The SPUR developer contains an inhibitor system, which brings this film into a range where it is reasonably usable for photography. With Copex, which is by no means as steep in its curve, this works well; with CMS 20, the results are mediocre: highlights tend to blow out. This is not a film for glaring summer light.
[font=Times New Roma[size=3][color=#000000] [/colo[/size]
[size=4][color=#000000][font=Calibri]My experience with the CMS 20 II has also been thoroughly positive in terms of its contrast behaviour. For my first encounter with the film, I chose a sunny day so that I could specifically assess its performance in high contrast conditions. The film was exposed at 12 ASA and developed accordingly (at FOTOIMPEX).[/colo[/size]
[size=4][font=Calibri][color=#000000]A minor surprise was the pronounced
light piping that fogged the first four frames. I had loaded the film in a heavily darkened room. With other PE-based films, stray light had never previously extended beyond the unused leader to the 40th perforation hole, which is automatically advanced on motorised cameras. They therefore never affected the usability of the film or the result – even when, for lack of an alternative in sunlight, I had simply loaded the film in the shade of my body. That this particular film was the exception is, quite literally, baffling. Could it be that the loaded cassette was already exposed to light during assembly before it went into the light-tight canister? If so, others must have had the same experience. [/colo[font=Calibri][color=#000000] [/colo
[color=#000000][font=Calibri]From the fifth frame onwards, the impression was already pleasing on initial visual assessment: the shadow detail was clean, the highlights within the reproducible range. The scans confirmed this impression – the negatives not only behaved optimally in terms of granularity, but also proved unproblematic in terms of the gradient and required only minor corrections at most.[/colo[/size]
[size=4][color=#000000][font=Calibri]I have not tried exposure and development at 20 ASA. However, as less exposure combined with stronger development always results in slightly less shadow detail and greater harshness in the highlights, this combination seems to me to be appropriate only in exceptional cases, when particularly low-contrast subjects need to be spiced up.[/colo[/size]
[size=4][color=#000000][font=Calibri]Conclusion: Exposed at 12 ASA and developed accordingly in the Adotech II, the CMS 20 II is straightforward to use. Anyone wishing to fully exploit the performance of their optical systems and achieve grain-free large-format enlargements will find this a suitable film – provided they accept the low speed.[/colo
[color=#000000][font=Calibri]For those interested: I have posted some results from my first use of the CMS 20 in the FOTOIMPEX members’ gallery.[/colo[/size]
