Adox CHS100 II – Initial Impressions

Last April I used my last roll of Adox CHS film (the 50 asa version, article here), a film with a long history which produced soft, subtle images with an ‘old school’ look. Ten months later I’ve finally got round to testing it’s replacement – CHS100 II. The 100 asa version replaces the 25, 50 and 100 asa versions of the discontinued emulsion.

A very good start – exactly the same ‘look’ as the old version.

Adox have worked hard to reproduce the characteristics of the original, updating certain materials and producing it in a more modern facility (the reason the factory closed and the film discontinued, was in part down to the age of the machinery and the costs of keeping it running). Adox’s page about the film is here.

Physically the film now has a PET base making it easier to use, get on a film spiral etc. The old emulsion was so delicate that at 25 degrees C it separated from the base, and very gentle development was required, rolling (rather than inverting) the tank during development. No such restrictions apply to the modern film – it’s very easy to handle and process. A major improvement is how little dust is attracted to the drying negatives. The old version’s soft emulsion attracted so much dust that I gave up scanning a few rolls as the post-processing would have been tortuous. The 35mm cassette is also better made – the metal ‘end caps’ were often worryingly loose on the old film.

Subtle greys – what this film excels at.

This first roll was shot on an OM2N in Swanage in Dorset at the box speed of 100 asa using a Zuiko 50mm 1.4 and a 28mm f2 (mainly at f5.6 to f8). The film was developed in stock Ilford ID11 for six minutes. A note for users of stock developer – this film gives the developer a yellow colour rather like indicator stop bath. I don’t think it’s a problem, but I’ll know when I develop the next roll! The scanner was a Plustek 7500 using an APX25 film profile with just resizing in photoshop. I tried an ‘auto levels’ but it made no visible difference.

Here’s the test shot for the ‘pixel peeping’ (should be ‘grain peeping’ really).

The grain is unusual, being a bit larger than I’d expect for a 100 asa film, but soft and not intrusive.  This was developed in ID11/D76 – whether this would be the case with using Rodinal is something I’d need to test – I’d expect sharper results but harder grain.

The central portion of the above image.

To some readers these may appear to lack contrast, as we’ve become used to a contrasty, modern digital rendering of the world. However, it seems to me that this isn’t the point of this film (though you can always play in photoshop to increase contrast if you want to!). What this film does extremely well is reproduce a mid 20th century film emulsion, and the look associated with it. Where a wide range of subtle mid tones is required, this is hard to beat. In larger formats it’s going to be superb.

So – thanks for looking, and hope you find this useful. I should also thank Adox for plugging a gap in a film photographer’s film choice!

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