reversal/negative

[juraj olbert]

hello, i'm not really able to find an answer on a simple question i have;

 

are you actually able to process any type of film with a reversal process ? Or if a film is intended to be developped as a negative, you actually can't get a projection-ready picture out of it?

 

i have some 16mm ilford safety pan f film - in what way is it different to an ilford pan 400 i'm using for photographs? can I develop such a film in a reversal process?

 

sorry if i'm mixing up, if anybody could clarify this for me i'd be very thankfull.

[Charles MacDonald]

Firstly, it has been quite a while since Ilford made Motion Picture film, so from a practical standpoint, you might have more luck using a negative/positive flow so you have more wiggle room to make up for material degradation of the film. I would run a small test to see how much fog you have picked up and how much speed you have lost.

 

In General, B&W film can be processed either way. Some films marked reversal cannot make a good negative as they have a silver Anti-Halo layer which will not be cleared in a negative process. Getting good reversal results for film not intended to be reversed may take some adjustment to the process however so you would have to have a heart to Heart Talk with the lab that is processing your film to see if they are comfortable attempting the process on your film.

 

E6 film can be processed as a negative, with strange colours - which seems to be a current fad much like Fisheye lenses were in the 1970's.

 

Movie negative has the REM-Jet backing so to try and reversal process it would require some custom modifications ot the processing line. (unless the reversal line was previously used for older films which had rem-jet and the lab is willing to re-engage them.