Kodak Aerochrome III 1443

Aerochrome III 1443 is the third generation of Kodak color infrared aerial film, descendant of the wartime Aero Ektachrome and direct replacement for Aerochrome II 2443. The 1443 refers to the ESTAR-base version meant for high-altitude reconnaissance, where dimensional stability inside an aircraft camera mattered more than acetate cost. Kodak rated it at ISO 400 at sea level and ISO 40 at 10,000 feet, a reminder the audience was the U.S. military, not the gallery wall.

The emulsion is the false-color reversal architecture the Aerochrome family used. Three layers, with the red-sensitive layer replaced by an infrared-sensitive one, biased so chlorophyll comes back pink or magenta while paint and concrete stay muted. A Wratten 12 yellow filter is essential. Orange 21 and red 25 push the effect harder, with deeper reds giving the most extreme magenta foliage. The design process is AR-5 using EA-5 chemicals, which is close enough to E-6 that most labs simply run it that way for slides. C-41 cross-processing yields a negative.

Richard Mosse shot Infra on a large-format field camera loaded with sheet stock cut down from bulk aerial rolls, and made the companion Enclave video on 16mm with an Arriflex SR2. His Deutsche Borse Photography Prize in 2014 came almost entirely from frames shot on 1443 in eastern Congo between 2010 and 2012, after Kodak had discontinued the stock. Dean Bennici bought a chunk of the remaining bulk and has been respooling 120 and cutting 4x5 sheets for over a decade.

Shoot in bright daylight. Infrared sensitivity collapses at low light and the layer balance falls apart under artificial light. Compared with Lomochrome Purple, which mimics the magenta-foliage palette through dye chemistry rather than infrared response, Aerochrome looks unmistakably different in any scene with real chlorophyll.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.1. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second, though in practice you almost never expose Aerochrome past a second if you are shooting it for the false-color look it was designed to produce. What remains is estate stock in 35mm, 120, and 4x5. Shoot what you find soon.