I'm printing some B&W 35mm negatives for a friend, and I am curious to know what it is. She bought it in Roumania four years ago, and was told it was Pan-F, but the edge marking on one film is: "11 CBEMA.03.92", and the other is "5 CBEMA.05.91". The frame numbers are, for example, "10, 11, 12, 13", instead of "10, 10A, 11, 11A". The film is certainly fine grained, not unlike Pan-F.

My best guess, from the frame numbers, is that it is film stock. Any ideas?

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), March 09, 1999

Answers

Hi,

CBEMA reads "SVEMA" in Russian, which means that your film was made in former USSR at the SVEMA factory(I belive it's in independent Ukraine now) There were several b/w general purpose films prodused with ASA ratings 32, 64, 130 and 250. Grain of 64 is pretty close to TMX, and 32 is even less grainy. Both 130 & 250 are crappy due to high grain(worse than TMY)

P.S. I believe all these films are panchromatic

-- Ilia (ichetov@imb.imb.ac.ru), March 09, 1999.

As it has been stated above, it's a former USSR photo manufacturer, now in Ukraine. Russian version is called TACMA (read TASMA) and is very simillar to the Ukrainian. All these are old tech films fith relatively large grain. I used to use them mainly for experimental purposes. However processed carefully they can deliver not bad results. The interesting thing is that SVEMA used to ( don't know if they do anymore) test any individual batch of material in their own chemistry and print development times on the film box which were slightly different from batch to batch. This also suggests not the most consistent performance. E.

-- Evgeni Poptoshev (evgeni.poptoshev@surfchem.kth.se), March 11, 1999.

Excellent, thank you both.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), March 12, 1999.

Alan, The answers you already have are good, SVEMA makes good "old tech" film-it doesn't seem to be thin emulsion film. I have a limited supply of SVEMA's 125 speed film--I think of it as 35mm Verichrome pan, and that is GOOD--I wish I could get some more!! Does anyone know if it's still made, or who carries it? Kevin

-- Kevin Kalsbeek (krkk@eartlink.net), June 20, 1999.

Hello I have some 50 ASA B/W super 8 cini film that is marked (the only english word) CBEMA , does any one have any info on processing this reversal fiml stock ? the packageing is strait out of a mission impossible set and looks groovy, the people at the shop said that the grain was quite noticable , humm should be fun, :-)

-- Stuart Aird (stuart@zizigy.net), April 27, 2002.