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ORWO NP 20 is an aging black and white film for novelty half-frame cameras that expired back in 1992.
(Coincidentally, this is the same year Lomography was formed; these numbers are also used in their brand-new emulsion: Lomochrome Color’92 — analog.cafe/r/lomochrome-c…).
I bought three bricks of this film earlier this year in an attempt to figure out how to use it with my Welta Penti 0 camera (analog.cafe/r/welta-penti-…) which uses specialized film canisters that hold short strips for 24 half-frame exposures.
A few burned rolls in, I’m finally starting to get some promising results. They’re still quite grainy and the base is rather foggy but it feels like I’m on the right track and I’d like to share some of the successful takes so far.
Exposed at EI 50 and developed in Ilfosol 3 for eight minutes at 1:9 dilution.
With the exposure and development times I used, this film appears to have a medium contrast. And this contrast level can’t be easily altered without introducing more grain.
But I am pleasantly surprised by this thirty-year-expired film‘s wide dynamic range. There are easily seven or eight stops of DR in this photo, which NP20 appears to render.
The exposure tests appear to show that the EI 50 I chose (the box speed of this film is 80ASA) is a decent choice for this film. It can still be shot at EI 100 or the box speed with good results and more contrast but adding light doesn’t seem to look as good (while there are more details, changing the contrast of this film in post will add grain thus unless the “washed-out” look is desired, this is probably not the way to go).
Development times still need work as the base fog is still significant and I wonder if I could reduce the grain meaningfully.
Once I finish my tests, I’ll post a review and development times and also consider selling some rolls on filmbase.etsy.com
Now that I’ve got some images, I moved on to the next roll. This time, I developed my very expired ORWO NP20 in Ilfosol 3 for SIX minutes at 1:9 dilution.
Oddly, the results seem nearly identical. The base fog looks to have about the same density, and there’s little change to contrast, grain, or image clarity.
I must add that I bumped the contrast to most of the new photos in Photoshop, but that’s mostly to suit my taste and hide some grain in the shadows. Overall, the contrast profile hasn’t changed.
I’m also really pleased that despite my exposures being all over the place (the camera I was shooting this film is quite limited in shutter speeds and apertures, plus I guessed the light every time), the results have almost always come out. Over- and under-exposures seem to be really easy to correct and some sort of an image is almost guaranteed no matter how this film was shot.
Unfortunately, this did not translate to having perfect exposures looking better or having less grain.
I’m still hopeful that I can find a development method that can reduce the grain and the fog further with Ilfosol 3. I’m thinking of pulling the film by keeping it in the tank for just four minutes next time or using an entirely different developer.
