Adox CMS 20II Review and Deep Dive - Part 1

Part 1 of my review of Adox CMS20II. I cover what the film is, why you might want to use it, and how to approach processing it.
Link to purchase CMS20II kits with the developer here: tinyurl.com/yhww59k5
Link to PDF data-sheet on CMS20II and Adotech IV:
tinyurl.com/2xyuz9ts
Let me know if the comments what you think!

[@wochenendedestodes9015]

Tip: I wash the film for 5 minutes and at the end I always use distilled water to wash it two or three times. After this you get perfect results.

[@pps67]

A bulk roll of this is cheap enough (95 bucks) that I'm tempted to get the film to test against Tech Pan (I'll have to get Photographer's Formulary's version of Technidol for it's development or just shoot it at an ei of 6 and use Xtol 1:5) I plan on processing CMS 20ii as directed, but I am also going to try it bracketed at an iso of 3 to 10 in dilute Rodinal semi-stand development since grain this fine shouldn't suffer looking too grainy in Rodinal. Keeping with the manufacture instructions with the temperature will be a bit of a pain in the arse with a tempering bath, but I'll make it work. I can't believe the manufacture recommendation to use a paper towel after photoflo? This sounds like a pretty fragile emulsion, so I'll probably just hang the film to dry, untouched. This looks like a nice darkroom experiment.

[@6hr0n05]

Thank you for this video. I want to try this film someday.

[@arturors30]

About developing, actually Adox recomends not mantain the dev temperature. Only assure that it takes place in a room between 20-21ºC-

[@Dstonephoto]

Dat unfiltered wind noise, tho . So, ive been having shower thoughts lately about these high resolution films. Could these high resolution films give large format capture a run for their money if we’re talking about printing? I’m curious as to where the free lunch hypothesis falls apart. Since the print is an amalgamation of the entire system, Im thinking that the enlarger lens would be the bottleneck ( or other variables such as the alignment) if we’re talking about enlargements of the 35mm. Conversely, I wonder how well these films could serve for color separations. Have any mad lads attempted to reduce (vs enlarge) a 120 or large format film onto these 35mm high resolution films? Alright, solid talk. Im digging this channel.

[@northeastphotographic]

They're not really a replacement for large format, but if there is a certain subject a large format photographer couldn't get with a view camera then maybe you could sub in this film. The images will still be grainless. Large format will likely have better definition however since you're not really stressing your lenses.

[@filmandrewszentes1824]

Hí What about cms 20 now. Its see alsó has technic al problem with adox and haven’t got enaugh on stocks for half a year

[@alexbaias1254]

This film is waste of money ! first of all, it's expensive for a black and white film, it's recommended to develop only in adotech 4 for best results, after drying , it curls, even if you keep it under heavy books, it's a pain working in darkroom with this film, and it's scratches easily ,it's not as sharp as they say. I made a side by side comparison, with an expired kodadk tmax100, ilford fp4, and astrum 64(for those who don't know what film is astrum 64, it's the former svema 64 )and the only difference that I noticed that the adox is slightly sharper, almost unnoticeable , it doesn't justifies the price, as for contrast and tones, astrum 64 is better, plus the spectral sensitivity of astrum FN-64 is expanded into the near infrared range of the energy spectrum, and it dries perfectly flat, and its more resistant to scratches and 3 times cheaper than adox, it can be developed with any developer. Here in Canada is $6.50 per roll.

[@northeastphotographic]

I’m sorry you had such a negative experience with it! It’s definitely quirky but I found it to be interesting enough to order a 100ft bulk length. I’m not sure about other markets but here it’s a little less expensive than Kodak films like TMax. I also didn’t have any curling issues. I will say that Adox films do seem a lot more fragile than Ilford or Kodak. I touch on the relative merit of such a high resolving film in later videos, it’s a mixed bag for sure! I agree that in making normal print sizes, TMax or Delta 100 are going to be great and easier to work with.

[@wochenendedestodes9015]

Maybe you did something wrong? (But I can't tell what?). Yes it's hart to handle. But in comparison with other films like fp4, delta 100 its a huge difference. The resolution is mind blowing. For me it's the perfect film to use if you want to make big enlargements.