On the eastern side of the Iron Curtin, one of the biggest producers of photographic materials was ORWO, or Original Wolfen. ORWO was born out of the split between the Germanys and the companies that existed. Famously, there is Carl Zeiss, but there is also Agfa. While Agfa reformed in the west, its factories in Wolfen were formed under the new name ORWO. While ORWO did produce a series of photographic films for still photography, they also produced specialised motion picture films. The two standard negative films are N74+ and UN54+. UN54+ is the film that I’ll be reviewing today. Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve reviewed UN54+. I’ve reviewed it under the Lomography brand, Potsdam 100, but this review is under the full ORWO name and fresh from ORWO.
Film Specs
Manufacturer: ORWO
Name: UN54+
Type: Panchromatic B&W
Film Base: Polyester
Film Speed: ASA-100, Latitude: +/- 1-Stop
Formats Available: 135 (35mm), 16mm, Super8
Roll 01 – Flic Film B/W Cine Film Developer
When shooting a motion picture film, starting with the standard developer, Kodak D-96, or the developer’s Flic Film version is always good. In all fairness, I have worked with this combination before, and it is the perfect match for the film. You get medium to high contrast, resulting in a beautiful tonality and letting the film speak for itself. UN54+ already has a classic grain structure that shines and provides excellent edge sharpness. While ‘cinematic’ is tossed around far too quickly, it certainly applies in this case. This combination works in any situation, including landscape, architecture, and portraiture!
Roll 02 – Ilford Ilfotec HC
I wanted to try something different with this one and went with exposing the film slightly, underrating the film at ASA-125. I then developed the film normally using Ilfotec HC at 1+63 dilutions. I was expecting a slight loss in density, but the negatives turned out good coming out from the tank. However, scanning them, I noticed I had lost most of my shadow detail on most frames. This is not a bad combination, but I didn’t use it correctly. I should have developed the film for a bit longer to compensate. That said, the contrast is deep and rich with inky blacks, and even when exposed at the box speed (ASA-100), you get superb results with a good balance and contrast. You still get that visible grain, but the structure is nice and does add to that sharpness.
Roll 03 – Rodinal
Sometimes, a film can use a touch of over-exposure, so I exposed this roll at ASA-80. Then, the 1+50 dilution was developed for slightly less time after seeing the results from the previous roll. When I pulled the negatives out from the tank, I was a little concerned; the negatives looked thin, but after getting them into the scanner and editing in post, I liked the results. There’s a deep richness that I have come to expect from UN54+; the blacks are deep, and the whites are black. And while there is a bit of compression on the mid-tones, overall, the contrast is excellent. And then there is the sharpness. You get more visible grain but nothing over the top. While I did drop the time by fifteen seconds, you could stick with the over-exposure and keep the ten-minute listed time (I dropped the time 10% minus fifteen seconds from there to compensate for constant rotation during development).
Roll 04 – Diafine
My original plan for the final roll was to under-expose the film again, rating it at ASA-160, but after seeing the results from the second roll, I decided to go back to box speed. And I made the right choice as the negatives looked stunning when pulling them from the tank. There was plenty of density and contrast, probably because I added a yellow filter and had a good mix of sunny and overcast conditions while walking. First off, UN54+ does amazing when paired with a pale yellow filter; it darkens up the blue sky beautifully, and there is a rich, deep contrast with these results. However, the downside is that I did loose shadow detail in plenty of these. I also noted that there is a significant reduction in some of the harsher grain with the film; it makes it rather pleasing without reducing the sharpness. If I were to do anything with this combination in the future, I would expose the film slightly over at ASA-80 to help get those shadow details back and I’m glad I didn’t under-expose the film as was my initial plan.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to scanning UN54+ the film does cup slightly in cold and dry environments, but it is not too bad and with a heavy weight while drying followed by some back rolling it works fine in a standard flatbed scanner. Silverfast handles the negatives well and they also can take adjustment in post-processing to achieve the results you’re looking for. While rated at ASA-100 the film works best at this speed when developed in D-96 for any other developer you might want to give it some overexposure, maybe ASA-80 to help it along especially on overly contrasty days. While designed for dedicated motion picture film developers, you can develop this is a multitude of standard black & white developers. My personal favourites other than D96 is Rodinal, Diafine and 510-Pyro.
Further Reading
Don’t just take my word on UN54+, you can check out the reviews by other awesome camera reviewers!
Shoot Film Like a Boss – ORWO UN54 Review