ADOX attempting to restart 110 film production.

[waynecrider]

By the way, it would be best to discuss all this on the Adox forum here, so Mirco will be more aware of this discussion.

I think it best if one of the moderators moves it.

 

[Darkroom317]

I would love to have some B&W. Fine grain is nice but I would like to have something faster than CMS 20. Most of my 110 cameras need a film speed of at least 100 to be useful. Even my Pentax 110 needs film that fast to be useful and it is among the best 110 cameras ever made.

I think they will be releasing Adox Pan 400 (APX 400) in 110 also

 

[2F/2F]

The film will be properly perforated.
But without backing paper.

The key word in my post was bulk, not perforated. I am sure the new product will be properly perforated.

 

[ADOX Fotoimpex]

110 Film

Hello all,

yes the film will be properly perforated otherwise it makes little sense to sell it as a 110 film.
All of the production procedures are now made manually or semi automated. So the costs aren´t exactly generated in the "spooling" but rather is starts with cutting down 35mm to 32 (wasting 3 mm), perforating it semi manually, slitting it, chopping it, rolling it, rebuilding the casettes, welding it manually, packing it, apllying the stickers........

Yes we will offer different film types.
In the beginning: color 200 ASA and one b/w.

Backing paper: still an open issue. Things look right now more as if we will be having backing paper again.

Any remaining questions: feel free to ask.

Best regards,

Mirko

PS sorry for the short answer- too many projects, too little time.

 

[2F/2F]

Hello all,

yes the film will be properly perforated otherwise it makes little sense to sell it as a 110 film.
All of the production procedures are now made manually or semi automated. So the costs aren´t exactly generated in the "spooling" but rather is starts with cutting down 35mm to 32 (wasting 3 mm), perforating it semi manually, slitting it, chopping it, rolling it, rebuilding the casettes, welding it manually, packing it, apllying the stickers........

Yes we will offer different film types.
In the beginning: color 200 ASA and one b/w.

Backing paper: still an open issue. Things look right now more as if we will be having backing paper again.

Any remaining questions: feel free to ask.

Best regards,

Mirko

PS sorry for the short answer- too many projects, too little time.

Thanks, Mirko.

Any chance of making a bulk roll version available, and/or selling empty cassettes?

 

[removed account4]

Thanks, Mirko.

Any chance of making a bulk roll version available, and/or selling empty cassettes?

what he said ...

 

[2F/2F]

what he said ...

...reason being that for me, it makes more sense to pay someone a bit of a premium to slit and perforate the film, but not to load it for me.

 

[removed account4]

...reason being that for me, it makes more sense to pay someone a bit of a premium to slit and perforate the film, but not to load it for me.

same here

 

[waynecrider]

Sounds like alot of work to produce the cassettes. I wonder if it might be more prudent to job out reuseables and just sell bulk film in X length.

Btw, I would produce the B&W film first. I wouldn't be interested if I had to send color 110 film out of state to be developed and printed. I would rather shoot 35mm and get it done locally then do that.

 

[fotch]

Mirko, which B&W will be used?

 

[brianmquinn]

A speed of at least ISO 80 would be necessary for me to consider buying any of this B&W film. Faster would be OK but not any slower as the cameras I own will not index to much lower then ISO 100.

 

[erikg]

I'm with 2F/2F and John: bulk film and empty cassettes would be pretty cool. Backing paper wouldn't need to be there for me.

 

[ADOX Fotoimpex]

Do you want to load the film in russian reusable cassettes ?

The casettes need to be welded together- I suppose no one can do this at home.

In theory we could certainly sell loose casettes and loose film stripes as well. It is just the question how many units can be sold because if there are too little customers for such a product the costs of setting up an extra item, organizing the packing materials etc can easily outrun the savings.
The perforating machine does also the cutting of the stripes. So the product would be properly perforated stripes of film, 76cm long in a 16mm moovie film can.

How much would you be willing to spent on this ?
It can be made available before the final film is ready.
We also could sell empty casettes already.

110 cameras (in general) read out the film speed from the casette. So we plan to make a 100 ASA b/w and a 200 ASA colour film (because a 200 ASA CN exposed to 100 gives better images on the small format than a 100 ASA film exposed to 100 ASA).

Later on, if demand builds up, we could think about bringing a top notch film like Ektar if Kodak sells us unperforated pancakes.

Did I miss something ?

Kind regards,

Mirko

 

[waynecrider]

Thanks Mirko for your response.

If anything you should know the market much better then us since you have seen fit to produce the item. There must be enough cameras languishing out there with people wanting to shoot them and places to get the film developed. Whatever your research was, it must have shown some sort of a market to go up against digital point and shoot cameras. One would not think so tho. It would seem more a boutique market for people on a site such as this. Perhaps with the Holga crowd your might find some additional sales if marketed correctly, perhaps with a plastic lens panoramic camera. That would be novel.

Personally I would prefer bulk B&W low ISO film (50-100) and reusable cassettes. Soup a 50 ISO film in Diafine and your set. In color tho I would buy loaded. For me the question is getting the cassettes.

 

[2F/2F]

The cassettes absolutely do not need to be welded together in a factory. We can do it at home, just like we do now when we load our own cartridges. I slice the weld on the factory cartridge open with a new X-Acto blade, then tape mine with 3M photo tape when I reuse them.

The really slick thing would be a high-quality metal (or plastic, I guess) cassette that is designed to be reused. I have actually drawn plans for this, and I am going to talk to some friends who can do such work to see how much it would cost me to get a few dozen of them custom made...but I haven't done it yet, and I would prefer to just buy them from Adox.

As for what I would pay for slit and perforated bulk film: Assuming it is Efke/Adox 100, I would pay the same amount per square inch of emulsion that I pay for Efke film, plus a 50% premium. Going by Freestyle's prices, which are $42 U.S. for 30 m of 35mm bulk film, a 16 mm roll at the same price per emulsion area would be $21. 150 percent of $21 is just over $30, so that is what I would pay. It ends up being a dollar per meter. At that price, I'd purchase 300 m to start (10 bulk rolls, $300).

 

[removed account4]

i would buy some reusable cassettes
and a bunch of bulk rolls of film in a heartbeat.
as 2F said respoolers don't weld the cassettes anyways
they just tape them shut and keep using the same cassette over
and over again ...

i look forward to hearing when it is going to be available.

 

[paul ewins]

I already load my own cassettes with 16mm film so either bulk film or complete cassettes would be welcome. I'm really only interested in B&W since that is the easiest to process. It would be nice to have the option of 100 or 400, but either would be fine.

If anybody ever made metal reloadable cassettes I would be interested in a few.

 

[Steve Roberts]

B&W is for me much preferable to colour, as colour has to be sent away for processing and takes somewhere in the region of 10 days to two weeks around here. 110 colour processing also tends to be a bit hit and miss now it's very much a minority requirement. My home sliced film is fine in the Pentax 110s but of course doesn't work in the majority of 110 cameras that need the correct holes to cock the shutter and stop the film advance. That will be the big advantage of a new film for me. I wonder whether the new film will be pre-exposed with frame info, as it used to be, though that's probably not important for many of us.
Steve

 

[Gerald C Koch]

110 cameras

Kodak tried to take over the popular 16mm market from Minolta by coming up with the 110 format. What they did achieve was to kill the 16mm format for serious photograpers. There are serious focusing problems inherent in the 110 cassette design because there is no pressure plate. So 110 became associated with cheap fixed focus point and shoot cameras.

 

[ic-racer]

Kodak tried to take over the popular 16mm market from Minolta by coming up with the 110 format. What they did achieve was to kill the 16mm format for serious photograpers. There are serious focusing problems inherent in the 110 cassette design because there is no pressure plate. So 110 became associated with cheap fixed focus point and shoot cameras.

I agree. I also wish Minolta would have fought back by making their SLR take their own cassette!

Personally I'd be happy just to have a source of Super-16 Negative film for re-spooling.

 

[waynecrider]

The Wikipedia entry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/110_film

 

[ADOX Fotoimpex]

We will consider selling unloaded casettes.
But they will be the way they are (intended for being welded) so you´ll have to fumble with them.

The raw film used will be new APX type film and a quality 200 ASA color material.

Sofar we have not planned for signing (signating) the stripes.

Thanks for your input.

Kind regards,

Mirko

 

[2F/2F]

We will consider selling unloaded casettes

...and the slit and perforated 16 mm bulk roll film to go in them?

As I previously stated, I am signed on for 300 m if you do this at a dollar per meter Freestyle retail price. I'd also be interested in about two dozen cassettes.

 

[railwayman3]

Kodak tried to take over the popular 16mm market from Minolta by coming up with the 110 format. What they did achieve was to kill the 16mm format for serious photograpers. There are serious focusing problems inherent in the 110 cassette design because there is no pressure plate. So 110 became associated with cheap fixed focus point and shoot cameras.

I have a Minolta 16mm which my late Father (a serious photographer) purchased in the early 1970's....when he passed it on to me, I remember him complaining that, shortly after he bought it, Kodak produced the 110 format and photo shops apparently soon had no interest in supplying the Minolta films or processing services. I don't think that, then, there were even the mail order suppliers who might have catered for this specialist market.
(I still have some of his empty film packets, most are Minolta, but a couple are Yashica (contained "repacked Plus-X")....presumably they were interchangable?)

 

[Gerald C Koch]

The russians made a copy of the Minolta 16 called the Kiev-30. The main difference was that the Kiev had a focusable lens. If I remember correctly Minolta cassettes will fit in the Kiev but Kiev cassettes are too big to fit in the Minolta. Anyway you can get one with leather case in the original box for $10 on ebay.