[Leica] Re; What film did HCB use?

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

No one knows for sure what film HCB used in the 40s and 50s. However it was
probably one of the then popular high speed panchromatic emulsions. My
wayback machine tells me that in the late 40s this group consisted of Kodak
Super XX Pan, Koddak Plus X Pan, Ansco Supreme, Ansco Ultra Speed Pan, and a
few European films by Ilford, Agfa, and Adox. These emulsions could all be
characterized as having low contrast, long scale, excellent exposure
latitude, and soft gradation. By modern standards they would be considered
grainy. The average speed of this group was listed as 40 to 80 ASA although
every working photographer at the time knew that the films could be pushed
to significantly higher speeds.


Interestingly, ten years later the same films were listed as having much
higher speeds. In the early 50s Super XX was advertised as an ASA 200 film.
Plus X an ASA 125 film. I don't know if this was an actual change in the
emulsion or a change in the speed rating system. Perhaps both.


Tri-X changed the game when it was introduced in 1954. It had a "no funny
business" ASA speed of 400 and literally blew Super XX away. I was a working
photographer during this era and the difference between films was like day
and night. Kodak even published techniques for using Tri-X at speeds
equivalent to ASA 3200 or 6400, although at a considerable increase in
graininess.


So whatever film HCB used, you are not likely to find a duplicate unless you
find a few rolls frozen in a glacier. Even if the name is the same, films
have changed a lot in the last 50 years.


Larry Z