CatLabs 80 ASA Film

[Ari]

I just started shooting this film and I really like it so far.
I'm by no means a scientific tester, but my limited experience with this film has been uniformly positive.
The tonal range is very good, ditto the lower contrast. It scans well.

Development has been in HC-110, but I haven't settled on a proper development time yet. I expose it at 32 ASA.
I did a test to determine development time, and it yielded odd results: 8 minutes or 10/11 minutes, but not 9 minutes. Hah!

I like to use either 1:63 or my own 1:39, but with these shots, I used 1:31 and developed in a Jobo for 8 minutes.
This film sometimes looks slightly under-developed to my non-scientific eye, then it surprises me when I scan it, as it scans with no loss of detail anywhere.
Highlights are also full of detail and so far have not been irretrievably over-exposed.

Anyway, enough chit chat.

Do you have any images made with this remarkable film to share? Here are mine.
Straight scans, shot with a Fuji L 300 or a Fuji 250 f/6.7 on 8x10.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51190494630_0518e8cc0b_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2kZwEB1)

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51188722412_78375e14ec_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2kZnzMw)

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51189646043_058f07f5dd_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2kZsjmc)

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51186294828_1b767aee84_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2kZa99C)

[BrianShaw]

Me too. I only shot a few sheets so far and was reasonably impressed. I processed in DD-X 1+4... 8 minutes.

Shot with Anniversary Graphic and Kodak Anastigmat 5-1/2 inch lens.

Sorry, no scans to show, though.

Really like your images!

[Ben Calwell]

I just started shooting this film and I really like it so far.
I'm by no means a scientific tester, but my limited experience with this film has been uniformly positive.
The tonal range is very good, ditto the lower contrast. It scans well.

Development has been in HC-110, but I haven't settled on a proper development time yet.
I did a test to determine development time, and it yielded odd results: 8 minutes or 10/11 minutes, but not 9 minutes. H

I like to use either 1:63 or my own 1:39, but with these shots, I used 1:31 and developed in a Jobo for 8 minutes.
This film sometimes looks slightly under-developed to my non-scientific eye, then it surprises me when I scan it, as it scans with no loss of detail anywhere.
Highlights are also full of detail and so far have not been irretrievably over-exposed.

Anyway, enough chit chat.

Do you have any images made with this remarkable film to share? Here are mine.
Straight scans, shot with a Fuji L 300 or a Fuji 250 f/6.7 on 8x10.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51190494630_0518e8cc0b_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2kZwEB1)

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51188722412_78375e14ec_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2kZnzMw)

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51189646043_058f07f5dd_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2kZsjmc)

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51186294828_1b767aee84_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2kZa99C)



Glad to know it’s a decent film. I like your images.

[Ari]

Thanks, Ben. I was just tooling around the house.
Can't wait to try this film out on a real person.

[paulbarden]

Its got great tonality, but preserving shadow information is a challenge. I rate it at 25ASA to accomplish that. I have recently adopted Crawley's FX-37 developer designed especially for T-grain type films (but is also excellent on traditional grain slow films) and I may try CatLabs X 80 in FX-37. Why? Because FX-37 provides a speed boost of 1/2 to 1 stop compared to other developers, and I have verified this by comparing it with D-76 and Atomal49. Nice thing about FX-37 is that development times are much shorter than most any other developer (think 5 to 7 minutes for many)
But beware! If you ever get into reciprocity territory, you're in for a real shock!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49790773713_5bbb76098b_b.jpg

[Ari]

Beautiful, Paul. I didn't realize this was shot on CatLabs.

Yes, I forgot to mention that I'm using it at 32 ASA all the time. I'll edit my first post.
I think that's based on a post you wrote a while back.
Anyway, 32 ASA gives enough wiggle room to bring out shadows or fade them to black.
With the Arista EDU I've been using, that choice is narrower. Often I'd have to strike just the right balance between reining in highlights and not making the shadows too dense.

[Ari]

If you ever get into reciprocity territory, you're in for a real shock!

Speaking of, where can I get reciprocity information?
Thanks

EDIT: just found a review where the author successfully used Ilford FP4 as a starting point for reciprocity times.

[paulbarden]

Beautiful, Paul. I didn't realize this was shot on CatLabs.

Yes, I forgot to mention that I'm using it at 32 ASA all the time. I'll edit my first post.
I think that's based on a post you wrote a while back.
Anyway, 32 ASA gives enough wiggle room to bring out shadows or fade them to black.
With the Arista EDU I've been using, that choice is narrower. Often I'd have to strike just the right balance between reining in highlights and not making the shadows too dense.

I have just processed 2 sheets of X 80 in FX-37. Its hard to say whether or not I got a better speed performance using FX-37 or not because I didn't have extra sheets to compare with another developer. I'll scan these and see what I think. My recollection was that I exposed these at about 25ASA.


Speaking of, where can I get reciprocity information?
Thanks

EDIT: just found a review where the author successfully used Ilford FP4 as a starting point for reciprocity times.

That might be OK up until you get to 5 seconds and beyond. My experience is that it gets really unreasonable after that. Like, 10 seconds turns into 3 minutes, sort of thing.

[Ari]

Like, 10 seconds turns into 3 minutes, sort of thing.

Eep.

[paulbarden]

OK, so I scanned the better of the two sheets of X 80 (which was the longer exposure, meaning rated at less than 20 ASA) and I like some things about it, tonally, but for the second time, I've encountered odd random mottling across the whole sheet: pale blurry blobs in the upper-middle values. Not at all impressed. I exposed this image 3 months ago and just now got to processing it, but I've seen these marks appear on film I had processed the same day as I exposed it, so....
I disguised the problem a bit in post processing by dialing down the texture in the mid tones, but you can still see all the weird blobs in the zone 6/7 values. A shame, because I like this image. Now I just wish I'd done it on FP4 instead.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51189547842_90573d5373_b.jpg

Here's a larger version (https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51189547842_125203852e_k.jpg), in which you can more clearly see the mottling effect.

[Ari]

Could it be the FX-37 causing the mottling?
If you hadn't said anything, I would've asked how you got it to look like this.

[paulbarden]

Could it be the FX-37 causing the mottling?
If you hadn't said anything, I would've asked how you got it to look like this.

I don't think so. I've only recently started using FX-37 and I know for certain the mottling appeared using D-76 the previous time.
I'm going to expose a few more sheets this afternoon and process them immediately, and I'll do 4 sheets so I can process in at least one other developer.

[Mark Sampson]

What's your film processing method? A post above here mentions "shorter" development times in FX-37... generally not a good idea for even development of sheet film. Of course I have no experience with either the film or developer, just thinking out loud.

[Ari]

Too bad. I haven't had your problem at all, but I've had a few sheets that were too long for my holder.

[braxus]

Can anyone confirm or deny with testing they have done, that this film is just Shanghai GP3 rebadged? Im aware its packaged in the same factory, as it uses the GP3 backing paper on 120 rolls. But whether its GP3 film is the question.

[martiansea]

Can anyone confirm or deny with testing they have done, that this film is just Shanghai GP3 rebadged? Im aware its packaged in the same factory, as it uses the GP3 backing paper on 120 rolls. But whether its GP3 film is the question.

I just shot both the Catlabs film and Shanghai 100 sheet film today to try and do a direct comparison. I think they have different emulsions, but it's very obvious to me the Catlabs film is made in the same factory and suffer from the same variety of quality control problems. I see on the Catlabs film, the same tiny little emulsion-missing-pinholes I often seen on the Shanghai. The cutting and notching of the sheets is rough in the same way, as if using tools too dull. The interleaving paper is the same. Etc...
What looks different, that makes me think they are indeed different emulsion formulas, is that the spectral sensitivity starts to drop off once you start getting into the green-yellow range, where on the Shanghai 100 it does not. I say this because I took photos of a light yellow/green pepper, with the same light quality (natural light from a window) and it came out very much darker on the Catlabs film, while the surrounding neutral gray background exposed as nearly the same as possible. It's like the Shanghai 100 is a typical panchromatic film, and the Catlabs is like a weird ortho-pan-something with reduced red sensitivity. Guess I need to take a shot of a color checker to know. I developed both films in D-23 for 12 minutes at 20 degrees C. The Shanghai was 4x5 sheet and the Catlabs was 8x10 sheet.
I also took identical 8x10 shots on FP4+ along side the Catlabs. I haven't developed those yet, but when I do, that should give a more direct compare/contrast regarding the spectral response to another known film.

Also, one of the Catlabs shots had a strange mottling as well, something similar to what has been mentioned in this thread, but not exactly the same, but very strange. I can't say whether it's an emulsion flaw or a processing error on my part. It was rotary processed with another sheet, and the other sheet has no flaws, so it's difficult for me to say the cause.
I'll post the comparison pics soon.

I'm now out of Shanghai film, so I won't be able to do any more comparisons for the time being. Not sure if I'll ever buy any more of it (either the Shanghai or the Catlabs) because the emulsion flaws are too troublesome. For my money, green sensitive X-Ray film feels a better choice when wanting to go cheap, at least as far as 8x10 is concerned. Maybe I'll get the 4x5 again, because it's cheap enough to not be too bothered by the flaws, but Foma 100 has gotten me many more keepers.

[paulbarden]

Also, one of the Catlabs shots had a strange mottling as well, something similar to what has been mentioned in this thread, but not exactly the same, but very strange. I can't say whether it's an emulsion flaw or a processing error on my part. It was rotary processed with another sheet, and the other sheet has no flaws, so it's difficult for me to say the cause.
I'll post the comparison pics soon.

I'm very interested in seeing how your FP4 sheets compare to the X 80.

Since posting the problems I had with sheets of CatLabs X 80 showing ugly mottling marks, I've shot several more sheets and processed them in a variety of developers. All sheets displayed the same mottling, although it varied in degree with the D-76 sheets showing less of the mottling than the sheets processed in FX-37. I threw out the remainder of the box, even though it had a mid-2022 expiration date. I am not buying this again. Its not worth the modest savings. Bergger Pancro 400 is a much better film and slightly more expensive than the CatLabs stuff.

[Ari]

This is not good, it's money and time spent by both photographer and supplier.
Having spoken to Omer about film manufacturing and supply on several occasions, I know he puts a lot of energy and oversight into this making this emulsion up to standard.
Hopefully he'll add something to the conversation.

For what it's worth, I haven't experienced any problems with my 80 X film in 8x10. Just a couple of slightly over-sized sheets so far.
I use HC-110 1:39 with it, but it sounds like the developer isn't the issue.

[martiansea]

Just a couple of slightly over-sized sheets so far.


This too. It seems almost every other sheet won't fit correctly in my old Kodak/Graflex wood/metal 8x10 holders. It has been extremely frustrating.

[Ari]

This too. It seems almost every other sheet won't fit correctly in my old Kodak/Graflex wood/metal 8x10 holders. It has been extremely frustrating.

In my case, 2 sheets out of 50 so far. Annoying when it was happening.

[Bernice Loui]

Several years ago, tried two 5x7, 50 sheet boxes of efke 100 sheet film only to discover some sheets have pin holes due to some Oooops during the manufacturing.

These two boxes of film have been sitting since. Not worth the risk of discovering pin holes in the image post process.


Bernice