Re: [Leica] Tungsten film?

[Malcolm McCullough <blayne@mbox2.singnet.com.sg>]

>Is there any 35mm tungsten-balanced colour negative film available? I want
>to shoot some slides through a Leica DM1 microscope (to keep it on topic!)
>
Neil

The advice about using a blue filter (80A?) seems sound, but will you have
reciprocity problems? That was one of the advantages of the discontinued
(?) tungsten neg films - they were Type L. Pro 100T is only available in
120 and sheet as you no doubt know. However, the data sheet for the new
Portra films says that they are OK for up to 10 s exposures. Maybe that is
the best answer, or use the internegative film.

Of course there are miles of 100 ASA tungsten 35 mm negative film shot
every week in the movie industry (Eastman 5248).  "Short ends" of this film
are available very cheaply, but there is a teensy-weensy problemette - the
Rem-jet antistatic layer. This is made with fine carbon particles and is
normally removed in a buffered borax pre-wash with carefully controlled
jets of water. If it is put through a normal C41 line it will be developed
almost correctly, but who knows where all those little black bits will end
up. You wont be popular with the lab. I have heard of people doing one-shot
development in a spiral tank, but have never seen the results or tried it
myself. My own tests, in daylight, for DIY rem-jet removal were not
encouraging.

Movie labs will develop it. Many do still cassettes of it free for their
regular customers, but would charge huge amounts  for other people. I have
been quoted seventy pounds a roll at the beginning of a phone conversation
and 'Send it in, we'll do it for free' five minutes later. There are some
labs who will do it for still photographers at very reasonable cost -
normally their minimum order cost which can be around fifty pounds - as
long as you send them reasonable amounts (maybe no more than ten rolls) of
film and don't expect them to process fifty rolls (ie 250 ft which might be
how much you can get processed for fifty quid at the footage rate). They
will also run it through the contact printer so that you get a long roll of
very nice positives. Contact printers expose continuously rather than
intermittently so the difference between the movie frame and the still
frame is immaterial. Before Kodak introduced the Rem-jet layer, Dale labs
(Hollywood, Fla) used to make a business of loading short ends of movie
film into 35 mm cassettes and processing to neg along with a contact print
(ie a transparency).

Just in case somebody thinks that they could load it into casssettes,
expose it then re-splice it back to a 100 ft (say) roll for very cheap
developing and contact printing - DON'T. The only splices that should go
through a process line are the splices the lab make themselves.

For real fans there is some Ukrainian film available which does not have
the antistatic layer but I don't think it is C41 compatible.

Putting movie film in a Leica? Oscar would be proud, and one would take
such good pictures knowing that  one's perforations were just that bit more
accurate than Joe Average's.

Regards,
Malcolm