In Russia this is the cheapest color negative film you can buy from local stores. Kodak Gold costs about 10$, but roll of this stuff costs 5-6$. Perhaps that’s why Aerocolor is so widespread in Russia.
That doesn't explain why this film is exclusively available in Russia. For example shooting motion picture Kodak Vision3 is cheaper too and you can get it off the eBay easily (even spooled in 35mm canisters). Kodak is not packing Vision3 same way as Colorpus or Ultramax. But Vision3 is available globally, while Aerocolor isn't.
The blown out burnt orange tone kinda gives the shots a 70s vibe to me. Also, 10 points to Gryffindor for the Magic School Bus reference. I love that episode.
The Noritsu really gets confused if the film doesn't have an orange base. We just discovered that aswell this week, when we at Camera Rescue scanned some old Konica 1600 ISO film that had a heavy yellow cast on the base. The Noritsu turned the scans incredibly blue, they were just unusable. However camera scanning with a Valoi setup aswell yielded actually usable results with correct colors when you could balance the base color out.
This film was originally intended for aerial reconnaissance and cartography. It has a high spectral sensitivity and a wide dynamic range, which gives maximum versatility of exposure. Of course, not everyone will be able to buy and not everyone will be sold a film for... Very specific tasks, if you know what I mean. But this is Russia. And since every fan of photographing on film cannot afford Portra or Ectachrome for every day, we, in Russia, are looking for various cheap substitutes, damn it! Yes, at least cheaper Kodak Gold - and this is already a cool offer. And where there is a demand , there is also a supply. Someone guessed to sell the film for specific tasks. As they say, " meanwhile in Russia..."
list of questions Noah will ask when he inevitably goes to the Kodak factory: 1. What is Aerocolor and do you still make it? 2. So... the super8 camera....
Gotta love those film manufacturing mysteries. It really is weird that it's not available anywhere else, especially since Agfa aerial stuff is being repackaged left and right.
For european or american viewers: if you want to test this film I can give you a site of russian photolab which sell this film and could send it by post. It costs about 6,5$ for 24 exp.
This is one of my favorite films. It's also quite popular in Belarus where local labs buy it in bulk and cut into normal 36 exp. Those labs do know some scanning 'tricks' for this film as the color looks quite good, without any shift to orange or redish colors. It is surely the cheapest color negative film here in Belarus (around 9-10$ for a 36 exp roll). And, as it was said here before, it is also (somehow) available in 120 format.
I live near the store you mentioned that sells this film and I've got it a couple of times because of how cheap it is, but I never knew it's so obscure. Also the place that sells it has a lab and they do a great job at color correcting the scans, so I'd assume that since most people buy the film there, they also develop and scan it in the same place and that may contribute to why all aerocolor photos online have the same look that is not quite inline with what you'd get from an unedited dslr scan.
It's not hard to get information on Aerocolor negative film - or to get the film for that matter. Just give Kodak a call - They still make it. I buy Aerocolor IV (2460) in 5-inch wide rolls for aerial photography, and I believe 5-inch and 9 1/2 inch rolls are the only sizes made today, but as with many things film, there "could" be someone somewhere who is cutting it down, perforating it and selling it on small-format rolls. I have it processed AN-6 at an aerial film lab, but It can be processed in standard C-41 chemistry. Aerial color negative films (AGFA also makes them) do not have the orange-looking color control mask. There is a lot of confusion about that mask - and quite a few false theories - but its purpose is to improve RGB separation on exposure, thus rendering more faithful colors. It has nothing to do with printing papers or film stocks or anything else you might hear, other than color separation on exposure. This is one of the main reasons why modern negative films are intrinsically superior in color rendition than reversal (or "slide") films, though there is quite a bit of misunderstanding on that subject as well. So, if the color control mask is so great, why do aerial color films not have it? Part of the reason is when you are flying at thousands of feet, colors are not true or saturated anyway, so this level of control is just superfluous. But the MAIN reason is that aerial film is often used in sensitive, surveillance, reconnaissance and other forensic sciences, and in many cases the people who need to interpret those images want to see them right away. Once the film is developed, they do not want to wait to have the negatives scanned, printed or otherwise processed. If you've ever tried to look at any detail in a color negative with the orange mask, you know this mask is very unfreindly to the human eye, and makes pictures look "muddy" to us, even though they may not be at all. So eliminating the mask, allows interpreters to look at the negative directly, or through magnifiers to obtain all the detail they want to see, without having to wait for further processing. This is what they are referring to when they say "Direct interpretation can be made from the negative". What this further implies however, is that these maskless aerial films will be of little interest for the ground photographer, as they are inherently inferior for terrestrial color imaging. Obviously, any artist is free to like, use or make a signature style out of this, but generally speaking it is a film very similar to any other color negative, and just a bit poorer for regular use.
@@DRGBTL23 it isn't, it's just not left for it specifically. Aerocolor is very sharp though, and it pushes really well, because of the lack of a colour mask.
Explanation is simple, someone in Russia got a hold of film cutter, maybe renting it from Tasma, Tasma makes aerial bw film and cuts on demand batches of it as 135 or 120 (sold as "Тип 42" "Type 42"), maybe they buy aerocolor in bulk, cut it for their aerial standard and feed scraps through 135 cutter.
There is a whole bunch of photo labs selling obscure film here in Moscow, so it's not like there is only one place to get it. You can get Agfa Aviphot, Kodak Aerocolor, Tasma film, a whole bunch of modified Kodak cinema film, the list goes on. If I had to guess I'd think some lab decided to contact Tasma some time ago about selling their film for general use, and when they agreed got really into it and now every lab tries to one up each other with more and more obscure film, and I'd imagine that local film community is quite happy because of it.
I can imagine it's pretty hazy up there in the sky or in the mountains. This film has like built-in dehaze slider, that's why the blue cast. I guess...
Rollei Retro 80S is a B&W aerial film and also has a clear base. Its sensitivity extends into near-IR so I'm curious to know if this Aerocolor also extends in the IR spectrum. If you have any left slap a Yellow #12 filter on and shoot some sunny trees!
You probably feel nostalgia, as I do. I love this look and Id use it for something. But, knowing these things before hand or on test photography, you can plan out with story ideas
Это действительно странно. Сам долгое время думал, что все знают про эту пленку Kodak 2444. У нас в России ее много, есть и 135 и 120. В России вообще много чего странного))
3:23 The episode of the magic school bus where Arnold eats too many Seaweadies was my first thought when I saw that shot too lol. That was a great episode.
I recently started getting into analog photography. I have a local shop that sells a lot of specialty film, including Lomography. They have a film called Flicfilm Elektra and they claim it's rebranded Aerocolor IV. Maybe you can find this outside Russia with this brand name.
The heavy blue is probably due to the lack of an orange masking layer. I did notice that weird films always come out weirder when scanned at the lab. That's because they don't have the profiles for the film. I used to run into these problems back in the days when I tried-out Dollarama's Likon film back in the early 2000's (it was made by Lucky in China).
I was able to snag a roll (120medium format) from a distributor in Japan. It will arrive tmr getting my hopes up since its probably going to be my first and last chance to shoot with a unique film from Russia
bought a roll of this in 120 while visiting Russia because of how cheap it was. Couldnt find anything online about it, 2 weeks later you uploaded this video!
I would’ve guessed the orange cast would be the result of processing the scans using the same settings one would apply to negatives with an orange base - I would think a straight inversion of an orange negative would come out very blue, so there’d be sort of an orange push to even it out. Using that process on a negative without that bias to compensate for would yield a very skewed result. But then I would also think any film lab operating today would be kind of a specialty operation, and would probably notice the difference in the negative’s base, unless the handling of color in the scanning process is mostly automated. I don’t know. Very interesting stuff regardless!
This film is (as of 2018) still used for aerial photography, there's a small but stable demand for medium to low altitude images, the cameras and equipment are cheaper for the same resolved detail than digital
6:14 Rollei CN200 was not Kodak Aerocolor - It was actually Agfa-Gevaert Aviphot Color 200. Like Aerocolor, that was also an aerial reconnaissance film, but it was discontinued in 2005. The lack of an orange base seems to be a commonality among aerial films; not sure why. Maco (who owns the Rollei brand name) bought some frozen stock of the Agfa stuff and sold it as Rollei Digibase CN200. The "Digibase" name was to imply that it was easier to scan. I shot quite a bit of it back in 2016. It was wildly saturated and contrasty, very unlike this Aerocolor stuff. It also seems like a Russian company called Silberra has popped up and is selling a line of color films which are almost certainly all Aerocolor. As to the question of whether or not Kodak still manufactures Aerocolor, that's anyone's guess. I see no reason to believe they have discontinued it, but who exactly is shooting film for technical aerial reconnaissance these days?
I like it. And yes, in order to scan it in a lab machine, they have to tone it, otherwise Frontier simply doesn't detect frames... It is also available in 120... but I had to manually make a roll using a used Ilford backing paper. Worked well though )
Flic Film in Alberta now sells Aerocolor as "Elektra" in 35mm and Catlabs sells it in 120 as Catlabs X 100 color. The film is definitely warm, but more amber brown tones in my opinion?
Yep. The reason is that there is a supplier of the aerial films in Russia. He were able to import several rolls of agfa aviphot (rollei 400), aerocolor, kodak 2405 and some other films. Some of them are reselled to the labs, some of them are sold to a photographers directly. The original source of the film is unknown, but the film is fresh and it's not a question you want to ask from a supplier.
Just had an epiphany-I’ll bet this film cross processes very well, not having an orange mask! Like, will you get actually decent quality slides from this film if you cross process it?? Will the colors look more normal? I’m dying to know!
Do you know if Kodak Aerocolor is anywhere to buy now? I tried getting it from a store in Russia but they said they don't ship it to Russia anymore - do you know where else to find it? It's my favorite film ever!!!!
Nice find, Noah! Lack of the orange mask makes it a good candidate for crossprocess. I can imagine that with some tweaking in E-6 it may make good slides.
Catching up on my RUclips videos -- was away in Ohio visiting my daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons (I live in Maryland). But I love the idea you have about the guy at Kodak, in Rochester -- hidden away, answering emails/phone calls about many of the Kodak mysteries (Super 8mm camera???) -- both of my parents came from Rochester, and one uncle and some cousins worked for Kodak. So if there is some person hidden away -- they probably are related to me!!!!! :-) I kinda liked the orange scans -- looked like outdated film, but very consistent.
Some people in Russia own film formatting machines which can cut 120 and 135 formats including punching perforations from these wide master rolls. I've heard about a guy who one day got a huge roll of aerochrome and he still shoots it in 120 although he doesn't want to sell it to anyone cause it is absolutely unavailable now. But the initial sources of these rolls are unknown. It could be from government who still buy it for old high altitude military surveillance aircraft which Russia has a lot in service. People there just order a little bit more from Kodak to sell it. Although it is just a theory. As long as I know there is only two b/w aerial film stocks being currently manufactured in Russia and no color. That is Tasma type-42L and type-25. I own a small bulk of type-42L. That's an average and extremely cheap bw film.
Hey there, fellow Filmshooter from Germany. A few weeks back, I bought two rolls of aerocolor 4 and was struck by the lack of online info on these, one American page told that it is used by the Canadian forest or woodland monitoring dept.(something along the lines) . All other sides were Russian and spoke of aerocolor 3 which is also what is written on your film canister. So maybe you have some, supposedly expired, aero3 stock which is why the scanner result might not look as pleasing. But yeah, I have a special Idea for my rolls and can‘t wait to experiment with this film. Great video as always, keep it up.
www.thephoblographer.com/2015/10/21/kodak-aerocolor-iv-film-is-a-great-way-to-burn-over-1500/ Here‘s the article on aerocolor 4 and why I doubt yours was that stock, if the price in this article is to be believed. I got mine from a small independent lab in Germany, they had one bulkroll of aero4 and sold selfmade rolls for a good sum. I looked it up before buying and thought well if this is IT, I gonna try it for a fragment of 1500 a roll.
The article is from 2015 so it could have changed, but film is so different from digital photography, that for a specific use as this , it might make a huge difference. The films I got aren’t expiring till end of 2023. But it really is so unaccounted for, almost a bit mystical…
That article is about a $1500 roll which is so expensive because it’s 70mm wide I believe. You can get AeroColor in large expensive rolls like that or in small 35mm rolls from people like I did!
Verrrry interesting! These results (orange tint in scans, blueish backing) look very similar to the roll of Silberra 160 I just got developed. And given that Silberra is a Russian company, the geographical connection has me wondering. You should take a look at that film if you haven't!
How things have changed in 2 years. Yes it is still in production and it is now available everywhere. It’s a great stock, but yeah the lab scans are always gonna suck.
I'm here after receiving a roll of Flic Film Elektra 100 for Christmas - I'm informed it is re-branded aerocolour? Interestingly I was advised to load in subdued light
Rollei Superpan 200 = agfa aviphot 200. i am develop it in d23 1+3 20min with minimum rotation- on 1,5,10 and 20 minute. it seems good for scanning but printing with enlarger still dificult. it is very very contrast
So my biggest curiosity... Since this film lacks an orange mask layer, is it possible to cross process it with E-6 method and come out with halfway descent color positive slides??🤔🤔
Though aerocolor is compatible with C41 chemicals, I could see in your video the suggested developing time is 5'15" (two minutes more than standard C41). About the orange colour in the Noritsu scanner, I can add some info because I have one (now idle because a non working negative mask). If aerocolor is DX coded, you need to calibrate the scanner for that particular film. Back in the day, you could get setup negatives for any film but today you have to make your one ones. Since aerocolor is almost unkown for most labs, it could have been scanned as a generic or unkown negative and the scanner did the best it could. If somebody lets you use their Noritsu scanner, you could teach the scanner to read its DX code and colour correct the scan providing (or choosing) your normal, under and overexposed frames. This would cause no problem at all to the scanner, it is just adding a new negative to the ones it knows. I can garantee you, you would obtain a nearly perfect colour and density scan. Please don't blame your lab. Why would a comercial lab make all the steps I mentioned before for an obscure film that most probably they will never see again?
I would like to see the photo of the cat you showed the negative of toward the end of the video, I liked composition of the shot and would like to see how it turned out. I like the first set of photos you showed with the color being off they looked like they were hand tinted like the early 1900's photos
I believe this is the film coming out as SantaColor 100 in the future. It is manufactured in the good ol’ USA but is made available through Finnish Kamerastore.
Actually, you can buy Aerocolor in a few labs here, in Russia. The biggest lab - SREDA, fancy underground lab - PERSPECTIVA and TOCHKA CVETA lab (first lab that have this film)
I kinda like the first lab scans to be honest. I feel like there is probably an instagram filter that looks just like it, probably named 'just peachy' or something lol
This is not a Russian film. This is a color aerial photo film from Kodak Rochester. It is purchased in reels and unwound into rolls. So it turns out cheaper than the film from Kodak Alaris. Aerocolor is loved for its specific color, beautiful green transfer
Check out Silberra, also based in Russia and has very similar characteristics to the Aerocolor. Can be processed in E-6 for a positive as well (see attic darkroom’s video on the Silberra)
The orange color of a developed color-masked negative film is not in the base. It's in the emulsion. The base is clear plastic, like any other film. Color masking is a rather technical topic. The point of a negative film is to be printed, right? Color films capture separate images in a layer sensitive to red light, a layer sensitive to green light, and a layer sensitive to blue light. Developing the film turns the latent images into visible images with varying densities of cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes in those three layers. The printing process needs to extract the three separate images, but that's actually a pretty hard thing to do. The dye density spectra overlap, so there's no wavelength of light that isolates each dye from the others. Color masking solves this problem, letting you extract three separate images without interference from each other. It's a clever trick of chemistry and light: by using dye-forming chemicals that are a different color before they react to form dyes, it creates a spectral "hole", a wavelength of unchanging density in that layer, that you can look through to get the image of the other dyes without interference. The negative magenta image is balanced by a positive yellow mask of residual unreacted magenta-forming chemical, and the negative cyan image is balanced by a positive orange mask of residual unreacted cyan-forming chemical. Suffice it to say that recovering the three images works correctly and you get the intended colors when using the right printing process and print film or paper for your type of negative, and you *don't* get the intended colors when using any other process or scanner.
I wonder if it may yield orange tints because it's meant to shoot through all that atmosphere between a high altitude aircraft and the ground. Just a thought.
Labs in Russia also seem to handle scanning quite well, despite using same Noritsu scanners. I shoot this film from time to time, and I never had neither overly orange nor blueish tint in a picture. It usually tends to be a bit warm, but nothing extreme, and the color reproduction is actually quite accurate. And yes, it's definitely still in the production, as all the labs out there constantly renew their stuff, and it's been like that at least 3 or more years.
However, it tends to severely fall into blues while underexposed. Here, in the very end of the video, are some examples of that. I was shooting it for the first time then, so I didn't know what to expect. I lf i said something wring, you can fully blame me for false information :) ruclips.net/video/5WkjPPjFqKM/видео.html
Bell and Howell Fairchild cameras used an amber filter. Development of the four color negatives uses AN (army navy)-6 process since 1937, since the armed services didn't mail out their daily flight films to Kodak. Why we can't find Aerocolor for civilian movie stock and still rolls is beyond me. It would be the first negative film i would reach for.
A prerequisite of an areal film is to have Infra Red or at the very least extended red sensitivity. This is because the IR has to cut through the haze and fog present in the atmosphere so that it could photograph the target. They have never been designed nor intended to be used for normal terrestrial photography and normal tone reproduction. So why are you surprised at its colour reproduction?
AN-6 is AN-A-6, the military spin on civilian magazine 16, the 8 track of the movie world. A army N navy. The film tin and size disappeared, but the emphasis on aerial photography lived on. A used to stand for indoor Kodachrome. Outdoors, it will expose extra blue, like the sun's rays at noon. It likes 3000k tungsten or birthday candles.
As a russian myself idk why its only in our contry now, pretty strange 🤔 Also photolab "sreda" rebrands and sells it as "SFL A-Color 125" (roll with a plane pic on it) p.s. Can you review some odd/artsy film stocks like Revolog, maybe for christmas special? Would like to see it 🙂
Yep, I've bought some rolls in Sreda too, but I do not like Aerocolor's images wibe. This film seems to me strage and for me the only one advantage is it's price.
Traffic cameras at the time when film was used were not popular in russia. the great depression of the 90s. the police used a person with a radar, not a camera
Strange indeed. Id definitely use it for VLC commercial : D But like you said in the end, all these errors and damages in analogue photography (still and motion) could be made into surreal short films and music videos and such. When its digital and the image is weird, then its a problem, but somehow on analogue, its cool, because of all the physical things combining to form an image or motion
That is really odd, the whole Russia thing. You mentioned the "maybe there was just once a lot of Aerocolor in Russia?", which made me think of the Soviet WW2 project of making maps of Britain (which in many cases were apparently better and more precise than the British maps), but I can't imagine that has got much to do with this. I don't know, please let us know if you find out though.
Update: I donated 15 feet of Aerocolor one film to an air force museum and they developed it AN-6 lickety-split into aerial combat footage. The 80 or so year old exposures developed into BW clear but color wishy washy frames. Aerocolor is an idiot-proof indoor film that pushed out Kodachrome A and SuperX monochrome.
It's interesting to see what is Astrum (Svema) Color Negative 125, maybe it's Aerocolor, too. It's unavailable in Ukraine, though, despite being made/rebranded here
i don't believe any aerial films have the orange layer. It is for calibrating automated printing machines. Years ago I got some Rollei(Maco) Scanfilm if was cut from an Agfa (AG) aerial film. It also did not have the orange layer.
Can't get it now, since "Poutine" decided to spill the gravy all over the place. His choice was way too salty for everyone's taste. On evil bay, you can get it as a film called "SFL" A-Color 125. But, remember the gravy. No joy.
party boys and girls in russia are primarily users of this filmstock. it’s even cheaper than a kodak color 200! just drop it inside a no-name point and shoot and go party
In Russia this is the cheapest color negative film you can buy from local stores. Kodak Gold costs about 10$, but roll of this stuff costs 5-6$. Perhaps that’s why Aerocolor is so widespread in Russia.
time to sell on ebay
Same as Kodak Colorplus in Asia. Actually now we can buy Colorplus anywhere but it is a Kodak film special for some Asian countries.
Так и есть ;)
(That's true)
That doesn't explain why this film is exclusively available in Russia. For example shooting motion picture Kodak Vision3 is cheaper too and you can get it off the eBay easily (even spooled in 35mm canisters). Kodak is not packing Vision3 same way as Colorpus or Ultramax. But Vision3 is available globally, while Aerocolor isn't.
@@39exposures Maybe because Vision 3 is widely available for cinema use, and this film is only made under special order.
The blown out burnt orange tone kinda gives the shots a 70s vibe to me.
Also, 10 points to Gryffindor for the Magic School Bus reference. I love that episode.
The Noritsu really gets confused if the film doesn't have an orange base. We just discovered that aswell this week, when we at Camera Rescue scanned some old Konica 1600 ISO film that had a heavy yellow cast on the base. The Noritsu turned the scans incredibly blue, they were just unusable. However camera scanning with a Valoi setup aswell yielded actually usable results with correct colors when you could balance the base color out.
This film was originally intended for aerial reconnaissance and cartography. It has a high spectral sensitivity and a wide dynamic range, which gives maximum versatility of exposure. Of course, not everyone will be able to buy and not everyone will be sold a film for... Very specific tasks, if you know what I mean. But this is Russia. And since every fan of photographing on film cannot afford Portra or Ectachrome for every day, we, in Russia, are looking for various cheap substitutes, damn it! Yes, at least cheaper Kodak Gold - and this is already a cool offer. And where there is a demand , there is also a supply. Someone guessed to sell the film for specific tasks. As they say, " meanwhile in Russia..."
Slava Russia
list of questions Noah will ask when he inevitably goes to the Kodak factory: 1. What is Aerocolor and do you still make it? 2. So... the super8 camera....
I can’t believe they still have the page up for that camera.
Gotta love those film manufacturing mysteries. It really is weird that it's not available anywhere else, especially since Agfa aerial stuff is being repackaged left and right.
Probably just some land management/wildlife department that's got a long term contract and a lack of demand elsewhere.
@@gavinjenkins899 it is now, but that wasn't the case a few years ago when this video was made
For european or american viewers: if you want to test this film I can give you a site of russian photolab which sell this film and could send it by post. It costs about 6,5$ for 24 exp.
What’s the link?
@@perpetualvacuum4310 sreda.photo/goods/kodak_aerocolor_35
Thanks
This is one of my favorite films. It's also quite popular in Belarus where local labs buy it in bulk and cut into normal 36 exp. Those labs do know some scanning 'tricks' for this film as the color looks quite good, without any shift to orange or redish colors. It is surely the cheapest color negative film here in Belarus (around 9-10$ for a 36 exp roll). And, as it was said here before, it is also (somehow) available in 120 format.
I live near the store you mentioned that sells this film and I've got it a couple of times because of how cheap it is, but I never knew it's so obscure. Also the place that sells it has a lab and they do a great job at color correcting the scans, so I'd assume that since most people buy the film there, they also develop and scan it in the same place and that may contribute to why all aerocolor photos online have the same look that is not quite inline with what you'd get from an unedited dslr scan.
Could u let me know what store?
@@piya2585 Foqus Store, located in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
It's not hard to get information on Aerocolor negative film - or to get the film for that matter. Just give Kodak a call - They still make it.
I buy Aerocolor IV (2460) in 5-inch wide rolls for aerial photography, and I believe 5-inch and 9 1/2 inch rolls are the only sizes made today, but as with many things film, there "could" be someone somewhere who is cutting it down, perforating it and selling it on small-format rolls. I have it processed AN-6 at an aerial film lab, but It can be processed in standard C-41 chemistry.
Aerial color negative films (AGFA also makes them) do not have the orange-looking color control mask.
There is a lot of confusion about that mask - and quite a few false theories - but its purpose is to improve RGB separation on exposure, thus rendering more faithful colors. It has nothing to do with printing papers or film stocks or anything else you might hear, other than color separation on exposure. This is one of the main reasons why modern negative films are intrinsically superior in color rendition than reversal (or "slide") films, though there is quite a bit of misunderstanding on that subject as well.
So, if the color control mask is so great, why do aerial color films not have it? Part of the reason is when you are flying at thousands of feet, colors are not true or saturated anyway, so this level of control is just superfluous. But the MAIN reason is that aerial film is often used in sensitive, surveillance, reconnaissance and other forensic sciences, and in many cases the people who need to interpret those images want to see them right away. Once the film is developed, they do not want to wait to have the negatives scanned, printed or otherwise processed. If you've ever tried to look at any detail in a color negative with the orange mask, you know this mask is very unfreindly to the human eye, and makes pictures look "muddy" to us, even though they may not be at all. So eliminating the mask, allows interpreters to look at the negative directly, or through magnifiers to obtain all the detail they want to see, without having to wait for further processing. This is what they are referring to when they say "Direct interpretation can be made from the negative".
What this further implies however, is that these maskless aerial films will be of little interest for the ground photographer, as they are inherently inferior for terrestrial color imaging. Obviously, any artist is free to like, use or make a signature style out of this, but generally speaking it is a film very similar to any other color negative, and just a bit poorer for regular use.
Thanks for this info. Why is it poor for regular use? Trying to understand.
@@DRGBTL23 it isn't, it's just not left for it specifically. Aerocolor is very sharp though, and it pushes really well, because of the lack of a colour mask.
Explanation is simple, someone in Russia got a hold of film cutter, maybe renting it from Tasma, Tasma makes aerial bw film and cuts on demand batches of it as 135 or 120 (sold as "Тип 42" "Type 42"), maybe they buy aerocolor in bulk, cut it for their aerial standard and feed scraps through 135 cutter.
There is a whole bunch of photo labs selling obscure film here in Moscow, so it's not like there is only one place to get it. You can get Agfa Aviphot, Kodak Aerocolor, Tasma film, a whole bunch of modified Kodak cinema film, the list goes on. If I had to guess I'd think some lab decided to contact Tasma some time ago about selling their film for general use, and when they agreed got really into it and now every lab tries to one up each other with more and more obscure film, and I'd imagine that local film community is quite happy because of it.
I can imagine it's pretty hazy up there in the sky or in the mountains. This film has like built-in dehaze slider, that's why the blue cast. I guess...
Aerocolor IV has returned.... Santacolor, Washi X, FlicFilm among others.
Rollei Retro 80S is a B&W aerial film and also has a clear base. Its sensitivity extends into near-IR so I'm curious to know if this Aerocolor also extends in the IR spectrum. If you have any left slap a Yellow #12 filter on and shoot some sunny trees!
3:27 Did Ms.Frizzle had to help your friend get his normal skin color back?? lol
I’m purely curious to see what would happen if it was cross processed in E-6 since it doesn’t have the orange base like colour reversal film.
I was just wondering the same thing!
I think a dude did that.
@@67ratsrule always one😂
why do i prefer the orange versions though? ...
You probably feel nostalgia, as I do. I love this look and Id use it for something. But, knowing these things before hand or on test photography, you can plan out with story ideas
Because you think men can get pregnant 🙅
Это действительно странно. Сам долгое время думал, что все знают про эту пленку Kodak 2444. У нас в России ее много, есть и 135 и 120. В России вообще много чего странного))
3:23 The episode of the magic school bus where Arnold eats too many Seaweadies was my first thought when I saw that shot too lol. That was a great episode.
Naturally this drops while I’m on vacation!! Really glad you decided to do a video on this film! Can’t wait to watch it when I get home.
I recently started getting into analog photography. I have a local shop that sells a lot of specialty film, including Lomography. They have a film called Flicfilm Elektra and they claim it's rebranded Aerocolor IV. Maybe you can find this outside Russia with this brand name.
Brilliant selection of cinema clips you used to illustrate the uses of this film!!
Nice video about a hard to find film! Also, what tripod do you use to scan film at 3:06?
Man you‘re the best 👍 Спасибо за интересный ролик
I liked the orange versions of the pictures, it seems like they already had an Instagram filter, they looks so cool!
Love the thumbnail!
The heavy blue is probably due to the lack of an orange masking layer. I did notice that weird films always come out weirder when scanned at the lab. That's because they don't have the profiles for the film. I used to run into these problems back in the days when I tried-out Dollarama's Likon film back in the early 2000's (it was made by Lucky in China).
I was able to snag a roll (120medium format) from a distributor in Japan. It will arrive tmr getting my hopes up since its probably going to be my first and last chance to shoot with a unique film from Russia
bought a roll of this in 120 while visiting Russia because of how cheap it was. Couldnt find anything online about it, 2 weeks later you uploaded this video!
Other then for skin tones...I like the warmth of the early scans. Hmm..orange creamsicle film. Perfect for summer.
I would’ve guessed the orange cast would be the result of processing the scans using the same settings one would apply to negatives with an orange base - I would think a straight inversion of an orange negative would come out very blue, so there’d be sort of an orange push to even it out. Using that process on a negative without that bias to compensate for would yield a very skewed result.
But then I would also think any film lab operating today would be kind of a specialty operation, and would probably notice the difference in the negative’s base, unless the handling of color in the scanning process is mostly automated. I don’t know. Very interesting stuff regardless!
This film is (as of 2018) still used for aerial photography, there's a small but stable demand for medium to low altitude images, the cameras and equipment are cheaper for the same resolved detail than digital
yooooo lets go my dude, glad to see you stepping into the dslr/mirrorless scanning game with your g7 and the fd 50mm f3.5
6:14 Rollei CN200 was not Kodak Aerocolor - It was actually Agfa-Gevaert Aviphot Color 200. Like Aerocolor, that was also an aerial reconnaissance film, but it was discontinued in 2005. The lack of an orange base seems to be a commonality among aerial films; not sure why. Maco (who owns the Rollei brand name) bought some frozen stock of the Agfa stuff and sold it as Rollei Digibase CN200. The "Digibase" name was to imply that it was easier to scan. I shot quite a bit of it back in 2016. It was wildly saturated and contrasty, very unlike this Aerocolor stuff.
It also seems like a Russian company called Silberra has popped up and is selling a line of color films which are almost certainly all Aerocolor. As to the question of whether or not Kodak still manufactures Aerocolor, that's anyone's guess. I see no reason to believe they have discontinued it, but who exactly is shooting film for technical aerial reconnaissance these days?
I like it. And yes, in order to scan it in a lab machine, they have to tone it, otherwise Frontier simply doesn't detect frames... It is also available in 120... but I had to manually make a roll using a used Ilford backing paper. Worked well though )
Flic Film in Alberta now sells Aerocolor as "Elektra" in 35mm and Catlabs sells it in 120 as Catlabs X 100 color. The film is definitely warm, but more amber brown tones in my opinion?
Yep. The reason is that there is a supplier of the aerial films in Russia. He were able to import several rolls of agfa aviphot (rollei 400), aerocolor, kodak 2405 and some other films. Some of them are reselled to the labs, some of them are sold to a photographers directly. The original source of the film is unknown, but the film is fresh and it's not a question you want to ask from a supplier.
Just had an epiphany-I’ll bet this film cross processes very well, not having an orange mask! Like, will you get actually decent quality slides from this film if you cross process it?? Will the colors look more normal? I’m dying to know!
Do you know if Kodak Aerocolor is anywhere to buy now? I tried getting it from a store in Russia but they said they don't ship it to Russia anymore - do you know where else to find it? It's my favorite film ever!!!!
Here in Australia I was able to buy it not only in 35mm but also in 120 format. Good to know about the lack or orange mask.
Nice find, Noah! Lack of the orange mask makes it a good candidate for crossprocess. I can imagine that with some tweaking in E-6 it may make good slides.
Catching up on my RUclips videos -- was away in Ohio visiting my daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons (I live in Maryland). But I love the idea you have about the guy at Kodak, in Rochester -- hidden away, answering emails/phone calls about many of the Kodak mysteries (Super 8mm camera???) -- both of my parents came from Rochester, and one uncle and some cousins worked for Kodak. So if there is some person hidden away -- they probably are related to me!!!!! :-) I kinda liked the orange scans -- looked like outdated film, but very consistent.
Some people in Russia own film formatting machines which can cut 120 and 135 formats including punching perforations from these wide master rolls. I've heard about a guy who one day got a huge roll of aerochrome and he still shoots it in 120 although he doesn't want to sell it to anyone cause it is absolutely unavailable now. But the initial sources of these rolls are unknown. It could be from government who still buy it for old high altitude military surveillance aircraft which Russia has a lot in service. People there just order a little bit more from Kodak to sell it. Although it is just a theory. As long as I know there is only two b/w aerial film stocks being currently manufactured in Russia and no color. That is Tasma type-42L and type-25. I own a small bulk of type-42L. That's an average and extremely cheap bw film.
Hey there, fellow Filmshooter from Germany. A few weeks back, I bought two rolls of aerocolor 4 and was struck by the lack of online info on these, one American page told that it is used by the Canadian forest or woodland monitoring dept.(something along the lines) . All other sides were Russian and spoke of aerocolor 3 which is also what is written on your film canister. So maybe you have some, supposedly expired, aero3 stock which is why the scanner result might not look as pleasing. But yeah, I have a special Idea for my rolls and can‘t wait to experiment with this film.
Great video as always, keep it up.
www.thephoblographer.com/2015/10/21/kodak-aerocolor-iv-film-is-a-great-way-to-burn-over-1500/
Here‘s the article on aerocolor 4 and why I doubt yours was that stock, if the price in this article is to be believed. I got mine from a small independent lab in Germany, they had one bulkroll of aero4 and sold selfmade rolls for a good sum. I looked it up before buying and thought well if this is IT, I gonna try it for a fragment of 1500 a roll.
So it’s still officially used?!
The article is from 2015 so it could have changed, but film is so different from digital photography, that for a specific use as this , it might make a huge difference. The films I got aren’t expiring till end of 2023. But it really is so unaccounted for, almost a bit mystical…
That article is about a $1500 roll which is so expensive because it’s 70mm wide I believe. You can get AeroColor in large expensive rolls like that or in small 35mm rolls from people like I did!
@@TheSchwert28 where did you get them in Germany? Thanks.
Verrrry interesting! These results (orange tint in scans, blueish backing) look very similar to the roll of Silberra 160 I just got developed. And given that Silberra is a Russian company, the geographical connection has me wondering. You should take a look at that film if you haven't!
It’s because Silberra just repack Aerocolor
How things have changed in 2 years. Yes it is still in production and it is now available everywhere. It’s a great stock, but yeah the lab scans are always gonna suck.
I'm here after receiving a roll of Flic Film Elektra 100 for Christmas - I'm informed it is re-branded aerocolour? Interestingly I was advised to load in subdued light
Very interesting! I just shot some Rollei Superpan 200 which is a rebranded aerial B&W film and I love it
Rollei Superpan 200 = agfa aviphot 200. i am develop it in d23 1+3 20min with minimum rotation- on 1,5,10 and 20 minute. it seems good for scanning but printing with enlarger still dificult. it is very very contrast
So my biggest curiosity... Since this film lacks an orange mask layer, is it possible to cross process it with E-6 method and come out with halfway descent color positive slides??🤔🤔
Cool video! Super curious and will keep my eye out.
Have you seen Elektra 100? I'm pretty sure it's a re-spooled version of Kodak Aerocolor. Just got some today, not sure how long it's been out.
Though aerocolor is compatible with C41 chemicals, I could see in your video the suggested developing time is 5'15" (two minutes more than standard C41).
About the orange colour in the Noritsu scanner, I can add some info because I have one (now idle because a non working negative mask).
If aerocolor is DX coded, you need to calibrate the scanner for that particular film. Back in the day, you could get setup negatives for any film but today you have to make your one ones.
Since aerocolor is almost unkown for most labs, it could have been scanned as a generic or unkown negative and the scanner did the best it could. If somebody lets you use their Noritsu scanner, you could teach the scanner to read its DX code and colour correct the scan providing (or choosing) your normal, under and overexposed frames. This would cause no problem at all to the scanner, it is just adding a new negative to the ones it knows. I can garantee you, you would obtain a nearly perfect colour and density scan.
Please don't blame your lab. Why would a comercial lab make all the steps I mentioned before for an obscure film that most probably they will never see again?
I have some Seattle Filmworks dated 10/11/1999
Is there any program that this disk will play on.
I would like to see the photo of the cat you showed the negative of toward the end of the video, I liked composition of the shot and would like to see how it turned out. I like the first set of photos you showed with the color being off they looked like they were hand tinted like the early 1900's photos
I believe this is the film coming out as SantaColor 100 in the future. It is manufactured in the good ol’ USA but is made available through Finnish Kamerastore.
Actually, you can buy Aerocolor in a few labs here, in Russia. The biggest lab - SREDA, fancy underground lab - PERSPECTIVA and TOCHKA CVETA lab (first lab that have this film)
I kinda like the first lab scans to be honest. I feel like there is probably an instagram filter that looks just like it, probably named 'just peachy' or something lol
Did you try to contact kodak to ask about the film?
Would answer all his questions...
Silberra color must be this stuff too right? Clear base...
Grainydays just made a video a few days ago about Santacolor, which apparently is tied to Aerocolor
Yup! It’s the same film but they’re going to be offering it which will hopefully mean it’ll be easier for people to get.
This is not a Russian film. This is a color aerial photo film from Kodak Rochester. It is purchased in reels and unwound into rolls. So it turns out cheaper than the film from Kodak Alaris. Aerocolor is loved for its specific color, beautiful green transfer
Check out Silberra, also based in Russia and has very similar characteristics to the Aerocolor. Can be processed in E-6 for a positive as well (see attic darkroom’s video on the Silberra)
For anyone wondering, this film is still listed on Kodaks website and presumably can still be purchased.
those oranges......gimmie gimmie gimmie
The orange color of a developed color-masked negative film is not in the base. It's in the emulsion. The base is clear plastic, like any other film. Color masking is a rather technical topic. The point of a negative film is to be printed, right? Color films capture separate images in a layer sensitive to red light, a layer sensitive to green light, and a layer sensitive to blue light. Developing the film turns the latent images into visible images with varying densities of cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes in those three layers. The printing process needs to extract the three separate images, but that's actually a pretty hard thing to do. The dye density spectra overlap, so there's no wavelength of light that isolates each dye from the others. Color masking solves this problem, letting you extract three separate images without interference from each other. It's a clever trick of chemistry and light: by using dye-forming chemicals that are a different color before they react to form dyes, it creates a spectral "hole", a wavelength of unchanging density in that layer, that you can look through to get the image of the other dyes without interference. The negative magenta image is balanced by a positive yellow mask of residual unreacted magenta-forming chemical, and the negative cyan image is balanced by a positive orange mask of residual unreacted cyan-forming chemical. Suffice it to say that recovering the three images works correctly and you get the intended colors when using the right printing process and print film or paper for your type of negative, and you *don't* get the intended colors when using any other process or scanner.
Santa 1000 in Finland is running an indiegogo to buy and reroll Aerocolor from Kodak
In North America all the aerial photography we have had flown in the last 15 years ( at least) long ago switched to digital.
Flic Film Elektra 100 is Kodak Aerocolor IV
I wonder if it may yield orange tints because it's meant to shoot through all that atmosphere between a high altitude aircraft and the ground. Just a thought.
Flic Film is selling Aerocolor as Elektra 100 now, so for people in North America you don't have to get it shipped half way around the world.
Since it has no orange mask, it might work really well in E6 processing...
Is this the same as the FPP Color 125?
Labs in Russia also seem to handle scanning quite well, despite using same Noritsu scanners. I shoot this film from time to time, and I never had neither overly orange nor blueish tint in a picture. It usually tends to be a bit warm, but nothing extreme, and the color reproduction is actually quite accurate.
And yes, it's definitely still in the production, as all the labs out there constantly renew their stuff, and it's been like that at least 3 or more years.
However, it tends to severely fall into blues while underexposed. Here, in the very end of the video, are some examples of that. I was shooting it for the first time then, so I didn't know what to expect. I lf i said something wring, you can fully blame me for false information :)
ruclips.net/video/5WkjPPjFqKM/видео.html
man those camera scans look 10x better hahaha
Bell and Howell Fairchild cameras used an amber filter. Development of the four color negatives uses AN (army navy)-6 process since 1937, since the armed services didn't mail out their daily flight films to Kodak. Why we can't find Aerocolor for civilian movie stock and still rolls is beyond me. It would be the first negative film i would reach for.
Now I know that my lab didn't do a decent job at scanning the film (Karmir 160) 😢
I knew there was something wrong with the colours!
A prerequisite of an areal film is to have Infra Red or at the very least extended red sensitivity. This is because the IR has to cut through the haze and fog present in the atmosphere so that it could photograph the target. They have never been designed nor intended to be used for normal terrestrial photography and normal tone reproduction. So why are you surprised at its colour reproduction?
AN-6 is AN-A-6, the military spin on civilian magazine 16, the 8 track of the movie world. A army N navy. The film tin and size disappeared, but the emphasis on aerial photography lived on. A used to stand for indoor Kodachrome. Outdoors, it will expose extra blue, like the sun's rays at noon. It likes 3000k tungsten or birthday candles.
I like the 1st result version but anyway this is really cool
As a russian myself idk why its only in our contry now, pretty strange 🤔 Also photolab "sreda" rebrands and sells it as "SFL A-Color 125" (roll with a plane pic on it)
p.s. Can you review some odd/artsy film stocks like Revolog, maybe for christmas special? Would like to see it 🙂
Yep, I've bought some rolls in Sreda too, but I do not like Aerocolor's images wibe. This film seems to me strage and for me the only one advantage is it's price.
Since this film was also intended for traffic control, my gues is that the Russian government had a stock of these to use on speed traps.
Traffic cameras at the time when film was used were not popular in russia. the great depression of the 90s. the police used a person with a radar, not a camera
Damn Cops 😂
flicfilm has it too for those in NA.
Strange indeed. Id definitely use it for VLC commercial : D
But like you said in the end, all these errors and damages in analogue photography (still and motion) could be made into surreal short films and music videos and such. When its digital and the image is weird, then its a problem, but somehow on analogue, its cool, because of all the physical things combining to form an image or motion
Do you think if you had, say, a flatbed and set your scan settings to positive film, and then reversed it that you'd get more accurate color?
The issue is with the lab scanners using the base to set the colour. If you do it at home you can choose how you do the colour inversion.
That is really odd, the whole Russia thing. You mentioned the "maybe there was just once a lot of Aerocolor in Russia?", which made me think of the Soviet WW2 project of making maps of Britain (which in many cases were apparently better and more precise than the British maps), but I can't imagine that has got much to do with this. I don't know, please let us know if you find out though.
Could you please do a review on Kodak Technical Pan film , Sir??
Update: I donated 15 feet of Aerocolor one film to an air force museum and they developed it AN-6 lickety-split into aerial combat footage. The 80 or so year old exposures developed into BW clear but color wishy washy frames. Aerocolor is an idiot-proof indoor film that pushed out Kodachrome A and SuperX monochrome.
It's interesting to see what is Astrum (Svema) Color Negative 125, maybe it's Aerocolor, too. It's unavailable in Ukraine, though, despite being made/rebranded here
Could this be the SantaColour 100. That one doesn't have an orange mask either
Yes! They actually have stated that SantaColor is Aerocolor
Now also available as santacolor 100 :)
I like the orange version more
It turns every photo into a udssr-version of the realtity!!!
i don't believe any aerial films have the orange layer. It is for calibrating automated printing machines.
Years ago I got some Rollei(Maco) Scanfilm if was cut from an Agfa (AG) aerial film. It also did not have the orange layer.
Reminds me of Silberra
Can't get it now, since "Poutine" decided to spill the gravy all over the place. His choice was way too salty for everyone's taste. On evil bay, you can get it as a film called "SFL" A-Color 125. But, remember the gravy. No joy.
Russian film shops buys huge film reels like you showed found on ebay and re-roll l it on already used rolls and selling it pre-made.
party boys and girls in russia are primarily users of this filmstock.
it’s even cheaper than a kodak color 200!
just drop it inside a no-name point and shoot and go party
This is a funny video to watch in 2024
It's not that weird, yeah, that's aerial film, that's main problem with scanning it, but srsly it's not that problem to work it out properly
Just buy some Flic Film Elektra 100, and you've got yourself another rebranded Kodak Aerocolor IV roll for cheap