Adox has quietly announced the next step of their colour film mission – Color Mission Helios film, a C41 colour film with a usable sensitivity of ISO 1.5.
The announcement is currently available in German language only, its time-frame is “for the next season”, and it is the result of Adox’s development of the colour film production process – hence the “Color Mission” name.
With this film, Adox is trying to simplify and scale down the manufacturing process for C41 film as a learning process for the company. As an effect of this simplification and R&D nature, the new film has ultra-low sensitivity and potential colour shifts.
ISO 1.5 is full four stops darker than ISO 25, so shooting this film under any challenging lighting conditions will require a tripod, but during the day and in the sunshine, handheld exposures are in the usable range – ƒ/2.8 and 1/60–1/125 is achievable. While ISO 1.5 might sound extremely low (and it is), it is not unheard of – Lomography sells Fantôme Kino ISO 8 film, and Film Photography Project has more than one film with comparably low sensitivity levels, e.g. FPP Low ISO Color is ISO 1.6 colour film, FPP Super Positive is ISO 0.8, while FPP Yeti, FPP Low ISO Black & White and FPP Fine Grain Six are all ISO 6 films.
There is no indication of when the film will be commercially available, and what the projected price would be.
