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...not just in southern countries; here, a film was once offered—I can’t remember the name—but it was marketed as both a transparency and a negative film at the same time, so you’d get a transparency back from the lab containing negatives and ‘colour images’. The film wasn’t very successful, as the colours were a bit odd and because you had to send it to a lab in the USA, as it was also based on cinema stock (printing material) and, due to the emulsion that ruined the images, it could only be developed in cinema labs.
But the idea of slides and negatives was brilliant...
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As far as I know, that was Eastman 5247. I used a roll of that film once in 1981. In terms of colour reproduction, however, the material lagged behind standard colour negative films, as described above. That’s why I left it at a one-off purchase out of curiosity – as I imagine most other users did too. The archival stability is impeccable, though – I recently scanned some of the negatives, which are now 32 years old. The results were better than the enlargements from back then.
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Later, I set about producing colour slides (albeit from standard Kodacolor negatives). For this, there was a Kodak positive film (also available in 35mm cassettes) which was developed using the C-41 process. It is not known how many minilab operators had to seek psychiatric treatment because a ‘transparency’ suddenly emerged from the negative process. In any case, the results were excellent – with good maximum density and colour reproduction reminiscent of the cinema. You got slides, but had the same options for colour and density correction as with a paper print. I determined the filtration and exposure using the analyser. The process was somewhat laborious in that speed and colour balance had to be tested first; however, as long as one stuck to a single batch, the results were consistent. The positive material is probably no longer available; but 35 mm cinema stock, used for making theatre prints, could certainly be repurposed for this purpose. Perhaps a field of experimentation for the CineStill suppliers?
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I cannot say whether there is currently a market for this. Perhaps projection films – unlike recording materials – do not have any annoying protective coating and could be easily rewound. Apparently, Agfa in Morsel also continues to supply projection film; according to a 2011 data sheet (
http://www.agfa.com/sp/global/en/binaries/CP30%20technical%20datasheet_Oct%2011_tcm611-36871.pdf
), at least, it has no anti-halation layer on the reverse side (“.... no carbon black anti-halation backing layer to be removed..."). Anyone who can get hold of a few metres of this material could thread the film onto 35mm cassettes in their hobby room and give it a go to see whether it – just like the pre-treated Kodak Vision3 500T / CineStill? – is compatible with C-41.
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Regards
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tepe
