? This is stated on B&H for the Efke 100 "Treat the wet emulsion with extreme care; Efke recommends the use of hardener in the stop bath or fixer" I'll be tray processing with this so if it scratches easily that might not be so great.

[John Kasaian]

You've had lots of good advise here. I shoot Arista.edu Ultra 8x10 when reciprocity
isn't threatening to
to raise it's ugly head. Understanding it's limitations is the key---it is really nice film and I find gives great results, however when the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls I'll shoot Ilford or my horded Kodak TMY in the 50 sheet box.