@@alvareo92 Yep, it was shot on Double X, I just looked it up. From an article in Hollywood Reporter: "To achieve the film's vintage look and texture, Blaschke chose to shoot with the rarely used Kodak Double-X 35mm film to capture a "unique signature that you can't get any other way." But carrying viewers to another time took more than just highly specific film stock. "I also had some custom filters made to emulate film stock that doesn't exist anymore, that went out of production in the '20s," he says. "It was to pull you into the past.""
No, The Lighthouse (2019) was shot with Kodak 5222 “Double X” which is not orthochromatic film, but a panchromatic 35mm Motion Picture Stock; To achieve a orthochromatic look, they had a custom “Teal” lens filter that filtered both green and blue light to realize the effect. Your second sentence is spot on though, especially when Dafoe near the very end of the film.
Matt, Grab “The edge of Darkness” by Barry Thornton. He explains why grain is necessary for visual sharpness. The low grain films don’t give the eye something to latch onto, so they may resolve more detail, but it’s “fuzzy” in visual appearance compared to something like an HP5 or Tri X. The book is DEFINITELY worthwhile. Maybe this is a film that would benefit from a developer like TX-2 or Rodinal to enhance the grain slightly.
@Bobby Brady I shot wedding photographs on medium format cameras back in the 1980's. We had our own lab and I could see with my own eyes that finer grain film can produce prints that "appear" fuzzier. Just go read this Wikipedia article about acutance: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acutance. You can increase the acutance in film by developing it in a different developer or by using less agitation and longer development times in the development process. That's why even in digital photography you have sliders to add "sharpness" (greater acutance) to an image in Lightroom. @christophercoppola knows what he is talking about.
Thanks for the review, I have been eagerly waiting on mine to arrive and am looking forward to trying it out. Please do a follow up with more landscapes, the last two images taken on your trip looked fantastic.
Irs called acutance, and it's best developed in Rodinal diluted 1:50 9 minutes at 68 degrees. That will make it pop. Also, try a 47 blue cutoff filter you might like the effects.
It would be amazing if you set up a blog or something with all the shots we see in your videos in their original size. Maybe only make them immediately available for each video for members of your channel and for everyone like two weeks later or so. That really would be helpful and also a win-win for you and your viewers.
Definitely an acutance problem. I have found that some films don't like being processed in some developers. It's probably the case with the combination Matt used. I'd really like to know what developer he used?
That being said I think he outsources his develop and scan these days so it could be anything. Hc110 and rodinal both have minimal grain dissolving characteristics so they would likely give him better acutance.
True, it’s nearly impossible to compare / review a BW film without its developer + method... that can drastically affect the process and there are so many possibilities. (vs C41 and E6 which are standardized)
In contrast to the "fuzzy" grain you mentioned here: Which films do you think have the "sharpest" grain? For color film I always thought Kodachrome had a sharp looking grain, but fro B&W I'm not sure.
Ortho is not new. It is not a new film, just a repackaged/resized film. Any updates the film companies want to make is great! I'm happy to see more people using film and learning the darkroom arts in a wet lab!
two things. 1) love the way you hold a camera. It is very stable, and camera is designed to keep your nose out of the way. (I am left eye dominant, and cameras are designed to place my nose into the back of the camera. 2) what developer did you use, and agitation technique? Also, wonder if this Ilford ortho film will be offered in 100 foot rolls.
I find it odd that some people think it's not good for portraits. Basically, right out of the box you're getting the same effect as a panchromatic film with a green filter, which is often recommended for darkening skin tones in portraits. Either way, an ortho or a pan film with a green filter, you're getting less sensitivity to reds and more sensitivity to blues and greens. Yeah, I think it would be interesting to see more of this film in landscape situations. I like how the blown out sky gives it an old-fashioned look and a kind of dreamy soft light.
Thanks for testing this new film. I'm headed to New Mexico in March and looking for a good film that will help complement the reds. I'll definitely give it a try. Additional, intentional testing on your end would be helpful and appreciated.
I played with a couple rolls of svema blue and used both hc110 and TD3 technical pan developer from photographers formulary and the grain is superbly sharp with TD3. being as how they are both Ortho films, I'd definitely try the TD3 on the Ilford, it may be key to getting the look and feel you wanted
I think I’d normally want the opposite? Higher sensitivity to yellow/orange and lower to blue/green. That’s why i like the orange filter look. You want to darken blown out skies and lighten skin tones
Mat, good review and interesting testing method, two different cameras two different photographers, with the same film. The grain issue the you continue to bring up is simply the eye of the beholder, meaning as a photographer your professional eye sees something that to you affects clearity, while a client or buyer will see other.
Do you evaluate the grain at negative scans? Or do yo print them analogue? Asking because in Print the grain is much more less then in Negative scans. I find the orthoeffect is not for everytime but can used for special purposes. i would love if Ilford makes a real IR film like the EFKE 820IR which is unfortunately not in production anymore...
I shot my first roll of Ortho Plus a week ago. I was able to shoot in high contrast sunlight. To be honest, there was nothing that made it stand out head and shoulders above PanF and Tri-X. I shot the covered bridges of Ashtabula County and only one of them was red. Actually it was a light orange and really didn’t render too dark. I’ve got another roll and I may get one for my Minolta Autocord and photograph some red covered bridges and barns. But other than that, I share your opinion that while it looks nice, there’s nothing about it to make me want to dump PanF and Tri-X.
Good job on this Matt, and I appreciate you keeping it real about the grain and the film's shortcomings. When I got back into film three years ago I went straight to medium format thinking it was the best but recently I've started shooting fine-grained films like T-Maxx in my leica 3F and I realize I was dead wrong about 35 mm. I haven't touched my medium format since 😊
Very interesting! I had no idea that Ilford would release a new film, even an ortho one! Until now there were only a few orthochromatic film stocks available, one of which, Rollei Ortho Plus, I'm currently testing. On a note of orthochromatic films: I realized, when you showed the photos from darker foliage like pine needles, that the sensitivity to green light that ilford refers to on their site seems to not be a thing for dark greens that tend to be kind of blue. Interestingly these kinds of greens are the same that a friend of mine regularly mistakes for browns or dark reds, because he has a unique issue with his sight of color (not your typical red/green issue, something far more complicated as it seems to me). But light greens that shift to yellow should in my mind render lighter on orthochromatic films, if Ilford states that the film would be sensitive to green light, right? I might have to test that. Interestingly again, said friend of mine also regularly mistakes certain yellows with certain light greens, and I suppose, based on all of the above, that these colors and tones are the same that would render light on ortho films. Anyway, thanks for making this video! It was interesting to see your first impressions and some of the first images made with the film. You keep doing a good job with this, as usual!
This friend of yours seems to have a similar issue to myself. I am technically red/green colour blind (I call it colour confused but that'll never catch on!) and yet it is so much more than that simple definition. I could go into a lot more depth here but I will save you from a long message by trying to simplify it for you. Anything with red or green in it will have an issue for me. Oranges, blues (turquoise, teal, aqua etc), purples, browns, pinks, even gold etc usually appear as the more predominant colour eg, red, blue, green. I can see colours pretty accurately in daylight but it gets much worse in low light. There are different types of colour blindness, the rarest being not being able to see colour at all just shades of grey. I've shot with Ortho a few times now and I quite like the look. I've pushed it to 200 without a problem (Ilford even gives you dev times for that speed). Unlike Matt though, I quite like the grain however, I do agree, it is quite pricey for a black and white film.
I would be super interested to see a video with this film used for landscapes. I do like that you tried to use it as a day to day film; I really liked a lot of the results. But I would like to see this film in its element. Thanks for another great video!
I’d love to see how this film performs in situations it’s supposed to be meant for. So a big YES for a hike video. That said, I’m not that well versed in B&W films, they all kinda look the same to me, but I enjoyed the video. I can see what you mean when you say it isn’t as sharp. HP5 definitely has a nice, sharp character to it.
The grain quality you are trying to describe is acutance. Rodinal is a (very) high acutance developer. Microdol is (was?) a low acutance developer. As Ortho is a low speed film Rodinal would be a good choice.
My brother was kind enough to send me a roll in 120 from the UK. It hasn’t arrived in stores where I live yet. It’s sitting in the fridge until I figure out what I’m going to shoot with it. I’m also a big HP5 fan and shoot it a lot at 1600. And yes I’d like to see another vid on this film, maybe with your 67
I thought the grain looked different too. I didn’t really notice it until I started looking at it with my grain magnifier in the darkroom. But overall it’s not bad. I’ve also done some experimenting with portraits as well. If you’d like to see a couple I could send them to you.
Loved the video, have been very interested to hear your thoughts and see your results with the film since it was announced, and would love to see some more shots in an ideal situation!
We used to use a green filter with Ortho film when shooting portraits ro correct it's colour inbalance. This would be around the 1950s and not with a shit minuature film camera like you got there. We used the King Sized 120 film. A Rollei or a Plaubel Makina
Ilford Ortho is not a new film, I used a couple of boxes about 25 years ago. What is new is that it is now available in 35 mm and 120 roll formats; it used to be in sheet form only, 5x4 and 10x8; I’m not sure if there was anything larger. It was mainly intended for copying continuous tone monochromatic photographs and artwork.
The grain being fuzzier than HP5+ is the accutance of the film. It's a consequence of certain film/developer combos. I'm sure with other developers, the grain could have more defined edges. It would take some experimenting. But there's no arguing - HP5+ and Tri-X have the best grain of all films
I’m rather late to this party, however, really nice video with interesting results. I’m really intrigued by the photos and would like to see more results with this film. Great job! Thanks Matt.
Correction: This is an old film, though it used to be sold only on large format I believe, as specialised copy film. They just took that and packed it in 135 and 120 (which is fine by me honestly, since there's not many ortho films these days), btw would love followup landscape videos!
Would a portrait of somebody with red hair turn into fully pitch dark hair with this film? My impression is yes since in your shown photos (for example the one with the duck or the red houses) all red tones turned out nearly black.
Hey Matt. Newly subscribed. Really like your approach, the honesty, openness and encouragement to think positive and do things for the right reasons in photography. I do have one question: You mentioned in another video that if you weren't doing this for a living and film prices shot up, you'd rethink things; excluding the paid gigs, has it ever been tough to justify the costs of shooting film over the past 5 years, especially with a growing family? I've shot the M9 professionally, now have a Q and my first analog (Pentax MX), but considering going fully analog. Thanks for any personal insights you can drop & cheers from an American in Sweden.
I have tried it in 35mm and 120 format, the low speed do not make this film for every day situations, I shot some landscape with it and the tripod was a must to get that sharpness. Since I shot a lot of landscape in 120, I will use it again but as a 35mm film, not sure, I prefer faster film and not being at the mercy of light on cloudy day
Very good review. Great work. What kind of scanner do you use? I have a Nikon Coolscan V but it broke down and Nikon India is unable to fix it. So I am looking for a new scanner. Unfortunately, Nikon has stopped making those scanners.
Great video Matt! I had a question on this film, and Ilford has yet to answer... I'm often using an orange filter, since this is not as sensitive to reds, will this underexpose even more than 2 stops? Anyone try this yet?
As a Matt day video shooting an ilford film the lack of pushing for this film was confusing for me ;) all joking aside I really think you should push this film, seems like if you pushed it two stops to 400 it may actually be a good daily shooter
I'm getting major Explosions in the Sky vibes, which gives me major Friday Night Lights feel. Really considering diving into more than just HP5. This may have pushed me over the edge.
