Rollei Retro 80s, Zeiss Ikon, various lenses

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

Rollei Retro 80s film?
Well... I have become a believer:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

#12

#13

#14

#15

#16

#17

#18

Developed with Rodinal
Scanned with Reflecta ProScan 7200 and Silverfast 8
One thing I don't like about this film? It's so thin that it becomes a butt pain when loading into the spiral.
Otherwise... rich tones, great detail, dimensionality, good contrast... quasi medium format results with
a simple 24x36.
Perfect for my style.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Looks like a good film. Tonality makes me think it's orthochromatic, is it?

ForenSeil · Joined: 15 Apr 2011 Posts: 2726 Location: Kiel, Germany.

Thank you for sharing. Nice photos.
These ex-technical films are not easy to handle in exposure/development in my experience (Superpan 200, Retro 80s, Retro 400s,...), because they are not very compensative.

Minolfan · Joined: 30 Dec 2008 Posts: 3437 Location: Netherlands

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Hmm, superpanchromatic, sounds like the Kodak Aerographic stuff with the extended red sensitivity. I almost bought a 100ft roll of that in 70mm last week, if it performs like this rollei I wish I had.

rbelyell · Expire: 2014-01-31

interesting set orio. i love 9 and how the film picked up the deicacy of the fabric. i have problems with tis film because its so very light dependent. in the right light at the right angle its great. the rest of the time i personally find it disappointing because i'm just not good enough to predict it what exact circumstances i'm going to optimize its capabilities.
tony

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

This is my first roll of 80s so I don't have any experience with it, but as a first roll the impact was WOW.
I did not expect to obtain results as fresh and dimensional such as photo #1 with a small format film.
The range of grays as it appears in photo #15 totally pleases me. Rodinal gives back great gray tones with this film.
It seems however that in the shadows, grain tends to surface visibly with Rodinal.
I suspect that this filim may better be metered as a 50 ISO for use with Rodinal. When there's plenty of light,
the results are clean and rich, and it seems to be difficult to really lose the highlights.
So perhaps the film is a bit slower than it claims.
But I want to try it with Gradual ST20 developer at nominal 80 ISO. Gradual ST20 brings up significantly less noise than Rodinal.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

In my experiments in poor light I have found shadow grain is to a great extent influenced by exposure. I tend to exposure for the shadows to minimise the grain there and hope the film has enough latitude to avoid blowing out the highlights too much.

Rodinal produces more grain than some other developers I've used, Fomapan LQR and LQN give me less grain with the same film stock.

ForenSeil · Joined: 15 Apr 2011 Posts: 2726 Location: Kiel, Germany.

According to a guy in another forum the film works best at ISO40 in Rodinal
Rollei likes to overdraw the sensitivity. Also Superpan 200 and especially Retro 400s are somwhat slower in my experience (both ~ISO100 imho).

These films are working fine with Rodinal but some more modern developers are known to be problematic. (google for your combination and don't trust official time tables!)
The films are made for a special high temperature development process, and I guess less aggressive developers have problems to penetrate the hard emulsion.

Ultrapix · Joined: 06 Jan 2012 Posts: 551 Location: Italy

the tank picture is taken at Brescello, isn't it?

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Rollei Retro 80 one of my best film experience too, stunning series!

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

Katastrofo · Expire: 2013-11-19

There's a reason why Freestyle runs out of this film all the time, beautiful results!

Ultrapix · Joined: 06 Jan 2012 Posts: 551 Location: Italy