Bergger News

Do they have a coating line in Wolfen?

If you read at this http://www.maco-photo.de/files/images/TA_Rollei_R3_eng.pdf you will see that Rollei R3 is coated by Tura, Duren.

Tura was doing the packing and slitting for Rollei/Maco films till end 2005. The Tura company in Düren went bankrupted (2006) together with Agfa Photo (end 2005) because 95% of their business was comming from Agfa.
A small company in Bergheim is confectioning the 35mm cartridges now for Rollei/Maco.
It's not so strange that some production steps are done outside a company. Due to their former DDR contacts I am sure Filmotec (Wolfen, former OrWo, ORginal WOlfen) have also connections in Hradec Kralové (Foma).

Aurelien said:

Do they have a coating line in Wolfen?

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Yes, emulsioning and coating. Look at: www.filmotec.de

Their main products are BW movie films. A very stable business. They are market leader in some areas.

Regards,
Jana

It seems that though the BRF15 & 100 may be new to linhofstudio's catalogue, from a Google search they seem to have been introduced last year. So clearly the current stock was not made by Ilford. According to the search some people claimed they were made by Forte but in view of what has been said above this may not be correct. One of life's little mysteries I guess.

aldevo said:

As PhotoEngineer, FotoImpex and others have pointed out...

It is never simple and - rarely possible at all - to take Emulsion A from Company A and produce it at Company B.

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Exactly. I can't imagine anything appearing other than a repackaged Ilford or Kentmere paper
Mark

Mark Layne said:

Exactly. I can't imagine anything appearing other than a repackaged Ilford or Kentmere paper
Mark

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I think that is overly pessimistic. While many pundits agree that making an "identical" product is very very difficult..there is no reason to rule out products that are similar to the old ones. One of Berggers popular films, the ISO 200 b/w, which many say is Fortepan 200. Ilford does not make an ISO 200 film. So, if Bergger continues this product, it will have to be different from existing Ilford films. And who is to say that Ilford can "only" make what it now makes? They may have existing formulas for their coating equipment for products they do not wish to market themselves.

I think you are all wrong about it: Bergger will continue all its former products. But there will be slight modificatons due to european environment legislation.
If you go on Harman Technology Website, you'll see that they provide a film and paper coating line for customer. And Simon said that Ilford won't sell Ilford products to another brand for rebadging. So, Bergger products will be Berger products.

Aurelien said:

I think you are all wrong about it: Bergger will continue all its former products. But there will be slight modificatons due to european environment legislation.
If you go on Harman Technology Website, you'll see that they provide a film and paper coating line for customer. And Simon said that Ilford won't sell Ilford products to another brand for rebadging. So, Bergger products will be Berger products.

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Sure, but there remains ample evidence from our handfull of posters with true knowledge of how these products are designed and manufactured (Fotohuis, PhotoEngineer, Fotoimpex) that the characteristics of the finished product are every bit as sensitive to the product's manufacturing process as the design of the product itself.

Fotoimpex has posted a particularly interesting story of how AgfaPhoto was forced to replace its emulsion "kettle" around 2004 and that the last batches of APX that were produced exhibited much more pronounced grain, different gradation, and a loss of film speed - despite no changes in the emulsion formulations themselves.

Ultimately, we will simply have to wait for these products to appear to judge them. In the meantime, I applaud both Ilford and Bergger for making a go of it..

Brac said:

It seems that though the BRF15 & 100 may be new to linhofstudio's catalogue, from a Google search they seem to have been introduced last year. So clearly the current stock was not made by Ilford. According to the search some people claimed they were made by Forte but in view of what has been said above this may not be correct. One of life's little mysteries I guess.

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I believe these presently are manufactured by the former ORWO, now known as Filmotec. Fortepan 100, itself, may not have been manufactured by Forte after it resumed its operations in early 2005 following its initial suspension of operations. I have some Fortepan 100 that was manufactured after this time and, even accounting for the considerable variations that can result in different production runs of Forte products , it seems a different emulsion alltogether.

All I care about is when I'm going to be able to find Bergger paper again.
I need my VCBS.

Bergger's new RC papers PN 80 & PN 81 (Harman/Ilford manufacture) were reviewed in last months french magazine Réponses PHOTO, and Bergger also advertised the new Fibre papers page 179 in the same November issue, PN 71 Neutral and PN 70 Warm.

Ian

Mark Layne said:

Exactly. I can't imagine anything appearing other than a repackaged Ilford or Kentmere paper
Mark

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I think this is unlikely Mark
Tim