New Adox “Color Mission” Film

[Ten301]

While I applaud Adox for branching out and wanting to fund color film research, I’m sorry, their tale on how this ‘new’ film came to be I just don’t buy.

If we are to believe Adox, it would have had to have been years ago that they were fairly far along in creating a viable, modern C41 compatible color negative film. They state on their site that after the first run, their coating partner went bankrupt. Who could that have been? Matching that description were only Agfa Leverkusen and the original Ferrania capable of coating color emulsions (I don’t think we’re talking Konica here) but, in and event, all ceased years ago. So, small Adox expects us to believe they attempted to produce a color film in a severely declining demand market, and were so tech savvy that they were so close to pulling it off? Look at the examples on their site; they look very good. Yet, InovisCoat still can’t do it? If they had it down back then, then why do they need all the funding for research to produce a color film now? I believe it’s far more likely that the film in those Adox Color Mission cans is a found master roll from Agfa Leverkusen or Ferrania, probably original Agfa Vista or Ferrania Solaris.

I’m sorry, I know I’m off on a bit of a rant. But just as with the earlier thread concerning Silberra’s films, it seems manufacturers/confectioners are becoming increasingly loose with the facts. I am certainly not accusing Adox, but their facts don’t add up. When you start telling fairytales to create excitement and separate consumers from their money, for whatever the purpose, it crosses the line.

 

[halfaman]

And this is the bad of side of Internet...

Innoviscoat is the one in bankrupcy since last week and the most probable manufacturer of this film. Adox is starting the project to produce color negative film by their own for the first time.

 

[Kino]

@Ten301 I would make the defense that unlike Ferannia, Adox has "film-in-hand" to anchor their claims and they are not begging for money via a Kickstarter. Pretty convincing for me...

 

[mshchem]

Yeah, I think Mr OP you are a bit paranoid here. Adox says the material has been in their possession since it was coated, in cool storage. It's an original pilot run. Produced in a joint development program. I'm sure there's more to the story. Now Adox is in it alone, so they are selling this to raise money for more R&D.
That's wonderful!

 

[Ten301]

Yeah, I think Mr OP you are a bit paranoid here. Adox says the material has been in their possession since it was coated, in cool storage. It's an original pilot run. Produced in a joint development program. I'm sure there's more to the story. Now Adox is in it alone, so they are selling this to raise money for more R&D.
That's wonderful!

It’s been in cold storage for years, so says Adox. Why would a small company like Adox have attempted to produce a color film at a time when the demand for color films was dropping like a rock? It they wanted a color film that much, it would have made much more financial sense just to repackage an existing product. They are not talking about InovisCoat, as they stated their coating partner went bankrupt immediately after the first run was coated but, again, the first run has been in cold storage for years. InovisCoat only filed for bankruptcy last week. So, no, their partner was not InovisCoat. Look at the examples on their site. It’s widely believed that Lomo Metropolis is InovisCoat’s work at getting to a ‘normal’ emulsion. If that was InovisCoat’s work with Adox years ago, they were already there way back then, right? Why doesn’t InovisCoat have that normal emulsion now? And why does Adox need funding to research something they supposedly had already created years ago?

I’ll give you my opinion: it’s because Adox does need the money to create a color film now that there’s a lucrative demand for such a film. People have soured on Kickstarter with film production since Ferrania, but consumers went wild for Adox’s Color Implosion. Enter Adox Color Mission, and a nice tale to go along with it. And it just so happens, according to Adox, that due to that first experimental run, they’ll have enough of it to cut down and sell for the foreseeable future, possibly years. I agree that it’s great to see Adox interested in color film production. All that I’m saying is be honest with the consumer. So sorry, but I call BS.

 

[Kino]

Fine. Don't buy it. Others will.

You can believe what you want to believe, doesn't make it true.

 

[Tel]

I'm a bit sceptical too. I hope the tale is true and when the new stock is available here I'll be at the head of the queue to buy some. (Looks like an interesting color palette and I'd like to see what it does.) Meantime, I've got a freezer with a bunch of Portra and Pro Image in it.....

 

[Ten301]

Fine. Don't buy it. Others will.

You can believe what you want to believe, doesn't make it true.

Well, it’s hard to argue with the timeline and facts, but please believe and buy whatever you wish.

 

[Moose22]

Fine. Don't buy it. Others will.

You can believe what you want to believe, doesn't make it true.

This. Exactly this.

Nobody expects miracles. Everyone is skeptical that a new color film will come to market, and that's OK. This stuff is hard to do. Meanwhile, it's nice to hope for ADOX to be successful in setting up a line, knowing the engineering effort necessary is overwhelming, especially at the margins C41 film will generate.

And, the best part, you don't have to give ADOX a dime if you don't want. I'll buy some of the currently offered film, just to give it a try, but that's a personal choice. Whether these guys succeed in making anything in house in the future or not literally doesn't affect me at all.

 

[mshchem]

Why do people a company who has a strategic plan and has been in the business for decades. The Adox ownership has a great reputation. Carefully building one step at a time

 

[Don_ih]

Maybe the film was actually made by Lucky in China.

There's nothing wrong with their trying to make money from current demand. A marketing story is pretty much never to be believed. The quality of the film is all that matters.

 

[mshchem]

Why do people a company who has a strategic plan and has been in the business for decades. The Adox ownership has a great reputation. Carefully building one step at a time

Sorry I'm on my phone. Why do people question a long-term strategy? Adox has fulfilled every promise that has been possible. A small sustainable factory is the most viable. I think this is tremendous!!

 

[AgX]

And this is the bad of side of Internet...

Innoviscoat is the one in bankrupcy since last week and the most probable manufacturer of this film. Adox is starting the project to produce color negative film by their own for the first time.

Please read the statements before blaming other members here. Adox stated the coating took place "a few years ago" thereafter followed by the bancrupsy of their coating partener, this having been the cause for stopping this project and putting the film on storage.

Of course one may question any statement given the last days. And there is a lot to question.
You yourself however are speculating by constructing a story not coherent with what has been stated, the same time blaming others of speculating.

 

[Wallendo]

I suspect that Adox's version of events is correct, possibly leaving out some details. Likely the film was produced by Innoviscoat, possibly as a joint venture with Adox. If Innoviscoat became insolvent, ownership of the actual film may have been tied up for several years during reorganization. Adox may have taken ownership of the film as part of the reorganization deal.

 

[pentaxuser]

Ten301, well either ADOX has a colour film that has been held in cold storage and believes it will be able to match demand for 4 years until its new film is ready or it does not. If it does not then why says it does? It will be found out in a matter of days if the new film is a "con" that doesn't exist Surely it is clever enough to have thought through the consequences of lying. If it is a "con" then it has been very badly devised which is at odds with other things it has done recently that suggests it has seen a need in the market and has fulfilled that need i.e has acted astutely

I may of course have misunderstood what you are saying about ADOX and this new film So can I ask what parts of its statement do you believe is a deliberate lie or "con" and which parts are simply wrong assumptions on ADOX's part. Wrong assumptions about the future are forgivable whereas deliberately wrong statements, usually called deliberate lies are certainly not forgivable

pentaxuser

 

[Ten301]

Ten301, well either ADOX has a colour film that has been held in cold storage and believes it will be able to match demand for 4 years until its new film is ready or it does not. If it does not then why says it does? It will be found out in a matter of days if the new film is a "con" that doesn't exist Surely it is clever enough to have thought through the consequences of lying. If it is a "con" then it has been very badly devised which is at odds with other things it has done recently that suggests it has seen a need in the market and has fulfilled that need i.e has acted astutely

I may of course have misunderstood what you are saying about ADOX and this new film So can I ask what parts of its statement do you believe is a deliberate lie or "con" and which parts are simply wrong assumptions on ADOX's part. Wrong assumptions about the future are forgivable whereas deliberately wrong statements, usually called deliberate lies are certainly not forgivable

pentaxuser

I never said the film is a “con” that doesn’t exist; I absolutely believe Adox has a master roll of something. I just question what that ‘something’ is, because, for the reasons and timeline I’ve stated in my previous posts, their story doesn’t seem to make sense. However, I believe there is a financial incentive for them to have this story. They need funds to finance a project. They suddenly have a brand new never-before-released mystery film, oddly very advanced from the looks of it, and have enough from a test run to supply everyone for 4 years! In this market, they know photographers and enthusiasts will flock to it. It’s limited! There’s a lot, but when it’s gone, it’s gone! It seems far more likely to me they stumbled-upon an existing master roll of something.

 

[Nodda Duma]

Adox may not legally be able to tell the whole story, bound by Germany’s equivalent of Non-Disclosure Agreements and contractual obligations (which could last even through their R&D partner’s bankruptcy).

There’s no reason to believe they are doing anything out of line with the reputation they’ve gained in the film community for honesty, integrity, and professionalism.

 

[Ten301]

Adox may not legally be able to tell the whole story, bound by Germany’s equivalent of Non-Disclosure Agreements and contractual obligations (which could last even through their R&D partner’s bankruptcy).

There’s no reason to believe they are doing anything out of line with the reputation they’ve gained in the film community for honesty, integrity, and professionalism.

When you consider the information Adox has supplied, the limited number of players capable of coating color film, then consider the ones that have gone bankrupt and therefore, presumably no longer able to do so, what could the “whole story” possibly be considering the facts and timeline?

 

[Nodda Duma]

I’m not one to speculate, and honestly I don’t think it really matters. Development efforts come and go. It’s nothing unusual or rare in the modern world of small business R&D.

 

[reddesert]

Photrio members and other internetters sometimes get concerned about the precise origin story of a film. I sort of understand this when it's perceived that the film might be current downmarket wine in shiny bottles: something like Kodacolor in a hip new box with a substantial markup. In this case, I don't think we're talking about that, and Adox has a good track record of supporting film photography with quality products.

They have clearly been trying to revive various products for a while. They're also seemingly not over-promising here: they're not saying "Here's a first taste of our great new product lines!" but "Here's something we tried and for reasons outside our control it's going to take longer than one would hope." Actually, very few companies will say that kind of thing openly.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

Does anyone know if this new film has a yellow-orange base like most C41 films or is it a clear base film?

 

[MattKing]

It would make more sense to ask this of ADOX in the original thread - this one here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/a-new-iso-200-color-negative-film-from-adox.189790/

 

[MattKing]

FWIW, ADOX doesn't seem to me to be likely to be making up a story. Their history here would lead me to believe that they will either tell us the truth, or make no announcement at all.
And I can certainly understand why they might have been reluctant to release a not yet finished work product back then, but an interesting experiment now. Lomography et al have made the experimental films viable.

 

[Disconnekt]

The most likely scenario is that because InovasCoat is "going under organised management financial restructuring" (*NOT* going bankrupt, statement from ORWO themselves regarding Inovascoat: https://www.orwo.wtf/blog/orwo-managed-financial-restructuring-plans-agreed-by-courts-and-dates), that Adox knew it was going to take a long amount of time for them to get things sorted out so they figured they might as well sell the stuff they had on-hand now to get the money in for R&D to get something done/moving along so when Inovascoat is back up & running Adox will have everything set on their end

 

[halfaman]

Please read the statements before blaming other members here. Adox stated the coating took place "a few years ago" thereafter followed by the bancrupsy of their coating partener, this having been the cause for stopping this project and putting the film on storage.

Of course one may question any statement given the last days. And there is a lot to question.
You yourself however are speculating by constructing a story not coherent with what has been stated, the same time blaming others of speculating.

You are right, I missed the "shortly after the first run" part. So Innoviscoat does not fit with that description. Point, set and match for you...