ADOX CHS II 100 14x17 Bad Experience

[jurgenestanislao]

Hi folks,

Sharing my really bad experience with Adox CHS II 100 14x17 sheet film.

I purchased three packs from FotoImpex late last year and started using them these past weeks.

From the packs I noticed several alarming issues during film loading, first up, I noticed that the paper sheets inside left some powdery residue on the negatives and on my finger tips. These are black paper sheets that kept the negatives apart from each other.

What's worse is that within the packs, most of the negatives didn't have notches! Which made it difficult to know of course which orientation you should be placing the sheets inside your film holders.

This is 14x17 ULF film, and it's not cheap, more so coming from a supposedly reputable brand!

Now for those that had notches, I loaded them and went on a long planned location shoot for two days, and alas, I didn't expect things to get any worse, all the negatives I shot turned out blank.

Now upon contacting FotoImpex, I was informed that this format was discontinued by Adox—I wouldn't be surprised why.

Never again—I do not recommend purchasing from Adox.


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[paulbarden]

Experience has shown that if someone gets blank sheets of film, 95% of the time its user error responsible for the lack of an image, not the film.

[jurgenestanislao]

Experience has shown that if someone gets blank sheets of film, 95% of the time its user error responsible for the lack of an image, not the film.

All the Ilford sheets I shot during the shoot turned out fine.

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[jurgenestanislao]

Experience has shown that if someone gets blank sheets of film, 95% of the time its user error responsible for the lack of an image, not the film.

I'm assuming the lack of notches on the film might ba QA issue from the manufacturer, for all I know all the shots I made were the other way around ie, the notches were misplaced given most of the sheets didn't have notches.

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[Michael R]

I haven't used this film in "standard" sheet sizes, only 2.25x3.25, and I noticed the notches were not always completely punched but I could still feel where they were. Since 14x17 is also a non-standard size perhaps the notches are similarly incompletely punched.

It's hard to imagine the emulsion would fail completely even if it was old stock, poorly stored etc. which makes me suspect either the film was loaded backward in the holders, or there was a shutter problem, or something went wrong in processing.

[jurgenestanislao]

The ones that I loaded had notches and were loaded correctly. I used a barrel lens for this one and a cap for a shutter, alternately a Packard shutter as well.

Someone took videos of the whole process and upon reviewing (pulling dark slides etc) we're all good.

Also checked all my written exposure notes etc and all were okay.

Hence why I am flabbergasted.

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[paulbarden]

All the Ilford sheets I shot during the shoot turned out fine.

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Did you process the two film types at the same time, or in different sessions?

[Tin Can]

Re shoot with standard KODAK 2X or 1X, 14X17 X-Ray

[jurgenestanislao]

Did you process the two film types at the same time, or in different sessions?

Same day. I process via drum, one sheet at a time.

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[paulbarden]

Same day. I process via drum, one sheet at a time.

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It just seems unlikely that the film didn't react to exposure whatsoever. You will know for sure if you take a piece of that film, bring it out into daylight so you KNOW it has been exposed, and then process it. If it goes black, then you have to assume that you either didn't expose the film through user error, or you fixed it before you developed it. Or possibly the developer was dead.