Response to Infrared 120 or 220 films

The Maco IR 820 is a very good film. It has the finest grain of all IR films and by far the best tonal rendition, but unfortunately also the lowst speed of all IR films on the market. Not even without filter does it reach the stated speed of ISO 100 when developed in the recommended Laborpartner chemistry. Even the new recommendation to develop 10 minutes instead of 7 does not change this. With an 89B filter you will get around ISO 8, with an 87c filter the speed was down to ISO 0,25! I use a very exact ORWO 585 inrard filter with a cutoff point at 780nm. The very low filmspeed I get indicates that the film probably is not sensitized all the way up to 820nm, what the name obiously is intended to mean. The negs are fabulous though. One has to accept that this film can only be used in combination with a tripod. The film is based on the Efke 100 panchromatic film with an added dye that "catches" infrared ratiation and transforms it to a wavelength which can be recorded on film. The often stated infrared effect, which is especially visible on foliage is not only based on the higher reflection and emittance of IR radiation. The colour sensitation of Kodak IR film is not very uniform: this film has a higher sensitivity towards green. The emittance of IR radiation in combination with this high green sensitivity gives the characterstic "IR look". You can easily see this if you use different filters. It does not matter if you have a Wratten 25 or a Wratten 87C on the camera, the resulting white foliage will be very similar, although the rendition of other "colours" will change due to the changing mix of visible light and IR radiation. This is very visible with the Maco film. The denser the IR filter the more different the result. With high density filters the "IR look" will be achieved since visible light is banned. With red filters foliage still will show structure. I think that the Maco is far more versatile than the Kodak IR film. The only problem is the low speed. For more information check the following article in the Italian foto journal "fotografare", which an be accessed on the following site: http://hamburg.germany.com/laborpartner/html/roma.htm

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