It will flatten. Use weighted film clips as recommended above, and let it hang overnight. Store negatives flat in pages or sleeves under weight, and they'll relax. The current Arista.EDU 120 film is Fomapan, made in the Czech Republic. Adox/Efke 120 is on the same base.
I tried this stuff in 120 for a very short while, I can only hang so much weight on the line I dry film on. I've used two weighted clips and didn't help a bit.
I'm like the OP, if you can get it into sleeves it took weeks not over night to get it semi flat.
I don't mind the curl. I can slide it into sleeves pretty easily, so long as I take my time. Printfile Ultima sleeves are slightly oversized and are easy to slide the negatives into. A hardening fixer does help too, I use a separate hardening bath. I like the quality and don't feel it is cheap but to each their own.
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PET is much stronger, more dimensionally stable, and much more archival. That is important to me - I will deal with the curl. Letting it dry with a weight on the end solves the problem satisfactorily for me.
On the other hand if it isn't important for you, use film on an acetate film - it is definitely easier to keep flat.
Actually, the emulsion side swells and shrinks with processing which introduces part of the curl you observe. The more expensive films have a coating on the reverse side of the film to help prevent the curl. Also, the use of the particular hardeners, polymers and humectants in film helps prevent curl.
And, of course, all of the R&D to bring this technology to you costs money. That is why Ilford, Kodak and Fuji films cost a bit more. BTW, most of the initial R&D on this was done by Kodak and therefore they set the stage for others to use it too, but they bore the brunt of the R&D technology and therefore bear a heavier burden. This is very easily seen in the fact that most developers and fixes are look alikes and work alikes for original Kodak product such as D-76 and etc.
The current Arista.EDU 120 film is Fomapan, made in the Czech Republic. Adox/Efke 120 is on the same base.
Freestyle uses (or has used) several suppliers for its "Arista" line. Most of these suppliers are now defunct or have stopped reselling under other brands. Specifically, Ilford ("Arista Pro" and "Arista Dmax"), Agfa ("Arista II," IIRC), and Forte ("Arista.EDU") all used to supply Freestyle but no longer do. Foma supplies the current Arista.EDU Ultra. I believe that Kentmere does/did supply a variety of Arista-branded paper, but I don't recall the name for it. (The Arista.EDU Ultra paper is made by Foma, though.) I haven't checked the Freestyle site, but I doubt if much stock of the non-Foma Arista film remains. Still, the similarity of names can be very confusing. I believe it's important to be precise, if only so as not to lead to problems when looking up development times.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobby Ironsights
I shoot the cheapest. ALWAYS. I reason that a silver halide is a silver halide and I'll worry about the rest when I can afford to.
I sympathize, but there are differences even aside from curling. In extreme cases, there are defective emulsions; for instance, check this thread about some defective Fortepan film. If you do comparisons, you'll find differences in grain size and patterns, tonality, etc. Personally, I happen to like the look of Foma 400 film (except for its poor anti-halation characteristics in 35mm), which is great for my budget. For lower speeds, though, I rather like Ilford Pan F+ 50 and Kodak T-Max 100.
Back to the topic of curling, I agree that it's less of a problem with some of the more expensive brands, on average. Some of them do curl, though. I shot a roll of medium format Ilford XP2 Super recently, and it had some pretty substantial curl, but in the short direction (side-to-side if the film were hung as to dry) rather than the long direction that seems to be a problem with Foma, Efke, and some others.
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