Arista Ortho Litho 3.0 Review & Guide

I am here sharing knowledge about my experience with this film. It was by happen-stance that I purchased this film and have gotten amazing results from it. It has become one of my favorites to use for multiple reasons, but mostly because of my interest in wet plate collodion. I currently do not have the space to work with wet plate, so I opted to try an orthochromatic film. I struck gold with this one and have liked its very unique signature ever since. I have exposed perhaps a few hundred sheets, many with satisfying and beautiful results. Please enjoy…

TLDR: If you want the cliff-notes, shoot this film at ISO 3 daylight, ISO 2 Indoor. Develop in Kodak D-76 1+5 for 5 minutes.

This film comes in many sizes, but only in sheets. It is sold as a copy film for reproduction or creative applications, but technically it can be used for general photography as well if we bend the rules a little bit. There are pros and cons to this film and I will just list some qualities that I have found about this film:

Very affordable at approximately 5x more film per dollar.
True Orthochromatic response
Easy and quick handling under red safelight
Very slow speed
Available in a variety of sizes for large format and ULF film (I have found that the 8x10 inch sheets WILL fit into Fidelity Elite film holders)
Extreme acutance and resolution

Development by inspection is the best way to familiarize yourself with this film. I recommend making some test exposures and try developing them to see what happens.

For more specific information about the film, you can find the specifications here.

As far as I know, this film is manufactured and sold primarily through Freestyle Photo & Imaging Supplies. I am not affiliated with them, but still, I would like to show them my love.

Characteristic—

I have found that dynamic range is limited. Both shadows and highlights are difficult to retain in a dynamic scene. For instance, if I place my shadows on zone III and my highlights on zone IX I will have to choose between the importance of the shadows or the highights in development. Because of the sharp characteristic curve it is hard to expose for both and compensate in development.

This ends up with the unique look this film produces. With some fine tuning in developing, you will be able to form a distinct look without sacrificing quality. In my experience this film excels in low contrast scenes where it can enhance the contrast naturally. In high contrast scenes the film can be more challenging to use, but with some experimentation, you will see that it is still possible to retain good information on the negative for scanning/printing.

Exposure—

Orthochromatic film responds very differently to light due to its sensitivity spectrum. Unlike panchromatic film, ortho film will be “fastest” in full sun and “slow” without it. When calculating exposure, keep in mind what the temperature of your photographing is to help you.

Note that I am not being exact here because this film react wildly to UV light. The spec sheet says it has a range from ISO .5-6, but will vary depending on processing.
Normal/Daylight — ISO 3
Indoors/tungsten — ISO 2
I generally rate it at 3 for most situations, indoors is always at 2 or lower. It really depends on the light.

Reciprocity Failure: I found that +50% exposure over 60 seconds (1 min) reading and +100% exposure over 120 seconds (2 min) reading has been sufficient. I’ve had good exposures up to 15 minutes so far.

Filters: I’ve used yellow filters (#12, #15) with this film and have had decent results. Remember that orthochromatic film has a stronger response to filtration than panchromatic film. At about 1.5x the filter factor. (A #15 filter factor of 3 will be 6).

I have found the yellow filter with this film to bring out the sky quite nicely. However, shadows will tend to under expose, so exposure can be tricky to pinpoint if dynamic range is high

Chemistry—

Note: Mix chemistry very well or splotchy uneven negatives will result. Distilled water here is always a good choice.

D-76: I recommend a dilution of 1+5 for this film. higher concentrations will give you just as good results, but might give you streaking. Lower concentrations will simply take longer and are more subject to not fully develop. I have used dilutions up to 1+19, but the development time can run past the 20 minute mark and negatives can appear very brown and translucent (not fully developed). This can be acceptable in some applications, the film still produces excellent results for scanning/printing on silver gelatin. However, is not the ideal.

My go to is to develop by inspection with 1+5 for about 5-6 minutes development for silver gelatin prints.

Rodinal: I experimented a lot with Rodinal because I hoped to find a stand developing method, but after much frustration I have yet to find any recipe that will suit this film. When stand developing, base fog is very high and development comes out uneven. Negatives have more dynamic range, but due to the uneven results I cannot recommend it at this time.

Dektol: I haven’t used this personally, but this guy has and he uses a 1+9 dilution from stock (1:10). It should be similar to D-76 since they have similar chemical make-ups.

Other: At the time of this writing, the Massive Dev Chart has actually added this film to their catalogue. Feel free to experiment at your heart’s content!

Method —

Like I mentioned earlier, developing by inspection will produce the best results because you will be able to see what you are getting right away and stop it at any time. Tank development can take a lot of frustrating trial and error, that I wont recommend until you have a few good negatives under your belt.

Water bath — 1 minute, agitate continuously. (Not needed, but I do this for all films)
Development — Time varies depending on exposure, and dilution of developer. Agitate continuously, alternating rocking direction.
Place in stop bath when desired shadow detail appears.
Water stop bath — 1 minute, agitate continuously.
Fixer — 3 minutes in Ilford Rapid Fixer. (Film clears very fast, about 1 minute in fresh fixer). For archiving, use a second prepared fixer for 2 minutes.
Wash — I follow Ilford’s method on film washing.*
Photoflo — Agitate to cover film and let sit for at least 30 seconds.
Hang dry — Approximately 2 hours depending on humidity.

Results—

When I started using this film, all I had was D-76, water, and fixer. The results were promising, so I worked my way up from there. I hope that you can start making photographs with this film with a better sense of clarity and direction. Something that I didn’t have, but am happy to share with you.

Resources for this article:

https://www.freestylephoto.com/static/pdf/product_pdf/arista/AristaOrtho3.0.pdf
https://www.freestylephoto.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9HCeU_uum4
https://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?Film=Arista+Ortho+Litho&Developer=&mdc=Search&TempUnits=C&TimeUnits=D
https://www.ilfordphoto.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Reducing-Wash-Water.pdf