Rear Vision

Doing the former very easy of course, but the ability to confidently offer the latter was vitally important to us as we didn’t feel that it offering films to people but then leaving them with no means to deal with processing them after would be very wrong.  We see it happening elsewhere today and still feel strongly that it’s not a very responsible thing to do.

We looked around at how people had attempted a multitude of methods to deal with the dreaded remjet, their concoctions and removal formulae and procedures, trying many and finding each to be…well, junk to be quite honest, almost all, leaving bitty residue.

Of course, most were using C41 developer but due to it being based on the wrong colour developer element, as you can see from the above it was okay with the already deteriorated Vision2 but when applied to the new Vison3 films we found results to be hard, cold and lacking consistency Not up to the standards that we felt that folk deserved when applied to these lovely new films.

All of our findings were openly written up over those times, you can read a couple of those original articles also in our blog section should you so chose!

This was our first revelation, it was a game changer. In terms of film cleanliness that was a huge turning point, with little or any remjet contamination to deal with after fixing, and the ensuing benefit in terms of scanning and finishing.

So you can see from the photos below, that product when combined with establishing a processing procedure using a much more appropriate developer, one made using the correct Colour Developer agent, this combination brought about results that we were very proud of, so the ball started rolling from there…

As a result of that almost chance meeting, we moved our own processing service over to full on proper ECN2 chemistry and that was later evolved into the first Home Processing Kit for colour Motion Picture Films offered to the general population. One of two kits that we now currently offer:

It’s fair to say that the work we put in over time, has been for years become one of the perpetuating factors in the use of these lovely films in 35mm stills photography to the point, that what we did has been much emulated to the point that people take them for granted now and results, as you can see below are lovely.

The polar opposite to how these things were perceived when we first set out on this little mission but we maintain to impress upon people that, in the stills environment, we are not using these products in the very specific manner in which they are designed to be used.

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Here they are: The Mangificent Trio

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Therefore, we say that…do not be shocked should some work with a photo editor may be required to adjust some photos to your own satisfaction…

Having said that look at what we can now get from the three Vision3 films we have settled on keeping:

So that’s pretty much the up to the day synopsis of where we’re at here at Nik & Trick, everything based on trying and testing and of course, the experiences of what comes to our door from elsewhere…and it ain’t always good.

In these current times, it sometimes seems like every Tom, Dick and Harry around the world is respooling Motion Picture Films.

You’ll have seen SO many film labels appeared over the past couple of years, some, like us, upfront and honest about what it is, much of it rebranded to look like something it isn’t. 

Yeah, we kinda started out that with a can of old not so good stock BUT fully aware that it was never up to a standard for commercial use so was intended to be used ONLY for extensive learning and testing.   We were honest about that.

Everything else we took in was always fresh other than the Fuji stocks we managed to find (from reputable source), but even then, we tested and tested those to ensure results were up to our demands. 

We still see the potentially unscrupulous offering Fuji Motion Picture stocks…one of the side reasons that’s prompted us to get stuck into this long overdue article!

You will we hope understand why we’re not happy about the above…

Two reasons:  Firstly, had we not spotted it, then putting them through our minilab could have trashed hundreds of pounds worth of chemistry…(that we would consider seeking renumeration for.)  Secondly, it’s conning people and thirdly, it harms film photography.

Okay, right now let’s just take a quick aside so that I can assure you that:

We tried everything!

Yes, that’s right, lots of trial and lots of error, but we tried, even up to and including acquisition of a short end of 250D 65mm to cut down and to roll into 120 format. The results were beautiful with a huge BUT….

To cut it from 65mm left a choice, either slice through one set of perforations OR make the film just too narrow to stay on a spiral during processing.

It was a bugger to do, time consuming, loading was a pain and…yes, get this bit: It rarely sold so overall, not worth the effort and we shan’t be doing it again.

I will however consider splicing some to 127 if a short enough length came up, it’s glorious in 127 trust me, I won’t show you results now as it’s so hard to get the stock but be assured that it’s always under consideration. Let me know if that’s of interest to you 😉

Vison3 50D just seems to adore this process as you can see, but whilst our own jury is out on 250D we just love the way 500T responds with colourations in shadows and popping reds! Take a looky:

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What Else?

One of the other reasons for this post, is that you, like most film lovers will have seen online that Kodak have gotten really annoyed about their Vision films hitting the stills market right?

Yes, that is true, but the whole truth is that there were so many big entities (in China?) buying up so much stock that it was impacting the film making industry hence they’re trying to put a stop to that.  We don’t fall into the realms of that level of production by any degree!

Before we move onto the black and white movie films here’s another little interjection…

Up until a certain individual got hold of and destroyed Orwo/Filmotech they had started producing their own colour Motion Picture Film and there are stocks that are out there still. 

Again some very dodgy stuff as this guy has been known to send out any old junk stocks found in the cold room to a once happy clientelle such as our guys in Shanghai…who’ve made the best of a bad situation.

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Magnificent Monochrome!

Don’t worry, from the outset I realised that this post can be regarded as us just bigging ourselves up…but WHY NOT??

Bottom line is this: everything in this article is pure truth. Much of what we did we did noted and copied by numerous others who bigged themselves up off the back of our work! Some who even did so up by assuming the credit for some of these things! Let’s just say: We’re flattered. 😉

Here’s another truth, when it comes to black and white moive film stocks again, we did it first (in England!! : P) starting with films made by the late lamented Orwo/Filmotech.

Orwo N74, a 400asa film was pretty good.  Later replaced by N75 which saw the first catastrophic failings brought on by that certain individual’s acquisition of the factory.

Alongside the lovely 100asa UN54, a film that we still say is every bit as good as Ilford’s legendary FP4+

There were other stocks we bought for respooling from that once efficient factory, but now, thanks to you know who, all gone.  You can read about one such film, DP3 in one of our other blogs.

Last and very much not least…

Yes you guessed it! We were offering legitimate stocks here in UK prior to anyone else including Cinestill (sorry boys!) is the simply magnificent Kodak Double-X.

Also offered alongside the motion picture recommended chemistry by BelliniFoto:  D96 developer and Fix F5 but a film that just so happy in so many developers especially our Colin!

Kodak Double-X simply put IS the most verstaile film, it has the ability to cope with being metered from 50 to 3200asa when used with appropriate developers of which it can usually cope with just bout anything though some do bring out the best in this amazing film.

Here’s the final gallery for this article but read on after please!

As you can see I’ve used photos made in a wide range of circumstances and condition, and that were processed in a wide range of film developers, some of which we make here on site.

So there!

Don’t forget to sign up to our somewhat irregular newsletter and perhaps try out our mobile where there may be a neat new feature coming soon as well as a special celebration bundle deal on colour Motion Picture Films and Processing. 😉

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Please be certain that: All of the current products this article relates to are available from us at all time.  With regards to our film stocks, we are people of integrity thus those are always legitimately acquired.  In terms of the chemistry mentioned here, we are of course the main importers for BelliniFoto and have been working closely with them since 2016 and ciontinue to do so.