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Adox reviving old Ilford equipment in Switzerland?

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Google Translate did quite well indeed.

I was wondering about the costs of running that operation in Switzerland. Having the machine there already and operating in an industrial park where you can get commodities like deionised water, steam and cooling on demand without capital investment in machinery or stock seems to do the trick.

Still the high salaries there do take their toll. The rest of the world should follow their lead to level the field... but that won't happen until we all switch back to capitalism from the current US style feudalism.

Maybe there will be some CHS100-II this Summer. I will have to finally use my three rolls, which are sitting in the freezer, in spring to see if I want to buy some more.
 
ADOX.DE did "obtain" one of the CIBA chrome pilot coaters, and they are planning to produce at least some of their films using that machine. ILFORD name is only because CIBAchrome was lumped into Ilford by previous owners of both products.
 
farmersteve said:
I don't read French but Google translate did a decent job of translating. Looks like these guys are quite a bit ahead of Ferrania in reviving their old equipment... http://www.lagruyere.ch/2018/01/l’homme-qui-redonne-vie-à-la-machine-e-d’ilford.html
Click to expand...

Very interesting. The hard part to understand is entry into b&w film, where it seems the market has hit equilibrium. We all have a list of b&w films we would like to see return, but in reality the analog world still has a useful selection. At best, new players in b&w are a zero sum game or so it seems to me.

It is the color slide and negative world that seems topsy-turvy. I can imagine (because I know next to nothing about film manufacturing) that color films are so much harder, but it seems to me that the real market future is in color. When/if Kodak/Fuji films disappear in the next few years will there be a viable path for another manufacturer?
 
wyofilm said:
but it seems to me that the real market future is in color.
Click to expand...

I disagree. The heaviest users of E6 colour material have always been commercial photographers, and they have gone digital. That's why we had the collapse of the E6 volumes. C41 was used by snapshooters, and they have all gone to using their phones instead of a point and shoot. B&W is used by people who choose it for it's artistic properties and that's why demand is stable to increasing - B&W film doesn't compete with digital.
 
A very interesting article, looks like Adox's future is bright.

Here's a few interesting bits of info:
- It cost 15 000 euro to Adox's competitors to power up their machine. Adox "Machine E" cost less than 500 euro to power up.
- Adox "Machine E" can do colour film but would require 100 employee to do so. They can't afford this for the moment.
- Fotoimpex has experienced annual growth of 15% to 20% per year during the past decade.
- Most of Adox's clients are amateurs & hobbyist.
- In Berlin, they see many young people, especially young women, turning to analogue photography.
 
Craig said:
have always been commercial photographers
Click to expand...

Well, I don't think the future of film rests with commercial photographers or at least in any large way. Whatever the future of film it will likely be amateurs and enthusiasts, which is precisely why I'm surprised new entrants into B&W. A new/returning player would have to offer something really special in B&W or drive out the competition with cheaper productions costs. Filling the void left by Fuji and maybe Kodak in color stock actually makes more sense.
 
Adox is not a new player, they have been on the market for a while now. And CHS is not a new film, it was available until a year or so ago and this will be new production. I'm eagerly awaiting for it.
This said I don't know if adox has any color knowledge. Having a coating machine is a just a small bit in the whole process, engineering and producing all the chemicals required for a color film with no prior experience is no joke.
 
wyofilm said:
Well, I don't think the future of film rests with commercial photographers or at least in any large way. Whatever the future of film it will likely be amateurs and enthusiasts, which is precisely why I'm surprised new entrants into B&W. A new/returning player would have to offer something really special in B&W or drive out the competition with cheaper productions costs. Filling the void left by Fuji and maybe Kodak in color stock actually makes more sense.
Click to expand...


I agree, most commercial photographers abandoned film a long time ago. Proof of that is evident in all the Hasselblad bodies and lenses that I have bought at bargain prices.
 
I always shoot color film, and tried enlarge color photo by ra-4 processing, In last year l shot over 50 rolls color negative film and some rolls positive film. However when l went to a professional darkroom for enlaged my photo, l found that they have a processor for processing color paper but never use it and I asked the manager ,a professional photographer, if they had tried color enlarge, the manager just repiled that they was no interested.
I can not understand why “B&W is used by people who choose it for it's artistic properties”. I think color is also have artistic properties.
 
Craig said:
I disagree. The heaviest users of E6 colour material have always been commercial photographers, and they have gone digital. That's why we had the collapse of the E6 volumes. C41 was used by snapshooters, and they have all gone to using their phones instead of a point and shoot. B&W is used by people who choose it for it's artistic properties and that's why demand is stable to increasing - B&W film doesn't compete with digital.
Click to expand...
It's not just B&W that is rising in sales... perhaps B&W has been the most stable but C-41 and E-6 are definetly growing too, at what rate? we don't know, but they most definetly are.
 
Minoltafan2904 said:
It's not just B&W that is rising in sales... perhaps B&W has been the most stable but C-41 and E-6 are definetly growing too, at what rate? we don't know, but they most definetly are.
Click to expand...
If C-41 and E-6 are growing, we would be able to plot the growth and calculate the rate. Otherwise, we would not know that they are growing. What's the mystery?
 
I don't think Kodak would be trying so hard to bring back Ektachrome if sales were dwindling.
Kodak Alaris has reported a stable 5% / year increase in film sales, and if you didn't know a lot of plafes a few months back were out of stock of Portra, when asked K.A said they in fact had to speed up the production to keep up with demand.
I'd love to see real figures of sales but we don't have those.
 
Renato Tonelli said:
Beautiful material- but what are the chances really?
Click to expand...

Low, I suspect. It was apparently very challenging to coat - https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/emulsion-_-base-chemicals-_-cibachrome.64240/ - see posts #6 & #8. It could probably be done, at very considerable cost - & would people pay for it when pigment ink prints offer at least as good if not better archival stability & a far wider choice of substrates than ultra-glossy polyester, RC gloss & pearl? I'd rather see the effort put into reviving Dye Transfer (pan matrix film specifically).
 
I owned a Ciba Lab, I made these print via enlarger and as well digitally via Durst Lambda... The price of materials and chemistry's forced us vendors to price the prints almost double CPrint prices and Inkjets.. For me it was
a real struggle to keep the chemistry's alive so I went to batch process, then getting the right product from Wynit became a problem, work ready to go but when chemicals arrived there always was a missing element. Not to mention there was absolutely no marketing efforts whatsoever by the manufacturer on this product. I liked cibas, I really did but if finally became too much to keep it alive, I tossed my machine and a couple of years later they pulled the plug on the product.
 
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