What's up with Rollei Films?

[sully75]

Just wondering, anyone using Rollei films? They have some really interesting stuff, a tech-pan substitute (I guess) and some other cool stuff.

Do they produce their own films? I never hear them mentioned as a film manufacturer. But a lot of their stuff seems pretty unique.

This lady seems to get a lot out of it:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/missesb/4480655029/in/photostream

(warning, non-4x5 shot of a beautiful woman). They do make 4x5 film, btw.

[Arne Croell]

The company behind Rollei as a film brand is Maco. They do not make their own film, they get the film from other companies, which changed over the years and included Efke and Forte in the past. Most of their film now is made by Gevaert in Belgium.

[sully75]

Never heard of Gaveart. Just looked them up. So...are the Rollei films agfa films?

[Arne Croell]

Never heard of Gaveart. Just looked them up. So...are the Rollei films agfa films?
Well - its not that simple. Originally, there was Agfa, and there was Gevaert. Then they became Agfa-Gevaert. The consumer part in Leverkusen that made all the well-known products (APX 25, APX 100, MCC etc.) was sold to a holding as Agfa -Photo and went bankrupt within a year (convoluted story there). Gevaert remains and makes film for technical uses for surveillance and the military. Essentially, many of the present Rollei films are rebranded versions of those Gevaert films (thats why many of them have extended red sensitivity) and have nothing to do with Agfa's former products. However, some of the remaining Agfa stock (APX 100 and 400) has been sold as "Rollei Retro" film, but that was only as long as the old stockpile from Agfa lasted.

[Lynn Jones]

In the 1950's I bought and used tons of Gevaert films like Dandi-Pan and Gevapan 30 together with UFG developer. Gevaert was extremely successful with graphic arts films which is why Agfa essentially bought them, Agfa couldn't get a smell of that market and the North American operation was not good at selling Agfa or Gevaert products. Eventually the management was changed and Agfa started to recover, however Gevaert just faded away.

I they are still making quality b/w films I would sure give them a try.

Lynn

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

I have bought some Rollei-branded Gevaert color slide film sold under the brand 'Rollei digibase CR 200'
The film is not available in 4x5", I tested it in 120.
This film is apparently a Gevaert Aviphot film for aerial reconnaissance and Maco does not make any secret about that.
For ordinary landscape images, I found a systematic yellow cast making my recent winter shots with snow unpleasant. In parallel I had other slides made in the same conditions with the same camera with Fuji provia 100F, so I cannot blame the camera nor the lens (however, you should always be ready to blame yourself, in order to improve the quality of your pictures)

I'm trying to correct this yellow cast with one of the blue filters of the Wratten 82[A, B, C] series. And may be I could project the slides through one of those filters as well :D

Recently, a new series of B&W Rollei-branded film named 'RPX' was introduced and I dislike the situation regarding advertising for this film, since the actual manfacturer is not officially disclosed. Retailers are not allowed to disclose it, probably not Gevaert, but everybody on the Internet knows that the film is made by [CENSORED]

[jnantz]

its good to see the rebranding game is still as strong as it ever was
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=11217

[Mark Sampson]

Emmanuel, the yellow cast in your Gevaert Aviphot film is probably because the film was designed to be exposed with 3000m of air between camera and subject. I'd guess that your images are fairly contrasty, as well. If so that could be because high contrast is a necessity for aerial photography- due to the flat lighting as well as the atmosphere.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Emmanuel, the yellow cast in your Gevaert Aviphot film is probably because the film was designed to be exposed with 3000m of air between camera and subject.

You are right, the reason is certainly there.
From reading various posts on the Internet I thought at first that this CR200 film was simply the same as AGFA RSX-II 200, but coated on another support.
Actually, I had tried a couple of RSX-II 200 rolls just before it was discontinued and there was no such a yellow cast. So I'm a bit puzzled. RSX-II in ISO 100 was extremely neutral although not as fine-grained as Provia 100 F; RSX-II in iso 200 was, may be, a bit warmer, but not at all like the Rollei CR-200 I've tested.
I realize that the use of weakly correcting filters le a 82A is probably something useless in the digital photographic world ... hence I could find used 82A filters for very low prices, probably fewer people need them now.


Regarding the contrast, the contrast of this Aviphot/Rollei CR200 is not high.
I just have to expose and have a few rolls processed and the problem will be solved, if this yellow cast is consistent for all CR-200 films on sale now. a 82A or 82B should do the job.

Regarding the choice of thjs film, while we still have excellent color slides films from Big Yellow and Big Green that I duly appreciate, I was just curious to test a film labeled "made in Belgium", the last color slide film made in Europe and easily available to the amateur in small quantities.