Beef
Hi,
I’ve just had a go with the Adox CHS 100 Art over the last few days. The first results with the film in Rodinal are brilliant.
I did notice, though, that the film is coated with gelatin on BOTH sides. When it’s dry, one side is matt and the other is glossy (so quite normal). But when you rinse it, you can tell that the ‘smooth side’ has a coating (slippery and puffed up)... plus you can scrape off the ‘transparent’ emulsion.
Was that a manufacturing fault, or is the film deliberately coated on both sides? :lol:
What’s the advantage of that? The only thing I noticed straight away... the film is incredibly difficult to peel off because of the gelatine coating on both sides :)
Regards
Andi
cfb_de
Hi Andi,
The coating on the back (also known as ‘no-curl’) prevents the film from curling up excessively as it dries.
Best regards,
Franz
MirkoBoeddecker
Hello Andi,
We have switched to PET base film with a backing for all CHS films.
The cost saving on the base film covers the cost of the double coating.
The main reason is that the uncoated triacetate base film was very susceptible to scratches on the reverse side.
Very fine micro-scratches can occur when the films are transported over the contact plate or wound up in the camera. These didn’t bother anyone for 80 years, as they were not visible in the conventional process – but then scanners were invented. Scanners reveal these scratches, and we were forced to take action.
The backing solves the problem by allowing these fine scratches to be absorbed by the gelatin layer and to ‘swell’ during the development process (the surface of the gelatin is smooth again after drying).
The films on a PET backing are marked with a ‘PET’ sticker.
New packaging is currently being printed.
Franz is an advocate of triacetate – as am I, actually (mainly because of the reduced wear and tear on the perforation punches costing many thousands of euros ;-) but double-sided triacetate has become so expensive that we would no longer have been competitive with the CHS had we retained triacetate as the base material.
All customers would then have switched to the cheaper efke film.
For the new AP 100 films (APX emulsion), we plan to introduce this quality (triacetate with a backing). These films can be priced slightly above the CHS films.
Best regards,
Mirko
mdeutgen
Mirko,
Have I understood this correctly: the effect you mentioned—micro-cracks that appear as scratches—only becomes apparent when you scan your negatives? I take this to mean quite clearly that with traditional analogue processing, I still notice almost nothing of it...
You state quite clearly that this is what distinguishes CHS from Efke. Is it really worth pouring photochemical solutions onto two different substrates? I would rather expect that the quantities packaged under both brand names would be combined, allowing for more strategic purchasing.
Best regards,
Martin
MirkoBoeddecker
Martin,
You’ve misunderstood me. If we’d stuck with triacetate, the films would have been different, but they would also have been more expensive. We decided against it for cost reasons.
Casting onto two different substrates isn’t really the problem.
Best regards,
Mirko
mdeutgen
Mirko,
My bad, I misunderstood that!
If you read through your comments again, your point becomes clear – provided you don’t jump to the wrong conclusion straight away.
I’d already hinted in my post that I had my doubts as to whether it would be worth pouring onto different substrates. Technically, of course, it’s feasible; that’s not the issue. The key question is to what extent it makes economic sense. I have my well-founded doubts that Fotochemika produces the volumes needed to even consider such a thing. Fotochemika isn’t a ‘big player’ like Fuji, Ilford or Kodak, and they’ll have to do their sums very carefully in Croatia. Hopefully they’ll be doing those sums for a very long time and very thoroughly...
I’ve just developed my last roll of CHS 100 ART from last year (that was the batch where neither the ‘expiry date’ nor the batch number were printed on the label) and, despite taking every precaution, there are a few scratches on the film. I’ll wait and see how the new base performs...
Martin
