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RedSun
24-Sep-2012, 18:39
I've seen some old copy film, mostly BW, just wonder what they can be used for these days. Can I use them, say 4x5, like regular BW film?

Andrew O'Neill
24-Sep-2012, 18:45
Does it produce a direct positive?

RedSun
24-Sep-2012, 18:56
Not sure. That one is Aristatone Continuous tone.

Vaughn
24-Sep-2012, 19:26
My experience is with Kodak Copy Film. Very sensitive to small changes in exposure and development -- which would be more than an advanced beginner would usually want to deal with...where getting consistent usable negs for silver printing is desired. But those same qualities can be used to get not only 'normal' negatives but also for negs for other alt photo uses. I was using it to get the high contrast continous tone negs I wanted for carbon printing (DR of the neg a little over 2) -- especially when the scene was lacking in a lot of contrast to begin with (like only 4 or 5 stops).

The draw backs is that it is usually quite slow and orthochromatic. Neither bothered me much in my landscape work. It was a bit more expensive than Tri-X and TMax, but Kodak Copy Film is one I miss. Rollei Ortho25 seems to be a good replacement -- but costly and I do not know its present availability. I have used four sheets or so from a ten-pack so far.

lacavol
29-Sep-2012, 03:00
I've only ever dealt with Kodak Rapid Process Copy Film it is 135 B&W reversal film. I still have some left even though it expired in 1991. The best results I have gotten to date were at Sunny 16 outdoor lighting. I exposed the film at f11 for 30 seconds and processed for 6 minutes in HC110 1+49. Still a little contrasty but interesting. I'm thinking about trying 1+60 at 6 minutes and maybe 35 seconds.

Oh, hi I've been lurking for a while. Don't have a LF camera yet, just a Horseman 2X3 is my largest.

RedSun
29-Sep-2012, 08:00
This makes sense. I was interested in some 4x5 BW copy films. It appears it is limited in its use, mainly for archiving. You may be able to stretch, but it is not for general use.
Well, if the price is good, I may try some ot if.

Mark Sampson
29-Sep-2012, 20:26
There have been many, many types of b/w 'copy' film. Kodak alone must have made forty or fifty different types, and there are a few still being made. To generalize fearlessly, compared to normal b/w camera film they tend to be slow, contrasty, fine-grained, and not panchromatic. They were meant for use in the lab; but with some testing you can use them as camera films, but none of them will look like Tri-X, FP4+, or whatever normal film you are used to.

rjmeyer314
1-Oct-2012, 07:28
Somewhere in my files I have an article from a photo magazine on using Copy film for low contrast pictorial situations. I've tried it and got good negatives from it. For the most part I used copy film to make negatives for a bunch of old family photos for which the negatives had been lost.

cyrus
9-Oct-2012, 11:08
Copy film is mostly used in darkrooms for making masks

E. von Hoegh
9-Oct-2012, 11:40
Copy film is mostly used in darkrooms for making masks

Yes, there was also a type for duplicating slides IIRC.

Sevo
9-Oct-2012, 13:39
Yes, there was also a type for duplicating slides IIRC.

That was generally called "duplicating" or "slide" film. "Copy" film is a very wide area, where a small part were films also useful for general photography (and sometimes marketed as such, under another name) - the bulk were line copy and halftone process films maximized for contrast in a way not even tameable with special technical film developers.

Neil Purling
30-Mar-2016, 07:30
Are there any 'copy' type films made now?
I still have half a box of Kodak 4125 and some Maco.
I have no accurate idea of the origin of the Maco, I heard EFKE made it...
I have a fair bit of the Maco, but the damn stuff is not notched & both sides feel about the same!
I was thinking about using blue sensitive X-ray film and guillotining it down to 4x5. However using Fomapan in 4x5 could well be cheap unless I can score the stuff cheap

Mark Sampson
30-Mar-2016, 17:51
Kodak 4125 Professional Copy Film was made to do one thing; make good copy negatives from b/w prints. It has an 'upsweep' in the highlight region of the characteristic curve to avoid the grayness in the highlights when using conventional film. Not easy to master, but in a controlled lab situation, excellent copy negatives could be made. It's been discontinued for ten years or so... killed by the flat-bed scanner. Can't imagine using it as camera film.

Vaughn
30-Mar-2016, 18:13
Kodak 4125 Professional Copy Film was made to do one thing; make good copy negatives from b/w prints. It has an 'upsweep' in the highlight region of the characteristic curve to avoid the grayness in the highlights when using conventional film. Not easy to master, but in a controlled lab situation, excellent copy negatives could be made. It's been discontinued for ten years or so... killed by the flat-bed scanner. Can't imagine using it as camera film.
Great film for alt processes that needed negatives of a high density range (2.5+). I loved it for pictorial work destined for carbon printing.

EdSawyer
31-Mar-2016, 06:34
There's a good article online I just read yesterday about using Kodak 4125 for contrast expansion (N+1 to N+4 or more) for zone-system applications, to do continuous tone negatives. It looked like some pretty interesting ideas/techniques.

The link is here:

http://www.davidkachel.com/assets/xpanfilm.htm

-Ed

jnantz
31-Mar-2016, 07:16
there used to be a film called "negative duplicating film" i can't remember
but i think it was also referred to as " SO-132 " it was used as a negative to negative single step film
and required a lot of light to work ( like azo paper ). it worked OK i guess, photo warehouse sold it the last time
i needed it. eventually kodak stopped making copy film and as late as the 1990s they would tell people to use tax(100) instead.

Jim Jones
31-Mar-2016, 07:45
Kodak 4125 Professional Copy Film could also be used for portraits of men, but it's not flattering for women. Karsh achieved much the same effect by meticulous exposure and development of other films.

Drew Wiley
31-Mar-2016, 09:21
I used up the last of mine long ago on a whim for some very delicate high-key fresh powder snow subjects where I wanted to accentuate the contrast yet
retain soft shadows in open sun. The film was already old and some of it frilled during development, but the sheets that did survive printed lovely.

Mark Sampson
31-Mar-2016, 10:16
Hmmm. I can see where 4125 would work for increasing highlight contrast... but I never saw the need for that in my own work, personal or professional. Once you got the copy setup dialed-in (which took some careful testing) it did its intended job quite well.
I think Karsh would have used an ortho camera film like Tri-X Ortho 4163 for his portraits... kodak advertised it for 'portraits of men'. That film was discontinued c.1990 though.
SO-132 was a direct positive film; extreme exposure levels caused it to 'self-reverse' and develop as a positive; meant for making duplicate negatives in one step. Similar emulsions were SO-015 and 2422, and an earlier version called 'Direct Positive Duplicating Film". That one took an exposure of 2 minutes @f/11 in a process camera.

Drew Wiley
31-Mar-2016, 11:40
I might have originally bought some for copy work. I don't remember. Just had it, used it on a hunch. It work. Ever after I prefer to copy or duplicate using double
neg method with conventional films like FP4, except where Ortho Litho is appropriate, as in high contrast copy.

jnantz
31-Mar-2016, 13:39
SO-132 was a direct positive film; extreme exposure levels caused it to 'self-reverse' and develop as a positive; meant for making duplicate negatives in one step. Similar emulsions were SO-015 and 2422, and an earlier version called 'Direct Positive Duplicating Film". That one took an exposure of 2 minutes @f/11 in a process camera.

i would cut the film up and do a test strip before making the duplicates.
thankfully i never had any self-reverse. i might still have some lying around.

Neil Purling
1-Apr-2016, 07:53
Hans O Mahn do not list the Maco Genius Print Film. No surprise there if the stuff was made by EFKE, the last of it would have been sold long ago. I also used to use EFKE PL25, which was very nice stuff.
I have a need for really slow film when I am using my lantern Petzval. This naturally has no iris With this lens the Maco Genius is a good match. The film is contrasty, which counteracts the low contrast as the lens cannot be stopped down. The lens only covers the area of my 6x7 roll-backs, but I can't get a super slow 120 roll film. The Petzval does not come out to play very often, which is why I am conserving my stock of the Genius print film and the Kodak 4125.