I keep seeing this on the auction site, and the price makes it very tempting.

7x17 Large Format B & W Sheet Film Silver Rich

Has anyone had experience with this film?

Thanks,
Jim

The auction says it's Kodak Industrex film. I'm not sure what that is, but it's coated on both sides, which sounds like an X-ray film.

Thanks David - I had similar thoughts.

Industrex is used for nondestructive testing, that is, x raying welds, castings etc for , well, industry [and all kinds of stuff] It's apparently made to survive abuse and nasty climate conditions. One weird website descibes it as single side emulsion, but the data sheets I've looked at say overcoated 2 sides on sheet film base.
I surfed for this account the NDT folks use various widths of roll film [60 70 100 mm] and I've not found 70mm recently that didn't have a HUGE minimum quantity. Sadly, Industrex appears to be too thick for camera rolls.
But it's CHEAP -less than $300 for 150 meters. Then again that's waaay too $much to try for pictorial work without some better idea of suitability for pictorial use. I'll continue to investigate cuz Fuji and Agfa still list similar products. The NDT and health folks just don't speak in terms that pictorialists use. Whudda THEY mean by "high contrast" "high speed" and "fine grain" ? I can accept "fine grain" for basic ortho emulsions, and would guess "high contrast" could be tamed in manual processing with familiar developers like D76 or Xtol- I've made aerial film so behave, but what is "high" for speed.??

Oh yeah, one last thing, Kodak touts this as T-grain tech
Hope you try some and report !! :>))

AND another dang thing
Agfa's NDT product "Structurix" is available in 200 ft rolls in widths of 5,7,12 and 14 inches.

How about a 14x17 roll film camera? :D

Does Kodak give processing info? Might give an idea if a normal[or low contrast] developer might have a chance taming it.

Hey Justin, when I was revisiting the xray sites I found that "full spinal" film [IIRC 14x36] comes in flat sheets as well as folded in thirds, so how about ULF panoramas too, without those problematic Cirkut motors? Then I found that Fuji sells 17 inch rolls, lets say 20 shots per 100 feet 17x 51............
Hey Nick
Some aerial films still have recommendations for near-normal processing, albeit for high CI. I started there and guessed backward for pictorial umbers and hit it. Someplace Jim Galli reported similar results with aero film, and IIRC he just took it on faith (and his usual informed good luck :>) But I have yet to find any official hints for THUS stuff. Over on the other site (?) "Phototone" and others have reported success with "hospital" xray film and standard processing. I imagine industrial use film varies mostly with respect to physical toughness and processing-by-machine abuse: Do it Hot, DO it Fast, Do it HiContrast.

I work a great deal with x-rays producing art. www.x-rayarts.com and have plenty of experience with x-ray films. It's true that most ,edical x-ray films are coated on both sides but mammography films are single side coated. the catch to x-ray film is it's either high green sensitivity pr high blue sensitivity depending on the application and screen system used. Resolution of x-ray film, particularly double sised, is not as good as say HP5 which I use a great deal in my art. X-ray film for medical use is more light sensitive to the blue or green than to x-rays where as industrial is less sensitive to visible light and more to x-rays. In the medical industry an intensifying screen that fluoresces when struck by x-rays is used in a film holder on each side of the film (double coated film) and the screen either fluoresces blue or green depending on the screen. Most of the exposure is from the light not x-rays. In industrial use the film often has to be wrapped around a pipe or object and no screen can be used. In this case x-ray sensitivity is highest. To my knowledge all x-ray films have odd spectral sensitivity and may not even be orthochromatic. Contrast does tend to be higher and grain is not as good as photographic films. Resolution is lower too and this is why I use FP-4 and HP-5 for my applications where long scale and highe resolution with fine grain are needed to capture the finest details of my subject. My guess is it's not going to be very good for photographic use.

Aerials films are a better choice but do tend to be contrastier and have low blue sensitivity.

... "Phototone" and others have reported success with "hospital" xray film and standard processing. I imagine industrial use film varies mostly with respect to physical toughness and processing-by-machine abuse: Do it Hot, DO it Fast, Do it HiContrast.

Hot and fast and tough will most probably apply to medical films too.
Ecxept for dental films I guess the majority of medical films are designed for use with fluorescent srcreens.
I further guess in industrial use there will be less employment of screens which will result in different emulsion design.


Don,

I somehow overlooked your post... You said it all.

However industrial films will need more likely less speed than medical films. Thus an unsensitized industrial film could be less grainy than an unsensitized medical film.

Any body have an European source for lith film like Freestyles ? Large sheets.

Also the Agfa aerial films?

The latter are sold directly by Agfa.
(Beware of quantities.)

Some conversions are sold by Maco.

X-ray film gets is dense blacks from the "hot and fast" development in very active developers. When used for pictorial photography is is fairly easy to develop in common camera film developers such as D-76, HC-110, etc., and get full toned images. You just have to experiment with exposure times and development times.
In some cases you can develop by inspection under a deep red safelight.

Hot and fast and tough will most probably apply to medical films too.
Ecxept for dental films I guess the majority of medical films are designed for use with fluorescent srcreens.
I further guess in industrial use there will be less employment of screens which will result in different emulsion design.


Don,

I somehow overlooked your post... You said it all.

However industrial films will need more likely less speed than medical films. Thus an unsensitized industrial film could be less grainy than an unsensitized medical film.
speaking of dental films, anybody ever play with Kodak T-Mat film? I have a box of 8x10 and 6x12 here, wondering where to start....


erie

We used to use the industrex out where I work. When I got the chems ready I would always put some under the enlarger and print on it from a 4X5 negative. It acts more like paper than film. If you wanted to make transparent contact prints from your 7X17 negs it would work well. It has a blue cast when finished that goes neutral with an incandescent light source behind it. It develops to completion like paper in Dektol or Industrex developer. The Industrex developer is more potent than Dektol having a higher ph from using sodium Hydroxide. I have quite a few 14X17 transparent prints. Kind of fun, different, but not practical to display.

Erie,
I've been using 8x10 T-Mat L-RA for a few months now. I like the look and it's pretty easy to work with. I bought one box that was 3 years past date, stored in a warehouse, and the base fog is just barely noticeable.

"Silver Rich"?????

It either has enough, or it doesn't.

What was your starting EI and development, it'd be nice to be in the ball park, as I hate cutting up film to 4x5 for EI testing.


erie

For D76 1:1 I've been shooting it around 125 and developing in trays for 6 min. This usually gives me good contrast for palladium. One thing to consider though, I am only using older lenses with a packard shutter and generally in overcast conditions. Hope this helps.

"Silver Rich"?????

It either has enough, or it doesn't.

You may enjoy Roger Hicks' post in this thread (http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00AiTA) (elsewhere)

See Chris Nze's work for medical xray film inspiration (Agfa Curix double sided and some Kodak I don't remember the ID for). You may have to PM him to ask which images are on xray film.

He doesn't like response outdoors so does still lifes with it indoors and gets high ISO with dilute Rodinal.

He does Pt/Pd with it and on a PC monitor they look great. We are not on the same continent, so I have not seen his prints, but I have no reason to doubt he has conquered any problems with double-sided xray film. He says the 2nd layer helps attain adequate contrast, and he only does ULF contacts with it.