Ilford announces 5th gen Multigrade paper and Ortho film is now available in 35mm and 120 format rolls
Oct 28, 2019
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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Designed as a technical high-resolution copy film, Ilford Ortho film has thus far only been available in sheet film formats. Now, Ilford has expanded the formats to add 35mm and 120 medium format roll film. The black and white film is rated at ISO80 in natural light and ISO40 in tungsten.
Harman Technology, who owns the Ilford brand, has also announced the 5th generation of Ilford Multigrade paper. Multigrade V RC Deluxe replaces the Ilford Multigrade IV RC papers released 25 years ago.
Harman says that the blue and green sensitivity and lack of red sensitivity of the Ilford Ortho Plus emulsion allows the film to be handled in red safelight conditions to make processing and inspection easier. This also means that reds and oranges in your scene are rendered much darker than with panchromatic films like Ilford PANF, FP4+ and HP5+.
Ilford Ortho Plus film in 35mm and 120 rolls will be available starting in November.
Ilford Multigrade RC Deluxe paper is the 5th generation of Ilford’s multigrade paper, first introduced in 1940. It was the world’s first variable contrast paper, which allows you to adjust the contrast of the image by using variously coloured filters on your enlarger.
Talking about the release of the latest generation of Multigrade paper, Ilford says…
Improving them was not going to be easy but we wanted to bring the manufacturing in line with the latest emulsion making technology used in our other RC and fibre papers and so we have redesigned the emulsion from the ground up. This project has been in development for 8 years and we are extremely pleased and excited with the final product.
They say that Multigrade RC Deluxe has a slightly warmer base tint than Multigrade IV and deeper blacks with improved mid-grade spacing for easier printing and more consistent contrast throughout the tonal range.
Ilford says that Multigrade IV will continue to remain available while stocks last, after which they plan to introduce Multigrade RC Deluxe, so keep an eye out at your usual stockist.
I’ll have to pick some of the RC Deluxe up at some point. I’ve been using Multigrade IV on my enlargers for years and it offers a lot of creative options, especially with techniques like split-grading.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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2 responses to “Ilford announces 5th gen Multigrade paper and Ortho film is now available in 35mm and 120 format rolls”
As a former student and teacher’s assistant of the legendary photographer the late Roy decarava, who was also my mentor and told me to use multi-grade, for all my prints, and my photos. Most of his prints were illford from illford film. I’m sad that this is being phased out, the new film sounds good, but if it’s not broken don’t fix it, multi-grade was the best, has the best for different kinds of grayscale, I usually printed on a double 0 negative, just to bring out the rich Grey’s, this is kind of sad to me, I haven’t see my mentor in ten years after his passing, and it’s just I don’t know
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