Around Olympia with Kodak T400CN (Abandoned Films 13) (Oly 08)

Introduction

Dear Readers, it happened again. I intended to no longer use expired films because of the risks of blotches or other issues caused by old age and improper storage. But a few months ago, an eBay seller included a complimentary roll of Kodak T400CN film in an order. I loaded it in my Leica IIIC camera and tried it around town. 

T400CN was a 1990s C-41 black and white film. It could be processed in common C-41 chemistry almost anywhere on earth (such as by any 1-hour processing kiosk) and yield black and white prints. I used it a few times in the past. When fresh, it was very fine grain and high resolution for a 400 speed film. Other companies also marketed C-41 black and white films, but today, only Ilford XP2 is left. 

Kodak discontinued T400CN in 2004. The Professional Portra 400BW film was similar (or the same?) and was discontinued about the same time. Kodak replaced them with BW400CN, which I have used in my Abandoned Films series. The last few rolls were more grainy than when they were fresh, so possibly the BW400CN changes chemically when old. Of course, other factors, like the brand of C-41 chemistry, may affect the appearance of the film. Has this T400CN aged more gracefully? 

Because of the age, I decided to expose it at EI=120 rather than the original specified 400. I took the film to Photoland at The Evergreen State College. They called me after 3 hours to report that it was ready! I scanned it on my Nikon Coolscan 5000 scanner. The advantage of a C-41 film, either color or B&W, is that the infrared ISRD function can identify scratches and correct them. It is a convenience because you do not need to touch up as many flaws on the film with a heal tool. Unfortunately, this does not work for traditional black and white film. 

This was also a test of my Leica IIIC camera and its 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens. In the past, the IIIC suffered from a zone that was out of focus on the far right. I suspected that the film was buckling or not lying straight in the rails. I added another nylon washer on the post that pushes the film canister up into the body. The reloadable Leitz film canisters, which were common in the 1940s, may be marginally taller than modern commercial 35mm film canisters. Even if the film lay perfectly flat (which never happens in any 35mm camera), the Summitar has field curvature, so the best focus curves towards you at the sides of the frame. 

Yes, I know, this experiment had too many variables. There were too many degrees of freedom to be able to isolate contributing factors. But you readers can decide if it all worked out. Here are some random scenes around Olympia, Washington. Click any photo to see it at 1600 pixels wide.

Olympia

Impending storm, East Bay, March 2, 2024. The Capitol is in the distance. 

Farmers Market, Olympia, March 2, 2024

Where did all the hail come from? Olympia certainly has interesting weather. What happened to spring?

Unused tracks off Olympia Avenue in the drizzle - where did spring go?

Former Golden Gavel Motor Inn, mid-century architecture at its finest. The unit is being renovated. (5cm Summitar with light yellow filter.)

Traditional wooden houses, view from Legion Way (with medium yellow filter)

Gas meters, Olympia Avenue

Gas meters scanned in full color RGB

I scanned most of this roll using 16-bit grey scale. But my Nikon Coolscan 5000 occasionally shifts to the default setting of full-color RGB (meaning 3×16-bit). I like the effect. It resembles selenium or one of the red toners. I may use this more with this T400CN film, but it would only be effective for certain subjects (artsy-fartsy stuff). 

This is a crop of the scanned file. It shows how much detail this film can capture. And this is from a lens designed before World War II! Note how this film does not have grain in the same way as a traditional black and white film. This, and all C-41 films, have dye clouds, instead.  

Door at 215 Thurston Avenue

Emerging from the 7th Avenue tunnel

Nature

How does this film work with nature topics?

Spurgeon Creek from the Chehalis Western bicycle trail south of Olympia

Olympia Avenue tree (with light yellow filter)

Industry

Foss Waterway, Tacoma

Tacoma is full of interesting topics. I will be returning!

Summary

T400CN film: I am pleased. This long-expired film was fine-grained and recorded a large exposure range. It does not look like traditional black and white film, and it may be less contrasty than Fuji Acros. But T400CN is more convenient to get processed if you have access to a photo lab nearby. Next time, I will expose at EI=100, so two stops more than the original 400. (A few years ago, I tried Ilford XP2, the only current C-41 B&W film, but did not like the results.)

The Nikon Coolscan 5000 film scanner: It is higher resolution than my Plustek 7600i. And the Coolscan has a higher dynamic range, meaning it extracts more data from the film. Also, the Coolscan does a focus adjustment with each frame. But the Nikon Scan software is clunky in a 1990s manner and needs a computer running WIN XP or 7. I will test Silverfast 9 on my Mac for future use, or may try a Windows emulator and load the NikonScan on my Mac. The native Mac versions of NikonScan would not run on the Intel chips. 

My 1949 Leica IIIC:  The extra washer on the bottom post may have solved the problem of the buckling or curved film. It is nice to keep this old family friend in operation. The 5cm Summitar is an impressive lens, especially considering that it was designed in the 1930s.

Abandoned Early Digital Technology: the Kodak Photo CD

Background

The great Eastman Kodak Company was an early pioneer in the technology and science behind digital imaging. Kodak scientists and mathematicians developed many of the early patents pertaining to digital imaging chips, data processing, and color management. The Department of Defense funded some of this early work. The popular press and photo "experts" in internet fantasy-land love to curse at Kodak and say how it totally missed the digital revolution. As usual, most of them have an agenda and the story is more complicated.

Kodak's managers, scientists, and engineers were fully aware of how digital imaging would eventually destroy their immense profit machine. Kodak made money from film production and selling supplies to photo-finishing companies around the world. These were high-margin disposable supplies that needed constant replenishing. Digital was totally different. It was based on the manufacture of cameras and peripherals (memory cards and software), a different economic model from Kodak's. Once the hardware had been purchased, there were minimal continuing expenses, unlike photofinishing.

Three Photo CDs from 1995. Note the handy index sheets.

What is a Photo CD?

During the transition period of the 1990s, Kodak tried to bridge both worlds with their Photo CD. From Wikipedia, 

Photo CD is a system designed by Kodak for digitizing and saving photos onto a CD. Launched in 1991, the discs were designed to hold nearly 100 high quality images, scanned prints and slides using special proprietary encoding. Photo CDs are defined in the Beige Book and conform to the CD-ROM XA and CD-i Bridge specifications as well. They were intended to play on CD-i players, Photo CD players (Apple's PowerCD for example), and any computer with a suitable software (LaserSoft Imaging's SilverFast DC or HDR for example).

You can read more details on this site.

To buy a Photo CD, you first had Kodak (or select laboratories) develop your film. Then they scanned your frames with proprietary Kodak scanners to a compact disk (CD). 

From Linotype-Hell Company technical note:

The Kodak Photo CD scanner uses a stationary tri-linear array (three linear arrays with a R,G, or B filter) of 2048 elements. It is designed exclusively for 35mm film. During scanning, the film is moved parallel to the long dimension of the frame. This results in a scanned data file of 2048 by 3072 pixels in R, G, and B per frame of 35mm film. Before this data is quantized for storage, several transformations are made to optimize the encoding of the data for various applications and to achieve data compression.

The primary consumer application for Photo CD is television display. Kodak therefore has chosen to refer to the TV display resolution as the Base image. This resolution is achieved by averaging 16 pixels in the original high resolution 16 Base image to create each single pixel at Base resolution. This averaging is done in a two-step process so that an intermediate resolution HDTV image (4 Base) is also available. In addition, since TV uses luminance/chrominance data, the scanner RGB data is mathematically transformed into a single luminance and two chrominance components before processing. Kodak identifies the particular luminance and chrominance that they use as PhotoYCCTM (or YCC for short).

Kodak PCD-860 player (by permission from an eBay listing by 68ra-53)

Kodak designed the system to allow customers to see their photographs on a television screen. Kodak sold several Photo CD playback readers that you connected to your television. But American analog NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) televisions in the 1990s had poor (OK, miserable) color and dynamic range. To make the photographs look good on a television screen, Kodak's software expanded the color and dynamic range. I am not sure how the CDs were encoded to play back correctly on PAL or SECAM televisions. Possibly, the playback units for those markets did some software processing internally. 

I do not know if these players will work on current Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) units that use the ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) standards. 

Reading Photo CD Files

Many software packages, like Ifranview, will still open the .PCD files on the PhotoCD. But images often look washed out because of the exaggerated dynamic range. I think Kodak planned to offer a software to open the files on 1990s computers, but I have not been able to find a copy. Maybe this software was never offered to the public. Kodak recommended that applications use a Lookup Table (LUT) after converting the PhotoYCC data from the Photo CD into RGB. 

The problem lies in the fact that most modern programs do not have access to these Kodak lookup tables. Most software companies have long discontinued their packages that opened Photo CD files and properly corrected the color and dynamic range. LaserSoft no longer sells their SilverFast PhotoCD. pcdMagic may be the only currently-marketed software that runs on contemporary computers.  

An alternative: a Photrio reader wrote that Digital Light & Color Picture Window Pro 7 correctly opened the Photo CD format. Version 7 is now a free package. But only the 32-bit Windows Version 7 opens the Photo CD. I downloaded it onto a 64-bit computer running Windows 7 Pro, and Picture Window opened correctly. 

A minor issue: Picture Window needs the index files that are on the Photo CD. If you downloaded just the .PCD files to a hard drive, I think you cannot access them. Therefore, you need the original CD as well as a CD reader. If your computer does not have a CD drive, you must find/buy a portable unit or need to revive an older computer. (Hint: do not discard your legacy computers; you never know when you might need some of the old hardware or software). 

Skopelos, Greece

Hora (main town), Skopelos, Greece (Kodachrome 25, Leica M3, 50mm Summicron lens)

Hora, Skopelos (90mm ƒ/2.8 Tele-Elmarit lens)

How does my garden grow? Skopelos town (135mm ƒ/4 Tele-Elmarit lens)

My croissant is too small; Skopelos

Skiathos

Hangin' out in the sun, Skiathos

Waiting for departure, Hora, Skiathos

Kastro, Malaria Beach, Skiathos

The Kastro was the medieval fortified town on the very northern tip of Skiathos. It was settled in the 1300s when the islanders fled from the raids of Turkish pirates.

Morning in Skiathos

Mainland, Attica

Abandoned loading dock for minerals, Grammatikó (near Marathonas) (50mm Summicron, polarizer)

Summary

My experience with the Photo CD process was mixed. You can see that on many of these frames, the colors are exaggerated or a bit off. Some have a subtle color cast. For some Kodachrome rolls, the files on the CD were very good quality. But other CDs had poor exposures and colors. I think the Kodak automated scanner may have set color and gain for the whole roll based on the first slide. But if that slide was poorly exposed, and no technician inspected the process, the .PCD file for that first frame ended up looking good, but the rest of the roll looked poor.

Dark Kodachrome slides did not scan well. The dark areas were noisy and had a purple color cast. It is possible that the Picture Window Pro 7 software did not correct the colors quite right. And it is possible that being designed as a display media for NTSC televisions, the colors will never be "correct". I could do more adjustments with Photoshop, but that ends up taking a lot of time. It may be better to just scan from scratch with a film scanner.

I expect that C-41 negative film, such as Gold 100, would have transferred more successfully on the Kodak CD system. 

I did not use Photo-CD scanning after the late-1990s. And I never bought one of the viewing units for the television. Still, it was a clever interim technology. Eastman Kodak deserved credit for trying to integrate traditional film with the digital future. But it was too late. Digital cameras became better and better in the early 2000, and most consumers became all-digital.

Kodak Technical Pan Film at the Acropolis (Abandoned Films 11)

Technical Pan film

In the 1980s, Eastman Kodak heavily advertised their Technical Pan as being an extremely fine grain and high resolution panchromatic film. The data sheets stated:

This is a black-and-white panchromatic film with extended red sensitivity. It has micro-fine or extremely fine grain (depending on the developer used), extremely high resolving power, and a wide contrast range for pictorial, scientific, technical, and reversal-processing applications. 

Kodak made this film for either copying documents or for aerial reconnaissance by the military (I have read both theories). Kodak discontinued sales in 2003 or 2004 but stated that they had been selling off stock that had been stored for years. Many astronomers used it for celestial photography. 

Most document films are very fine grain but also high contrast. Therefore, for pictorial use, the photographer or laboratory must use special low contrast developers to provide a normal tonal scale. Kodak sold a proprietary Technidol developer for pictorial use, but it has been discontinued for at least a decade.

With a degree of hyperbolae or over-enthusiastic marketing, Kodak claimed Technical Pan in a regular 35mm camera rivaled the results from normal film in a 4×5" camera. Well, maybe - sort of. I cannot find an example right now but recall seeing these advertisements in camera magazines in the 1980s.

I used Technical Pan 2415 in 35mm cameras only twice. Once was in Texas (see my 2017 post) and the second in Athens, Greece. I agree that the film was incredibly fine-grain, but it was hard to develop and was contrasty, even with the Technidol developer. It had a "soot and chalk" tonality. My ultimate conclusion was why bother? If you want high resolution and smooth continuous tones, just use a medium format or 4×5" camera.

The Acropolis, Athens

We will make this a double abandoned films treat: Technical Pan from 1985 plus a couple of 1951 comparisons with other long-discontinued films. Let's take a walk around the Acropolis on a brilliant sunny July day. Click the 1985 frames to see the amazing detail. 

Parthenon east side, July 7, 1985 (Technical Pan film, Leica M3, 50mm ƒ/2.8 Elmar-M lens)

Parthenon east side 1951 or 1952 (Kodachrome slide, Leica IIIC camera, 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens)

The magnificent Parthenon is under perpetual preservation and reconstruction. It is amazing to think that Aristotle himself must have visited this temple and walked among the columns. And consider modern famous visitors such as Lord Byron, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Princess Elizabeth, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Elizabeth Taylor, etc.

Archaeologists and marble masons have spent over a century on repair and preservation. All the stone on the ground has been catalogued, measured, and fitted using 3-dimensional CAD software. The dilemma is what to do where original stone is missing. How much reconstruction is "authentic?"

Checking the Parthenon

Summer in the city - checking out the Parthenon

The Erechtheion under restoration.

The Erechtheion or Temple of Athena Polias is an Ionic temple-telesterion on the north side of the Acropolis. It was primarily dedicated to the goddess Athena. The geometry and placement of features within the temple is unknown. It may overlie a palace of Mycenaean age.

1985 south view of Erechtheion

Erechtheion photographed in 1951 from the porch of the Parthenon (Kodak Plus-X film) 

Looking down to the Anafiotica neighborhood.

Acropolis from the Temple of the Olympian Zeus (Leica 90mm ƒ/2.8 Tele-Elmarit lens)

This scene is an extreme example of high contrast that demonstrated a soot and chalk rendition. I am glad I experimented with Technical Pan film. With the revival in film photography recently, it has become a cult favorite among some film users, and they buy remaining stock eagerly. But for me, a normal panchromatic film is fine.

Appendix A

Here are some curves for Technical Pan film from Kodak Professional Black-and-White Films book F-6 © 1984. 

Photographer Michael Elliott has been getting excellent results from Technical Pan with a 2-part developer based on metol. I am impressed with his energy.

GAS ATTACK: Camera Catalogs from an Earlier Era

Dear Readers, while trying to purge junk from my endless stuff-filled closets and bookshelves, I found camera and photography catalogs that had tempted me with the expensive items they advertised. I sent a big box of these catalogs and brochures to a Photrio reader who paid for the postage all the way to Poland. Below are the front covers of some of the more interesting ones. 

Enjoy and do not get GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome - a mental state demonstrated by severe lack of self-control amongst all photographers). Or do get GAS; you will rarely see such fine mechanical craftsmanship in consumer products today. Prices for most film cameras, especially medium-format, are rising rapidly as of 2022. If you want a body, lens, or accessory, buy now. Film has revived, and very few new film cameras are being built today. 

Eastman Kodak Company

Eastman Kodak made everything for the photographic trade. They were the behemoth of the industry. Their beautiful and precise Retina cameras came from their Nagel-Werke subsidiary in München, Germany. I have only used one model, a handsome little IIa. The lady in the book cover above is holding a rigid body model IIIS, in production from 1958-1962. These were precise and capable, but I have read they are very complicated internally. Retina production finally ended in 1967, a victim of the Japanese camera onslaught. 

Victor Hasselblad AB

Hasselblad's 6×6 medium format cameras became the tools of choice for American wedding, portrait, and industrial photographers from the 1960s through the beginning of the digital era, around 2000 or 2005. The lenses were the finest available from Zeiss in West Germany. They were seriously expensive when new. If in good condition, even 1960s Hasselblad lenses are fully usable now. Recently prices have have revived with the new enthusiasm in film. I wrote about their very informative instruction booklets in a 2020 article.  

Mamiya

Mamiya (in 1993 Mamiya-OP K.K.) made five or six different types of medium format cameras, all  very successful in the U.S. market. Many American photographers preferred Mamiya because the prices were lower than Hasselblad and the lenses were excellent.

Many wedding photographers worked with the rugged and versatile C220 and C330 twin-lens cameras. This C330 and the simpler C220 were much larger and heavier than Rolleiflex or Yashica TLRs, but the Mamiya offered interchangeable lenses. Neat engineering. 

The superb RZ67, the successor to the RB67. Both were big and heavy, most suitable for the studio, but I have known field users with strong arms. Studio photographers liked the 6×7 format and the built-in bellows. For a short while, Mamiya Leaf offered a digital back for the RZ67 Pro IID.

This was the big and sturdy press-style camera that was popular in the 1960s. It was a rangefinder with excellent lenses, 6×7 or 6×9 roll film backs, and many accessories. Nice equipment but seriously heavy! Polaroid sold a modified version with a back for their instant film. I owned the Polaroid-specific version for awhile but did not use it much and sold it in good time, before Polaroid in Massachusetts closed permanently. 

Linhof

Linhof tripods and ball heads are top grade. I have a small aluminum Profi-Port tripod, designed for travel. And I use the Profi II and Profi III ball heads. The big III is equal in rigidity, smoothness, and strength to any other brand on the market. 

Linhof (now Linhof Präzisions Systemtechnik GmbH) in München, Germany still makes their famous Technika large format field camera with a rangefinder to let the strong photographer hand-hold the unit. At one time, Linhof even offered a 5×7" version, which must have been a monster. 

Every Linhof product is spectacularly refined and precise, for a spectacular price. Look at their web page to see what the finest traditional mechanical craftsmanship looks like - and think of what you could photograph with some of this superb machinery. 

The Technikardans were very clever rail cameras that folded into compact packages. A friend used one to photograph the Tiffany windows at the Episcopal church here in Vicksburg. 

Leica

Leica (formerly Ernst Leitz Wetzlar) is another German company famed for precision manufacturing. Many photographers love their rangefinder cameras and the compact and superb lenses. I have used my dad's IIIC and M2 and M3 bodies for decades.

Gasp! The Leica rangefinder that did not look like older Leica bodies. Quelle horreur!

1974 Leica M lenses. All are totally usable to this day.

I was an undergraduate student when Leica introduced their M5 body with its revolutionary light meter on a swinging arm in front of the film plane. The body was larger than the previous Leica M bodies, and ultra-conservative Leica users rejected the new M5. It never sold well. I have read that today, there is only one repair person in USA who will adjust/repair the M5 (Sherry Krauter in New York state). I tried one in the 1980s and agree that it was a big and heavy package.

In 1974, at the University book store, the body was about $700 and the 50mm Summicron another $300, so about $1000 total. My tuition for 3 quarters at Univ. of Washington was $540, so the Leica cost two years of tuition. Hmmm...

Leica has just reintroduced their M6 film body. Thanks to the revival in film use, they can barely keep up with demand, and their M-A, M-P, and M6 bodies are usually out of stock. 

Rollei

For 70+ years, Rollei-Werke Franke & Heidecke GmbH sold their superlative twin-lens reflex (TLR) cameras to press, studio, and advanced amateur photographers. They used the finest lenses from Schneider and Zeiss. I have used Rolleiflex 3.5E and 3.5F models since 1982. Poor Rollei went through a series of bankruptcies and restructurings after 1982, but they continued making the Rolleiflex until about 2000 (possibly later). 

I remember that in 1982 or 1983, brand new 2.8F models were still listed in advertisements from the New York vendors for about $2000. This was a serious price back then, but after the company semi-dissolved, many of us wished we had bought one. 

The later versions, like the GX above, were criticized for being based on the lighter-duty Rolleiflex T chassis and missing the ingenious film-sensing system. The tooling and molds for the 3.5 and 2.8 F models were destroyed or scrapped during one of the restructurings. 

Rollei's market position in the USA eroded as more and more photographers bought the Swedish competitor, the Hasselblad. To compete, Rollei introduced their beautiful SL66 in 1966. I remember seeing them in camera stores in Harvard Square, Massachusetts, in 1968 or 1969. They cost more than $1000 back then. Not suitable for this high school student. 

Similar to the Hasselblad, the lenses were the finest from Zeiss or Schneider. These are big and heavy cameras. But buy one if you can find a clean unit that was properly treated over the years. Sadly, USA sales were low.

Ingrid Bergman in "Journey to Italy" (1954)

OK, sorry, I could not resist. Here is Ingrid Bergman near Mount Vesuvius with her Rolleiflex. Note the fitted suit and elegant gloves. Why do tourists today (especially Americans) look like homeless people?

Nikon

Nikon lenses as of 1968.

My first "serious" camera was a Nikkormat FTn, which I bought at the famous Lechmere Sales in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1968. I used it in USA, Europe, and South America and even took it hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire (I was much stronger then). It never failed or broke. This is still a totally usable and rugged camera. But to operate the CDS light meter, you need to use the Wein batteries because the original 1.35 volt mercury cells are not sold any more.

Dear Readers, this has been our quick tour through the era of superior mechanical and optical engineering. Thanks for riding along. Go ahead and buy some of this classic equipment while you still can. The available stock will diminish as the years go by.