Now last year Kodak EIR and HIE was discontinued. These two specialist films were used for creative applications and were very much unique – EIR doubly so. They were infrared emulsions, that pictured light not usually detected by human vision, and did it really well. This gives what can generally be regarded as “well hey that’s pretty weird” effects, including the infamous Wood effects that make foliage rather neat look (plants reflect a lot of infrared light). However, this was not their original intent – these two emulsions were cut down stock from Kodak’s Aerial emulsions, used for land survey and military applications. At some point it was no longer viable for kodak to cut them down, and the products were discontinued. HIE was the high speed black and white infrared emulsion – even now there isn’t a product on the market that has it’s pretty damn high infrared sensitivity. However, there are products that come close – efke and rollei IR emulsions are pretty well regarded, and there’s always Ilford’s SFX200, [which I've used previously].
But the special thing about EIR, which cant be replicated by any other manufacturer (well, currently, not withstanding magical intervention.) is that it is a colour film. A false colour infrared reversal (slide) film, to be exact. This makes it double plus weird, as trees become purple and grass becomes blue and people get…weird. Basically Velvia meets a slightly concerning acid trip.
But as it was discontinued last year, and every man and his dog stocked up their freezer with it (it’ll be on eBay in a few years, I’m sure), the rest of us seem to be out of luck. Until now:
http://www.tarquinius.de/
An operation in Germany professes to be cutting down the original Kodak aerial film (which is still sold), to medium format on their own. That’s 120 format, so some nice BIG whacky slides. 35mm users are still out of luck, but this is now an option it seems. I’m going to get some rolls when I can (for my RB67), from what I’ve heard the film arrives safely in a sealed container, with proper backing paper.