AshigrainColour negative · Vintage & odd
Svema LN-9
Свема ЛН-9
Late-Soviet tungsten negative: orange reds, green shadows.
A Soviet tungsten negative, reconstructed from Soviet specifications, on its own Soviet print: reds come out slightly magenta and desaturated. Original vs Ashigrain.
At a glance
- Exposure index
- 95
- Tungsten
- Introduced
- c. 1988
- Process
- Svema/Tasma cold colour-negative development (18-22 °C)
About the film
Svema LN-9 (Свема ЛН-9) was the Soviet industry's late attempt to catch up with imported negative: when it reached studios in the late 1980s to replace LN-8, its colour layers were coated as half-layers, a technique new to Soviet industry.
Its own developers at the Gosniikhimfotoproekt institute admitted that it still trailed Kodak's 5247 on many measures, and moved on to a negative with hydrophobic couplers. It was made by the Svema production association in Shostka, one of the two factories where Soviet cine-film production began in 1931. As early as 1984 the trade journal Tekhnika kino i televideniya was waiting for it, saying that films made entirely on domestic 16 mm stock would become possible only once LN-9 was out. In Peeter Simm's Estonian television film Танец вокруг парового котла (1988), cinematographer Ago Ruus shot the golden-lit barn-dance novella on LN-9. At VGIK, Leonid Konovalov tested 20 rolls delivered over two years and found only five balanced closely for 3200 K. He traced the green shadows that students blamed on the studio's mercury lamps to a roll with a slow green layer, since the green also showed between the frames, where no light reaches. He also found that LN-9 renders reds orange-red and that its cyan dye looks turquoise.
Sources for this history
- Коновалов Л. Как разобраться в кинопленках (1997), Internet Archive
- Артюшин Л. Ф., Барский И. А., Винокур В. А. Справочник кинооператора (1999), Internet Archive
- Гордийчук И. Б., Пелль В. Г. Справочник кинооператора (1979), Internet Archive
- Иофис Е. А. Кинофотопроцессы и материалы (1980), Internet Archive
- Большая советская энциклопедия: Кинопромышленность, booksite.ru
- Сухотин А. М., Руденко С. В., Микаэлян Р. Г. Цветная негативная кинопленка ЦН-100 (Техника кино и телевидения, 1990, № 7), Техника кино и телевидения
- Применение кинопленки 16-мм формата в кинопроизводстве (Техника кино и телевидения, 1984, № 2), Техника кино и телевидения
- Ивашова Н. В. Кинооператоры Эстонии: фильмы последних лет (Техника кино и телевидения, 1989, № 1), Техника кино и телевидения
The look
Svema LN-9 is a late Soviet tungsten colour negative that reached studios in the late 1980s. Leonid Konovalov found that it renders reds orange-red and its cyan turquoise, and traced green shadows in its prints to a roll with a slow green layer. It prints on Svema TsP-8R by default.
The same negative printed on Kodak 2383: the orange reds the literature describes. Label the print film.
A period interior under tungsten, on LN-9 and its TsP-8R print.
Best for
- Late-Soviet tungsten interiors
- Period scenes with red props
- Overcast town and countryside exteriors
Among the films
Science & sources
A Soviet tungsten-balanced colour negative cine film. Its curves are reconstructed from Soviet specifications and handbooks (Konovalov 1997 and others), not digitised from a datasheet, and several values are taken from its predecessor LN-8. On its default TsP-8R print reds come out slightly magenta and desaturated in the model; the orange reds the literature describes appear on Kodak 2383.
The following trademark notice is provided in English.
Svema is named only to identify the film; its trademarks belong to their respective owners, whose identity is unknown.
Response curves and the evidence behind the model
Compare manufacturer data with the Ashigrain model on the same axes. This shows the calibration to source curves; comparison with photographed film is a separate question.
Characteristic response
RMS granularity
Density variation (σD). Where the datasheet gives a single grain value, the response away from that point is an approximation.
| Channel | Density | Datasheet-based σD | Model σD |
|---|---|---|---|
| R | 0.3 | 0.007525 | 0.007828 |
| G | 0.3 | 0.008015 | 0.008355 |
| B | 0.3 | 0.017872 | 0.018531 |
| R | 0.6 | 0.00576 | 0.005992 |
| G | 0.6 | 0.006494 | 0.006769 |
| B | 0.6 | 0.014566 | 0.015104 |
| R | 1 | 0.005267 | 0.005479 |
| G | 1 | 0.006671 | 0.006954 |
| B | 1 | 0.015842 | 0.016427 |
| R | 1.5 | 0.004584 | 0.004768 |
| G | 1.5 | 0.004904 | 0.005112 |
| B | 1.5 | 0.013659 | 0.014163 |
Model limits
These images show the film model in use. Spectral response, lighting and viewing conditions include approximations, while halation, bloom, grain size, weave and flicker are not fully measured for each film. A real film capture also depends on development and print timing.
- Свема ЛН-9 has no datasheet with curves. Its characteristic curves, spectral sensitivities, magenta and yellow dyes and MTF are reconstructed from Soviet specifications and handbooks (Konovalov 1997; Гордийчук & Пелль 1979; Иофис 1980; Артюшин 1999), not digitised from a datasheet. Only the cyan dye is digitised, from a figure in Konovalov 1997.
- Where no ЛН-9 value is published, values of its predecessor ЛН-8 stand in as proxies: fog and mask densities, exposure latitude and the MTF values.
- The reconstructed tone has no digitisation-error estimate, because there is no published curve to compare against.
- No source gives ЛН-9 granularity in usable units. Grain is proxied from Kodak Vision3 200T (5213), so the granularity values shown are that film's, not measurements of ЛН-9.
- MTF values exist only for the green and red layers at one frequency; the blue layer uses the green value.
- On its default ЦП-8Р print the model renders reds shifted slightly towards magenta and desaturated. The orange reds the literature describes for ЛН-9 appear when it is printed on Kodak 2383 instead.
- Because its sensitivities are reconstructed, printer-light timing on this film can differ from the full spectral calculation by up to 0.44 printer points, and slightly more under custom lights.
- No antihalation layer is documented; rem-jet is assumed. Halation strength, radius, layer weights and bloom are not measured.
- The model assumes custom lighting spectra, camera metering and the spectral reflectance inferred from fixed-white-balance footage. These inputs are not measurements of the film.
- The model calculates colour-print timing and scan balance for arbitrary lighting. Scanner colour balance is expressed without a standard physical unit.
- A 3200 K tungsten source is specified as the design light. Its spectrum and the conversion filter’s transmission are approximated because the source supplies no spectrum.
- The spectral transmission of the conversion filter the source prescribes (80A for daylight films under tungsten, 85 for tungsten films in daylight) is modelled, not supplied by the source.
- Where calibration data is missing, the model approximates dye amounts, interactions between layers and push/pull behaviour. Grain size is an assumption: published RMS granularity does not determine dye-cloud size.
- Characteristic response outside the published exposure range is an extrapolation, not measured film data.
- This preview approximates the printer lamp and filter spectra and the Status A grey target. The source does not provide the spectral data or laboratory target needed to calibrate them.
Film guide: assumptions and practical choices
Sources
- Exposure index: Артюшин Л. Ф., Барский И. А., Винокур В. А. Справочник кинооператора (1999), 1999 edition, p. 114
- Process: Артюшин Л. Ф., Барский И. А., Винокур В. А. Справочник кинооператора (1999), 1999 edition, p. 117
- Diffuse RMS granularity: Гордийчук И. Б., Пелль В. Г. Справочник кинооператора (1979), 1979 edition, p. 188
- Reconstructed: Коновалов Л. Как разобраться в кинопленках (1997), 1997 edition, p. 15