More Slow Color - EASTMAN 5244 - ISO 1

You know if there is a low-ISO film out there to try, I will do so.  Ultrafine Online has the Motopix line of color films that are ECN-2 process cine films that are repackaged in 35mm cassettes for your still camera.  A while back, I purchased a roll of the Eastman 5244 from them. Rated at ISO 1, it's a tungsten-balanced film that was manufactured in the 1990s for use as a intermediate film for making master positives from Eastman color negative films and making duplicate negatives from those master positives.  To do this, the film has to be very fine-grained, have high sharpness and resolving power.  The film is on a clear acetate base, and has a remjet backing.

Eastman 5244 (image from Ultrafine Online)

The roll of 5244 sat around in my film box for a few months before I finally loaded it up in my Pentax Spotmatic F.  Here's the thing - of course my Spotmatic F does not have an ISO setting even close to  ISO 1.  Because the camera is all-manual, I could shoot it sunny 16 in full sun handheld at F/2 and 1/30 sec shutter speed. Here's how you can figure this out:

If the reciprocal of sunny-16 for an ISO of 1 is 1 sec at f/16, then:

f/11 = 1/2 sec, f/8 = 1/4 sec., f/5.6 = 1/8 sec, f/4=1/15 sec, f/2 = 1/30 sec., f/1.4 = 1/60 sec.

That of course, is in full sun.  I also used an external meter and set my shutter speed and aperture accordingly when I used the camera on a tripod for some of the later images.

You may think that one might want to use a warming filter over the lens as the film is a Tungsten-balanced emulsion.  That would only decrease the light, and make for longer exposures. I can always fix the colors post-scan if necessary. That said, the beauty of these odd films are the sometimes serendipitous crazy results that convince one that using these films presents a different avenue of exploration.

I shot some of the roll two months ago and finished it up at the end of March, when our daffodils were coming into bloom.  I used a tripod for many of those shots, but the early ones were hand-held - hence the shallow depth of field, as you'll see.  I developed the film in the FPP C-41 kit, but first used a sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate pre-bath at 102°F for one minute, and then after pouring out the pre-bath, poured in several changes of water at the same temp, shaking that developing tank like a cocktail shaker. The first pour out will be really black, and subsequent rinses will go from gray/brown to light pink.  At that point, you are ready to do the  C-41 or ECN-2 developing.  The initial carbonate prebath is essential in removing 99.9% of the carbon remjet and not contaminating your developer. After hanging the film to dry, I used a photowipe on the base side of the film to remove any remaining remjet, of which little remained.  

The film was scanned on my Epson V700 scanner, and files were opened in Corel PaintShop Pro, which has been my image editor for over a decade.  

Hand-Held Results --

Upper photo before adding a filter post-scan.
Lower photo, after an 85B equiv. filter

As you can see, the film is extremely fine-grained, and in the photos below, I'll point out any that have been altered by filters.

85B post-scan filter

Tripod-mounted results

Just a bit of filtration

This was pretty much a test of this film, and I should get more of it to shoot some colorful city scenes.  Shooting it indoors would be crazy, as it is so slow, and for photos of people - well in bright sun you could go f/4 at 1/15 sec if you dare.   However, it could be nice for shooting a 1 sec (or longer if not sunny) on a tripod to achieve a series of ghostly movements of people in a city landscape.