In the last issue of the National Newsletter our
Secretary Brain Savage commented that Oliver Barron had tried some 3M
1000 ASA. slide film, but had not yet seen any results. Oliver has sent
these comments.
Ron Croad (Area 20 slide folio secretary) tried some 3m
1000 ASA. reversal film and the results were so dense that something had
obviously gone wrong. He sent me some more test slides taken under poor
lighting conditions in the Hendon Aero Museum. These seem very good when
in a hand viewer. Later I examined them under projection.
The lighting in the museum was
flourescent and all exposures were made at 1/30 at F 5.6 - F 8. For most
of the slides this was OK, but a few were underexposed. I imagine the
lighting would have not been uniform throughout the whole area of the
museum and that would account for a few exposure errors. I obviously
can’t comment on how true the colours were, but Ron assures me they
were good.
For a comparison test, he took 3 frames
on Barfen CRX 100. Flash was not allowed or the use of a tripod, so with
the long exposures necessary and hand held, there was camera shake, but
the 3 frames had a bad green cast. Ron suggests this was due to the
flourescent lighting. As the 3M were, not so affected. I would suggest
the fault may have been reciprocity failure. The Barfen test piece and
the 3M film were processed simultaniously in the same tank, using the
normal Arnold Moorhouse formulae which do not give Ron a green cast
normally on Barfen CRXIOO so processed. I can confirm this, having seen
many of his similar slides.
The definition of the 3M was good and I
don’t think the grain was objectionable, although Ron is not so sure.
Obviously it must be worse on the high speed film, but where lighting
conditions are such that you have to use a fast film or get ‘no’
pies.. well you pay your money and take your choice. . Of course, no one
is going to use 1000 ASA in bright light sun at the seaside. If you did,
you’d need a N.D. filter X, ‘x’ where ‘x’ is a large number. I
certainly think the film has it’s uses.