Ultrafine Liminality Film

A little over a month ago, I saw an announcement from Ultrafine Online about a film stock that they were releasing.  Their Liminality 250 black and white film announcement had all the things that pique my interest. For one, it wasn’t just a rebranding of something from Foma or Orwo, and two, it’s a S.O. Kodak film.  S.O. means “Special Order,” which means the film has some special characteristic that differentiates it from the typical film stocks.  In the case of the Ultrafine film, their description tells a lot:

“Ultrafine Liminality 250 Black and White Film

Kodak Special Order 078 Black and White Film originally utilized in rocket testing technology. A Kodak Special Order (S.O.) film originally designed for instrumentation testing however it yields amazing results when utilized as a 35 mm camera film. Based on the Kodak T-max 400 emulsion with some tweaks in the high contrast range makes for a wonderful film to shoot under a variety of conditions. We have assigned a 250 ISO, given the age of the stock, and the scientific tweaking the film was initially given. The Film is out-dated and has been kept in cold storage and is yielding fantastic results! It is an extremely fine grain black-and-white, having a wide contrast range, and a sturdy Kodak ESTAR (polyester) base, which allows the film to lay flat for handling.”

Obviously, I had to try a film that was used for rocket testing!  I ordered three 36-exposure rolls at $10.95 each.  I think that’s a fair price given the oddity of this film.  I loaded a roll into my Minolta XG-M with a 45mm/2.8 Rokkor.  I set the ISO at 250, and shot the roll within a day or so.  

I developed the film in Kodak T-Max RS developer for 9 minutes at 20°C.  I was really pleased to see that the negatives were perfect. I did not see any base fog on the film, nor any indication that this film was “old.”  Differing from the T-Max 400 films that I have shot before, there was no pink anti-halation dye in the wash water or on the processed film.  The tough Estar base makes me wonder if the film was used in launch scenarios where a camera would have a high-frame rate and large film cassettes.  

The film laid flat in the scanner holder, and my scans were at 3200 dpi on the Epson V700 scanner.  The negatives scanned beautifully, with very fine grain and lots of tonality.  This is a lovely film to shoot with.  

Here are some selected frames from the roll:

 

I like the fact that the Liminality film is something unique and also that it delivered exactly what Ultrafine said it would.  The next roll that I shoot with it will likely be developed with another developer, just to see if the results are any different.  I recommend that if you develop it, use whatever developer type and times posted for normal Kodak T-max 400 film at the ISO of 400.  The Kodak T-Max RS developer yielded excellent results for me.

As I noticed that there was no pink anti-halation dye showing up in the wash, you can see that the film does have some halation on reflective objects, as seen in the above image. Not a big problem, but something to be aware of. 

There are some film stocks that have become popular for street photography, such as JCH Street Pan, and ATM Street Candy 400.  I never liked my results with the JCH film, and the ATM Street Candy 400 was okay.  However, I like this Liminality film, and it's certainly worth a shot (or 36 shots), so I recommend buying some while it is available.