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We've been playing with Kodak's Ektascan Xray film. Cool stuff. It has a tabular grain (rumor is that it's the same emulsion as their TMax but without the panchromatic dyes) and is single sided. And cheap, about a buck a sheet for 8x10. Of course, it's orthochromatic and we were curious about its spectral response but couldn't find anything definitive on the web. So we did a quick test. Here's the standard Macbeth color checker as seen by Ektascan (we added the labels.) In case you forgot, here's the color version:  As you can see, (unless you're color blind), Ektascan...

Maybe it's just me? Maybe everyone else can take a bunch of light readings and 'see' exactly where everything lands on the sacred zone scale and how they relate to each other. Maybe I just need more practice? After all, the math is pretty simple.Whatever the case, I accidentally invented the ZoneCalc. Accidentally is a polite word; I was really supposed to be working on something else but got distracted. In the middle of my distraction, while staring at my scribbles and sketches, I realized that I was really close to creating something useful. Hence the ZoneCalc was born.Granted, the...

We cut up another perfectly good prototype. It wasn't quite as painful given that this is the lid from the previous unit we sacrificed but it still stings a bit. We really wanted to see how the film behaved when the tray was full of liquid. The easiest solution was to cut some windows. This allowed us to watch the film while filling, agitating and draining the tray. Turned out to be a waste of a good lid. The film hold down tabs performed just as we hoped. At least now we know.

Testing of the SP-8x10 is well underway and everything looks good.The above was shot on Kodak 5x7 320TXP and processed in SP-76EC. Thanks to Jason Lane for publishing his E6 results: https://www.instagram.com/p/B3QRyjcHYcZ/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet https://www.instagram.com/p/B3RuNWfnDgj/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link  Here's the first draft of the user's guide: SP-8x10 User's Guide We've also uploaded a short video: SP-8x10 overview So your next question: when will they be shipping? Hopefully, by the middle/late next month. Now you're going to ask about pricing: Looks like suggested retail will be $148.

The "first article" samples from our production molds have just arrived. We admit we're surprised, they weren't supposed to get here until Wednesday; not that we're complaining... Overall, we're extremely pleased. The internal texture looks great, the hold down tabs slide in/out smoothly and lock in place better than the 3D printed prototypes and the baffles fit perfectly. Here's the first look, right out of the shipping carton: You can probably tell from the photo that the lid has a few cosmetic blemishes. These are mostly due to the mold getting hot since the cooling channels haven't been machined in...