ortho usage

[Steve M Hostetter]

Can anyone give me any good ideas what a subect might look like that would lend it's self to the use of Ortho film.. Feel free to use imagery in the place of words or feel free to use both

Thank you
Steve

[Ron Marshall]

I took a few images of a forest glade, with wildflowers growing on the forest floor, that turned out well. The foliage was rendered light and the effect was interesting and effective in that image.

The film I used (Ilford Ortho) was very sharp and fine grained. I took a series with dead conifers partially silhouetted against (a very light) sky near sunset that worked well.

But generally I tried to avoid having sky in the images, unless I was looking for the blank sky look.

[Lee Christopher]

Hi Steve,

I've used Kokalith Ortho film for both it's original purpose as well as continuous tone work.

It's quite an interesting to work with but you guys have it easy with modern materials like the Ilford Ortho. With kodak's ortho, we had an ISO range something like 2 - 12, whereas with Ilford's, you have 40.

There are other ortho films available (I just found out tonight!) and the options are quite wide (compared to the days of Kodalith).

Google 'Kodalith Ortho Film Type 3', 'interesting things to do with Kodalith' as well as searches similar but not limited to 'working with Kodalith/ortho film' and you should get a wide array of users' first-hand reports, as well as very detailed technical writings.

Edit: Kodalith exposed and developed for continuous tone was a nightmare to print. Grain focussing was near impossible. That film was virtually grainless!

Lee who is about to re-enter the dark channels of a land with no greys, or some, depending on what developers and dilutions are use christopher

[Jimi]

I've done foliage, shaded forest glen sort of shots and a few still lifes with ortho film. I love the look. I guess some types of portraiture would lend themselves well with this film, oldfashioned male portraits, for example. The Ilford film is great and I wish it was less expensive and easier to get.

[Steve M Hostetter]

Hello Ron,Lee,and Jimi,,

Thank you for the feedback. I am shooting Ilford Ortho Plus which is an iso 80 film..
Yes I was thinking maybe some foliage shots and some portraits with white backdrops.
I think in either case I will try to go for detail with the use of a ultra sharp lens. Not sure though

[Jimi]

I don't have any examples handy now, but it works very good with an older, uncoated lens too. I've rated it at EI 64, doing it in R09 1:40.

[jnanian]

low light portraits

[Mark Sampson]

Kodak sold Tri-X Ortho 4163 in sheet sizes until 1992 or so. They advertised it for "portraits of men".
Karsh's famous portrait of Ernest Hemingway illustrates the effect nicely.
IIRC Ansel Adams thought that Timothy O'Sullivan's (blue-sensitive) wet-plate photograph of the cliff dwellings at Canyon de Chelly benefited from better tone seperation in the red-yellow rock walls than Adams got with pan film, 70 years later. I tried using a Wratten #44 (cyan) filter with pan film and found that it works, but haven't found an application that calls for the effect since.

[Glenn Thoreson]

Ortho film used to be quite popular despite the invention of panchromatic emulsion in 1903 or so. Many folks confuse Ortho film with Ortho-Litho, which is an extreme contrast film meant for graphic arts work. Not the same at all. The other film that retained popularity despite tech advances was known as "regular" film, or color blind film. Long gone, that one. Ilford Ortho Plus is supposed to be a great film. If you can get your hands on some of the photo books and magazines from the '20s and '30s, you should find some reference material to help with the use of Ortho film.

[Doremus Scudder]

Ortho film, since is basically "red blind" renders reds dark and blues and greens proportionally lighter. This can be really handy for high contrast situations with skylit shadows (i.e., lit with blue light from the sky) since the shadows are rendered much lighter than with panchromatic film, giving them a feeling of luminance as well as much more detail. Similarly, green foliage is often rendered gratifyingly lighter. The downside is that blue skies are usually white or at least very light. For portraits, the red-blindness of the film emphasizes blemishes, ruddiness and other red-colored skin defects by darkening them (maybe this "rough-look" was why it was recommended for portraits of men...).

I also like to use a Wratten #44 cyan filter to approximate the effects of ortho film with pan film. If you are interested, try shooting with one to see what the difference is (if you don't have the #44, experiment with cyan cc filters or even an 80B color-correction filter, thought the effects are not so pronounced).

Best,

Doremus Scudder