Yep. If you haven’t heard, Kodak is discontinuing the venerable Plus-X film.
For some, that’s maybe not like discontinuing Pepsi but at least on par with discontinuing Dr. Pepper.
In honor of its demise, I pulled out and shot a roll of my extensive freezer stash of Plus-X, in this case a roll of ultra rare “I-bet-you’ve-never-even-Heard-of-it” Plus-X, the Kodak Aerocon Plus-X on Estar base. It is (was) the aerial version of Plus-X, with a slightly extended red sensitivity and coated on a super tough Estar/mylar support. The Estar base happens to be very very thin and a bit ‘floppy’ to roll on the processing reel so you have to be extra careful when handling. The super thin base has an added bonus, you can squeeze in twice as many frames into a standard cassette, and if you happen to have an old Ilford 72 exposure processing reel ( I do actually) then you can process the double length roll without cutting.
I got the film many years ago on Ebay, it came in a bulk roll but instead of the usual 100 feet each roll is a bonus 200 feet. I got two rolls for something ridiculously cheap, probably around 35 dollars for 2 rolls of 200 feet. It was outdated when I got it, expiring in 1997 and I got it in perhaps 2000 or 2001. I used some of one roll and left in the darkroom rather than putting it back into the freezer, and last year I came across the Aerocon box with the sealed can. I opened it in the dark to load some again and the extended time outside the freezer spoiled it, the emulsion sticking to the roll and ruining at least 150 feet. Pulling out and thawing the other frozen roll, I loaded up 7 or 8 rolls, and did a test roll, which looked fine so I put those rolls in a film can into a Ziplock and into the refrigerator, and from that stock I pulled this roll out and shot it yesterday to test and as a way to honor Plus-X.
Shot with a Nikon F5 with my new favorite landscape lens, the Nikkor Q.C 135mm f/3.5 with the Nikon R60 red filter, processed in Ethol UFG, scanned on my Epson 4990 scanner, a wee bit of unsharp masking on the scan another wee bit of sharpening in Aperture.
