An investigation of the film in the new Ilfocolor Disposable cameras

[Huss]

So, if I really need total reliability, should I keep to Epson paper, Harman films and Duracell batteries ?

My last Duracell alkaline batteries leaked. Not old. Not in any equipment. Made in China - so who knows if a Duracell facility actually made them, or that too has been outsourced to the cheapest bidder, and Duracell then slaps its name on the box for maximum profits as 'we' think we are getting a quality brand.

 

[railwayman3]

My last Duracell alkaline batteries leaked. Not old. Not in any equipment. Made in China - so who knows if a Duracell facility actually made them, or that too has been outsourced to the cheapest bidder, and Duracell then slaps its name on the box for maximum profits as 'we' think we are getting a quality brand.

I think, Huss, that your experience confirms exactly my own thoughts and experiences........I've seen this happen here in the UK, expensive "Duracell" and "Philips" batteries both leaking, Kodak alright but didn't last long, yet cheapy "Readycell" own brand from the UK "Home Bargain" chain stores seem to last for weeks in my radio with no problems (so far?). All "Made in China".
I have heard it suggested that many Chinese manufacturers will make goods to whatever standards and Q.C. ordered......top quality at appropriately high price, down to cheap-and-cheerful stuff at a low price if you want to make maximum profits.

 

[mshchem]

This is skating close to the Soapbox. Let's talk about these silly cameras.

 

[MattKing]

This is skating close to the Soapbox. Let's talk about these silly cameras.

Yep - and the photographic market they are trading in.

 

[kennef]

Any updates? I bought one of these cameras too and would like to know about the film.

 

[YoIaMoNwater]

Thought I'll chime in with this post as it seems OP has not updated anything in a while. I recently got one of these disposable cameras: https://www.maxphoto.co.uk/wow-single-use-disposable-camera.html

After done shooting with it I took the canister out and it's exactly the same as OP's:

After it is developed:

It's weird that the website for the camera says its ISO200 but then after it's developed it's actually ISO400, possibly from a master roll?

The top edge says 400-3 while the bottom shows the code. I've compared it to Ultramax 400 and it's not the same. Perhaps it is Gold 400? I have never shot Gold 400 so does anyone have their negatives and can compare it?

But one thing for sure that this seems like a Kodak stock and not Fuji's.

 

[Nzoomed]

This is an interesting read. I agree it looks alot like Kodak stock.

 

[foc]

This is an interesting read. I agree it looks alot like Kodak stock.

+1

 

[markjwyatt]

Looks like Kodacolor of some flavor.

 

[YoIaMoNwater]

If you search up "Kodak 400-3" on The Big Film Database, it shows these are possible emulsions: https://industrieplus.net/dxdatabase/rechfilm.php?name=kodak+400-3

 

[MattKing]

The edge printing code may merely be an indication of what standard preset should be used by old time minilabs in order to scan or print from a particular custom emulsion - Eastman Kodak does do contract film making for others.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Ilford has released a new disposable camera in the past few months, being the Ilfocolor Rapid Retro Edition

I figured it was just another Kodak filled disposable camera, but I then saw this video comparing it with Kodak and Fuji disposables. It seemed different from the others, especially Kodak. I chalked this up to perhaps differences in the lens, shutter timing, and such. Although it was at least different enough from Kodak that I assumed it wasn't an Ultramax stock.

It seemed quite similar to the Fuji disposable, still different, but close enough, But this didn't make much sense considering Fuji don't sell their film out to third parties anymore for rebranding purposes.

So I bought one of these myself, wound it back into the cartridge, and cracked it open.

I scanned the barcode and got the number which was written under it, handy. I looked this number up, and I found a flickr thread from almost a decade ago, which catalogues film stocks based on their barcode number. Two separate people listed this number, and both said it was "Ferrania Solaris 400". I don't know much about that stock but as far as I can see that wasn't a rebranded film, but made in house.
I highly doubt it's this film, considering Ferrania doesn't have capacity to even produce c41 film, let alone black and white currently. While I don't have any other disposable film on hand, maybe it's a generic number for disposable film? Although if it was there would probably be more results for it.

It also lacks any labeling or logos, Kodak disposable film has a serrated top to their rolls, as well as the Kodak name.

Fuji's disposable film lacks the serrated teeth, but is styled completely differently, showing the text in a different orientation.

So, what is this stuff?
Doing even more research I came across a dxcode searching tool, which said this was "likely" Kodak film, but it was discontinued.
I also feel like if this was long term cold stored film from over a decade ago, Ilford would have made a big deal about it, and press releases, to make hype over this.
There is also no way in hell they are coating their own film, we would have heard huge press releases over this also.

I am going to buy a 400 iso kodak disposable, as well as a fujifilm one, remove the film, then shoot some color test charts on my Nikon F4 with all three within the next two weeks. I'll send them all to the same lab instead of processing it myself to reduce any chance of mistake or variance. I will then post the un-converted scans when I do.

Feel free to share any thoughts below though, I'd love to know anything else about it

If it's anything Kodak recently made, the end caps would be silver. I've been getting disposable cameras come in for processing (yes even fuji ones) where the can has silver end caps and the emulsion doesn't have the traditional fuji stripes along the perforations, which means it's one of Kodak's emulsions (inside a fuji branded disposable camera), and when I scan it in, I use the standard Kodak C-41 profile and it looks fine.

So, if the end caps aren't silver, it's likely not new if it's a kodak emulsion. Shoot it and process it, then look at the emulsion to see if there are any markings or emulsion codes that would indicate further.

 

[Agulliver]

Definitely looks Kodak....but do bear in mind a few points.

The "silver" end caps are only a very recent thing for Kodak, and are temporary.
The cassettes used in single use cameras may well be sourced from a different factory (ie not Kodak)
The cassettes used in single use cameras may well be sourced from an existing stockpile - that old Ferrania Solaris 400 code appears on various cassettes including some branded Lomography which are known to be Kodak film.
Perhaps (pure speculation on my part) this is cold stored 400ISO film sold as 200 in order to alleviate the effects of age?

Ultimately we care about the Ilford brand. The main thing is....did this single use camera perform as one would hope and expect a single use camera to? Or was it sub-standard in some way? Or contrarily, was it better than expected?

 

[YoIaMoNwater]

The main thing is....did this single use camera perform as one would hope and expect a single use camera to? Or was it sub-standard in some way? Or contrarily, was it better than expected?

The camera I shot (not Ilford branded plastic shell but the same cannister) seems like it's expired film. There is an obvious green color cast in the photos I took, so your theory of them selling it as ISO400 to alleviate it's age makes sense.

 

[Tel]

Old as the hills, etc. My first decent camera was a Pentax; I wondered at the time why the people who made my parents' thermostat (Honeywell) were making cameras too. And it wasn't until the campaign to resurrect Ferrania that I realized that 3M film wasn't made in Minnesota. One of the things I liked about my Nikon F (which replaced the Pentax) was that Nikon was a real camera company.

 

[MattKing]

I wondered at the time why the people who made my parents' thermostat (Honeywell) were making cameras too.

I hate to break it to you, but your Honeywell Pentax only had Honeywell on its name plate because in the US there seemed to be such a strange fascination with distributors that the distributors got to put their own name on other people's products.
Did you use a Bogen tripod as well?

 

[Agulliver]

I hate to break it to you, but your Honeywell Pentax only had Honeywell on its name plate because in the US there seemed to be such a strange fascination with distributors that the distributors got to put their own name on other people's products.
Did you use a Bogen tripod as well?

Honeywell would have been a familiar and comforting name to Americans.

Similar, perhaps, to Elmo 8mm film cameras and projectors being sold as "Ilford Elmo" in the UK in the 60s.....attach a familiar name via a license deal to your unfamiliar Japanese product to reassure the buying public....also might well have enabled lower sales/import taxes in the dim and distant days before we joined the EEC (as it was then). Import tax on Japanese mad and branded goods was wincingly high up to 1973.

 

[btaylor]

Did you use a Bogen tripod as well?

Are you kidding? With all those ads of Ed Bogen sitting on “his” tripods? Yea- I was taken in on that one. I mean I figured Ed wasn’t making them himself, but perhaps had some role in their production? I guess not. When I was a kid and I saw the Honeywell label applied to Pentax and Rolleiflex cameras I couldn’t figure out the association either (thermostats, right?)- other than Honeywell made quality stuff- the association worked in my developing brain.

 

[Tel]

My generation (or at least my friends) went from a kind of unquestioning naivete to hardened cynicism as the brand-name shams began to be exposed. This totally explains our (my) devotion to Nikon--they made the cameras, they even engineered them, and they ran the Nikon schools that popped up around the country. Nikon was a real institution with real people behind it, and they actually seemed to care about photography. They were unapologetic and didn't need to pretend that their cameras were made in the US.

Of course the problem has only grown worse; brand names are now bought and sold for their cachet value alone. As Zygmunt Bauman has argued, identity is something you buy at the shoe store.

 

[reddesert]

It was Lester Bogen who was in the ads sitting on Manfrotto / Bogen tripods. I don't think these rebadgings were shams to fool the consumer. This page has a picture of the Bogen ad: https://joemcnally.com/2015/05/04/gitzo-tripod-blog/ There is a mini history of the Manfrotto - Bogen - Gitzo business relationship at the bottom of this page: https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/manfrotto-tripod.5525806/

Often the importing agents were influential in establishing the brand in the US market, and may have fed suggestions back to the factory for further development. Joe Ehrenreich of EPOI, who was the importer for Nikon for many years, is generally credited with establishing Nikon as a premium camera brand in the US.

Reusing old established brand names that are merely a shell now for some barely related product (like current "Polaroid" batteries) is a different story.

 

[Pioneer]

I regularly shoot a Honeywell Pentax H1a that I picked up for a song at least 10 years ago and it is a fine camera. Of course the only part that is Honeywell is the name engraved on it and the Model number. Everything else is pure Pentax, made in Japan, and of very high quality. Of course that quality is from the 60s. Branding has obviously been going on for a long time though perhaps the quality received may have degraded somewhat.

 

[Pioneer]

Voigtlander is another rebranding and Cosina seems to be producing some pretty good products. Rebranding is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Pioneer]

Finally, I would guess that Kodak is probably making a lot of film and needs to sell it somewhere. In this case a lot of companies seem to be benefiting.

 

[YoIaMoNwater]

After some searches online I found a post from 2017 that might shed some light into this mystery.

So what IS this lomo 400 film?

OT: How do you make nice color contact sheets like that?? you place the negatives into a contact print frame with an RA4 sheet of paper, expose it and process it. The correct exposure time should be enough to make the film rebate black. Use standard filtration for the paper in use.

www.photrio.com

Also the developed film is very very curly so it’s likely this is from a master roll that has just been sitting there for some time.

 

[Fortepun]

This random Ilfocolor thread takes me to a recent conversation about expired film. There's a shop in Budapest specialising in camera repair and expired films from way back. Therefore, the guy is a pro developing all sorts of old emulsions, like this Ilfocolor 100, which, of course is Ferrania. He told me the following:

Ilfocolor 100 after all these years is still decent shot at 100.
Fuji is way worse, but an expired Superia 400 at 50 will be okay.
Kodak is a no-no. Kodak is so bad when expired, it doesn't even deserve a cheap C41 process.

Of course, that's his experience, probably fortified by a bad roll. Many people shoot expired Kodak negatives without much trouble. However, this shop stocks films that are 20+ years past due date, so I guess the takeaway is that ancient Ferrania and Agfa emulsions are more stable than Fuji, and much more stable than Kodak stocks.

I can also add that I recently shot both very old Kodak UC100 with a compact and flash during a party, and 160VC in 120 format with my Bronica. Both were fine.