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Adox Colour Implosion is a colour negative film, which produces images ressembling strongly those of the 1970s.

It does not have an orange mask, but rather a magenta mask, which changes in intesity according to exposure/development (pushing reduces intensity of the mask, pulling increases it). This slightly affects the tint of the imagery.

OPPOSITE to what is stated on the web, this film produces very much reproducable, and NOT AT ALL RANDOM COLOURS, given that you let it be scanned as colour slides (NOT as colour negatives) and that you take care of colour correction / mask removal yourself (see other topic: photography-f36/how-to-remove-an-orange-magenta-mask--t3175.html). Any random element only results from the autocorrection methods of modern printing machines not being capable to handles this film, esp as these tend to digitize imagery before printing (unfortunately).

The film has relatively large grain, but IF you expose it correctly, this will not be as apparent as on most of the images available on the web. However, the film gives little headroom, meaning underexposing it a stop or so makes it already extremely grainy.

I tend to expose the film at ISO 64 and let it have being developped pulling it by -2/3 stops. I have done films at ISO 200 and 320; I didn't find the results would change significantly, but I will need to look into this a bit closer.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kQNFyEI2rs

... the echo of a distant time ...

Some advice how to shoot Adox Colour Implosion

I. Large Grain

Due to the relatively large grain, the film is not as suitable for wide-angle landscape shots. Not that I would not have done shots of this kind with it which I do like a lot, but you need to keep in my mind that you will not get the detail you are used to, so the motive may not work, if it is the distant car on the lonesome desert highway, which makes all the difference for you. (Same applies for the skilift on the slope opposite the valley). It will do great stuff, though, for all imagery having clear motives in the forground (in particular portraits), esp when shot through a 50mm lense.

Impact of grain varies with exposure; so once an image would be incorrectly exposed (esp under-exposed), the grain becomes extremely strong quite quickly when trying to adjust the curves to correct for the false exposure; so accurate exposure is quite recommendable (if in doubt, do bracketing in 1/2 stops).

II. Contrast

The film captures the scenery with high contrast and non-linear curves (which makes its charisma). Non-linear curves means that the highest contrast in produced in the mid-range of brightness, whereas towards the shadows and highlights it runs out overly smothly, which results in a very comfortable look of these images (the typical film-look, after all).

This does mean, however, that the contrast of the chosen motives should not be too high per se, as otherwise the film - as was typical for vintage film - will not be able to capture it. Sunset sceneries are difficult after all (although I have quite some which I like a lot).

Capturing the scene with high contrast does not necessarily mean reproducing it with high contrast, though. If not post-processed the scans will be the characteristic soft-in-contrast imagery of the 1970s. You can, however, get fairly nice results also when adjusting the contrast through curves. (I will post about this at a later point in time).

III. Colour

The magenta mask results in a distinct colour tint, which makes most of the 1970s look. Consequently, the colours will not exactly ressemble the original scenery, which often can be an asset, but which you will need to keep in mind, when shooting at dawn or at dusk. The images will have a great and particular look, but should you wish to capture the particular ambiance of dusk and dawn, an ordinary film might be a more accurate choice.

IV. Camera/Lenses

Using vintage lenses sort of makes the vintage look of the imagery perfect; as these tend to have some subtle, but distinct characteristics. I am using a CONTAX RTS with the original Zeiss Lenses (e.g. Planar 50mm). This is, however, not a must. I have seen friends using modern equipment and getting fairly interesting results as well.

V. Motives

Some issues I have mentioned already: the film works best if you choose a clear motive in the foreground as main motive and if you avoid shooting at too difficult lighting conditions.

Otherwise, choosing motives which somewhat fit the era this kind of film stems from, or otherwise are neutral, certainly is helpful, in my view. This, of course, is a question of taste. But I found my imagery taken in the ancient industrial areas of Upper Silesia (Poland), or in the desert of Western-Sahara, working better than imagery shot at the modern town center of western-German town; but still it depends on what you seek to achieve.

I will post some examples, later.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kQNFyEI2rs

... the echo of a distant time ...

Some Examples. Shot @ ISO 64, developped pull - 2/3.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kQNFyEI2rs

... the echo of a distant time ...

Shot @ around ISO 200; developped push +2 1/3

(results, however, hard to compare as totally different lighting conditions in comparison to the imagery above).

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kQNFyEI2rs

... the echo of a distant time ...

Working with a Adox Colour Implosion Scans - removing the magenta mask

I. You will need a 48BIT TIFF Positive Scan (scanned as colour slide), in order to avoid quality loss through auto-correction methods of scanners working in C41 (colour negative) scan mode and to avoid reduced colour depth occuring when using 8Bit or (worse) JPG.

What you will get is image 1 below.

II. Convert to CMY (no black channel; create your own custom CMYK profile for that).

In CMY mode reduce the constant of the magenta channel by 24 (you should always use the same value to get constant results).

The result will look like image 2 below.

III. Back in RGB mode you can invert the image (image 3 below).

IV. Should you wish to increase colour separation slightly, you may use "auto curves" (which of course is a tricky beast). When having done so, you should adjust the meain RGB curve approx. as shown in the diagram (image 4 below) in order to regain the original head-room and smooth contrasts; otherwise your image will look like a photocopy.

// Still, leaving out step IV. may produce more suitable results; or almost certainly more vintage looking results. In the example below I tend to like Image 3 better than image 4 (though admittedly the curve correction for image 4 was done pretty quickly and not too accurate). With different imagery (sunny day in the desert) stept IV may become more relevant. However, it will always affect the original characteristic of the film, due to the automated adjustment of each colour channel seperately, which affect the relation of colours to each other.

That's it already. All in all a pretty quick procedure, esp. when automated and mapped to a function key.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kQNFyEI2rs

... the echo of a distant time ...

Hi, i'm trying to digitize my Color Implosion photo's using your method. But I do not know how to create a custom CMYK profile to convert the image to CMY. Can you help me to create such a profile?

Thanks in advance

One way to do it in PS:

EDIT -> Color Settings. Choose in Working Space for CMYK: Custom CMYK. In the new window, which opens, select "Black Generation" = "none". The resulting profile will be a CMY profile.

If you are digitizing your imagery yourself, there is a more elegant way of doing the correction, provided that you scanner supports this: adjustment of the RGB lighting while scanning. E.g. Using a Nikon Coolscan + Vue Scan allows you to make such an adjustment. In that case, you would scan one of the first images that are totally unexposed, and therefore in negative film white - except that the mask is there, so you'll get the pure mask. Adjust the RGB lighting settings (analogue RGB) in such way, that the result is a very light grey (not exactly white, cause in that case over-exposure might occur). This light grey should be totally neutral (all three channels equal each other). This gives you a very good start. If you want to be more precise, you might also scan a fully exposed image that will be more or less black on film. From this you can derrive the off-set of your digital curves in post-processing, to receive neutral blacks (white should be neutral due to the previous analogue exposure correctiong). Apply these curves to all images equally and you will receive fairly balanced imagery both in lights and shadows and throughout the film as such.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kQNFyEI2rs

... the echo of a distant time ...

I would say the motive you showed in the examples still works. Maybe a bit too much noise, but I guess that results from the scan and not the large grain itself?

The Adox Color Implosion unfortunately has been discontinued. There is no official statement on the exact reason, but there is confirmation that some of the resources needed to produce film have become unavailable. There is a rumour that the film was a batch of film from another manufacturer, which had an issue in the production process of that particular batch, leading to the specific look. Allegedly, Adox purchased that batch and sold it off as experimental film until the stock was up. I have no other information to support this story, but it would be a reasonable explanation in view of Adox still having film produced, but discontinuing this particular one, which they claim sold well, due to lack of required resources.

It's a pity, in my vew, as the film was very capable to very quickly produce a look that I like a lot, and which is hard to achieve with any other material (if at all). Other than many think, this film was not just your strange x-pro expired film with random weird colour, but on the contrary was not random at all. It produced a quite controllable, easy to reproduce tone and contrast, which resembled the warmth, sometimes mystic look of 1970s film. I will definitely miss, and there seems to be no replacement whatsoever available.

I'll probably add a few picture from my work to emphasise the capability of the film.

_________________
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kQNFyEI2rs

... the echo of a distant time ...