IR filter

Helen B · Jan 11, 2008

35 mm HIE getting difficult to find now. The news leaked out in May, then was officially announced on Nov 2nd - terri started a thread about it. B&H sold thousands of rolls in the next few days.

Best,
Helen

Sideburns · Jan 11, 2008

Adorama still has 35mm HIE from what I saw a few days ago...

Garbz · Jan 12, 2008

35mm hasn't been discontinued. Only sheet film has. The problem as far as I know is just the media. Someone didn't read the entire report and the rumour spread that the entire film is being canned, which as far as I can see on the Kodak site nothing has been announced on the 35mm demise.

Helen B · Jan 12, 2008

Helen B said:
35 mm HIE getting difficult to find now. The news leaked out in May, then was officially announced on Nov 2nd - terri started a thread about it. B&H sold thousands of rolls in the next few days.

Garbz said:
35mm hasn't been discontinued. Only sheet film has. The problem as far as I know is just the media. Someone didn't read the entire report and the rumour spread that the entire film is being canned, which as far as I can see on the Kodak site nothing has been announced on the 35mm demise.

Garbz,

I don't make this stuff up. I do make an effort to ensure that what I post here is accurate. It wasn't a rumour back in May 2007, it came from a reliable source within Kodak. The official announcement came on Nov 2nd, as I wrote. Here is the notice on Kodak's website. frXnz gave a link to it in his post explaining that you were wrong the first time round.

Preannounced Professional Film Discontinuances November 2, 2007
KODAK is preannouncing the discontinuance of several smaller running families of Professional film - EPR, EPN and High Speed Infrared (HIE) effective end of December 2007. ... KODAK PROFESSIONAL High-Speed Infrared Film / 135-36

Sideburns,

Did you see the HIE in the store or on the website? As you may know, Adorama don't have a good record of showing actual availablity of items on their site. I'll check on Sunday.

Best,
Helen

frXnz kafka · Jan 12, 2008

Garbz said:
35mm hasn't been discontinued. Only sheet film has. The problem as far as I know is just the media. Someone didn't read the entire report and the rumour spread that the entire film is being canned, which as far as I can see on the Kodak site nothing has been announced on the 35mm demise.

Did you look at the link I posted? It came straight from the Kodak website, and 135-36 HIE is right at the bottom of the list of discontinuances.

photogincollege · Jan 12, 2008

Does anyone know if this film is decent? Its the illford. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/118759-REG/Ilford_1829189_SFX_200_Infrared_135_36.html

Garbz · Jan 13, 2008

frXnz kafka said:
Did you look at the link I posted? It came straight from the Kodak website, and 135-36 HIE is right at the bottom of the list of discontinuances.

Yes I did, I thought the actual product page may be more accurate than some grouped announcement. My link was on the product page for HIE which said the 35mm was still running. Guess it's just a case of the product page not being updated recently to include the discontinued notice.

Sad indeed.

Helen B · Jan 13, 2008

Garbz said:
Yes I did, I thought the actual product page may be more accurate than some grouped announcement. My link was on the product page for HIE which said the 35mm was still running. Guess it's just a case of the product page not being updated recently to include the discontinued notice.

Sad indeed.

Yes, the notice of the discontinuance of HIE sheet and 120 is old news, and it is common knowledge among those of us who use infrared film in medium and large formats. The notice of discontinuance of the 35 mm caused an even bigger stir. I guess that you must have read the notice after you wrote "as far as I can see on the Kodak site nothing has been announced on the 35mm demise."

Anyway, after that red herring, back to the main subject. In answer to photogincollege's question, Ilford SFX 200 is a good film that works with the less extreme infrared filters. It isn't as grainy as HIE, its sensitivity doesn't go as far into the infrared, and it doesn't halate to anything like the same degree. Max Bloom has posted some SFX 200 examples, and there are many others on the web. I use it occasionally, but have no scanned examples to offer.

There was, unfortunately, nothing to really match HIE, but there are other worthwhile IR-sensitive films for pictorial use. The Efke 820 is worth trying. It is available in 35 mm, 120 and large format sizes.

Best,
Helen