C-41 colour film and the orange mask

Gerald C Koch said:

Sadly it's true that when people die their critical knowledge is often lost. I can think of a few examples. The Rodinal Wolfen recipe, the one that we know most about, cannot be reproduced for no one alive today knows what P.1347 antifog is. No one thought to write it down..

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Really bad example.
Agfa P.1347 - Antraquinone-2,3 triazole sodium sulfonate
http://www.cdvandt.org/CIOS-XXX-15.pdf
p.19

Craig said:

PE, if I'm reading you correctly no single person within Kodak could know enough to recreate the emulsions layers in a typical C41 film? ( to pick C41 as an example). Similar for B&W also?

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In short, YES. That is emphasis and not shouting.

Flavio, I seem to have insulted you. Sorry, that was not my intent. It was a blanket comment that I have made several times here, especially about "K***C****E".

PE

Photo Engineer said:

In short, YES.

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Just as in the old joke:
In France engineer doesn't know what the other factory of his company working on.
In England engineer doesn't know what the neighbor department working on.
In USA engineer doesn't know what his colleague at the next table working on.
In Soviet Russia engineer doesn't know what he is working on..

Photo Engineer said:

You guys are talking about something that you know nothing about (for the most part). Kodak has level upon level of security such that I cannot re-create a formula! And here you go again talking about things for which you have no knowledge. Kodak had advanced E6 products but no market for them. Fuji introduced polymeric couplers with gelatin for E6, but I worked on that years before they did and have worked with primary inventors in the area. Search for Hollister for patents. Or Figueras.

We knew how but saw the handwriting on the wall for E6 even 20 years ago.

There is so much you guys do NOT understand.

PE

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I don't think that there is a conflict here.

I don't doubt for one moment that Kodak would have had numerous advanced products which, for whatever reason, did not reach the market, and details and formulae may well have been hidden, quite understandably, behind layers of secrecy. OTOH, Flavio was presenting a view from the street ( hence an impression from the outside world, correct or otherwise, of Fuji's position in E6 research) of the actual products available and accepted for use by real working professional users at the time.

Maybe a difference in commercial outlook between Fuji and Kodak of what variations of products customers would buy ? Konica also seemed to have some interesting products (3200ISO color negative, and the rather nice "gentle" 160ISO "professional" color neg....I had a pro friend who would use nothing else for portraits and weddings), but the brand never seemed to become as well known as the Big Two.

The market for high speed Sakura film was so small that they only made a run every once in a while. They announced the availability date.

The Fuji and Kodak reversal products were remarkably similar using slightly different couplers, solvents and emulsions. The big difference was the inclusion of polymers in the Fuji products which Kodak approached another way. All E6 films are remarkably hard to coat in high yield due to the fact that the image making capability must be spot on. Color negative has a slight edge in that the balance can be corrected in printing with no detriment to the image quality. Also, color neg can be built to keep better due to the nature of color imaging.

PE

If I remember correctly, Kodak traded the dye releaser technology used in the Kodak Instant products to Fuji for some E6 dye couplers. Fuji used them in their Pictrography printers, and of course, the Instax instant photography system. I don't know what Kodak did with the couplers. Maybe PE knows.

But IMHO Flavio is not totally wrong. at the end for us users what is important is what actually is on the market. Not that it is not fascinating and interedting to hear about film development! But what are the chances that kodak will ever release any of those materials today?

An old thread, but I thought I would add a comment or two. When a company goes belly up, or even undergoes some kind of reorganization or merger, it is often the case that some of the knowledge that existed within the company is simply lost and will therefore never see the light of day. I have seen this happen, both from the inside and from the outside of companies. It is even true that knowledge and/or documentation can sometimes get lost within a company, even in the absence of reorganizations.

Another thing that can happen if a company's processes are not well controlled is that process drift can occur. This can happen when a process is documented by the engineers but the production people make unauthorized changes. Modern management methods can minimize this, but it is a constant danger.

ISO certification can help minimize these problems, at least in theory. There is a saying in some companies that are attempting to become ISO certified: "Say what you do, and do what you say, and prove it." The idea behind ISO certification is that tight control will lead to improved quality and efficiency. That's the theoretical benefit, and there is likely some truth to it. However, as far as I am aware (and at one time I tried to find out) there have been few if any studies that demonstrate that the theoretical benefits of ISO are born out in actual practice. If anyone has ever gone through the process of ISO certification, it can vary from being merely uncomfortable to being a living nightmare.

You should read Bob Shanebrook's book "How Kodak Makes Film".

PE

"Modern management methods"? Isn't that synonymous with every plate on the dinner table potentially getting shattered every time some overpaid jerk with an equally oversized ego shows up?

I seriously don't get the knee-jerk reaction of some people on anything involving the term "management" regardless of the context or its particular meaning therein. What's up with that inane banter?

It's based on LOTS of experience watching one corporation after another suddenly buckle at the misguided whim of some inexperienced CEO or marketing MBA with an oversized ego. Film manufacture is no different. Trying to save money by failing to maintain a succession of skilled technicians is likely to be worse than failing to keep the equipment running properly.

DREW WILEY said:

Trying to save money by failing to maintain a succession of skilled technicians is likely to be worse than failing to keep the equipment running properly.

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Certainly. And I wouldn't qualify that or ill-informed incompetence "modern management techniques". I was thinking along the lines of concepts such as Lean and Six Sigma. The kind of stuff that has been crucial in ensuring that you and I have the technology available to us to have this discussion, that puts cars in our hands to drive to the shops with and that is essential in making sure those shops have on offer what we need and want. Heck, it's even essential in making sure we still have film of decent (sometimes excellent) quality to shoot.

Well, semantics. But not the best choice of examples. I sold precision equipment etc to the auto trade at one point, know key lawyers for major players in that industry today, and for several decades in the interim interacted with a number of major tool and equip companies right up to the CEO level on a first name basis. Competent top management was the exception, not the rule! Some of these guys made a train wreck of one company after another. By the time I retired I was dealing almost exclusively with privately held Euro and Japanese manufacturers because the publicly-traded US ones had become ridiculously untrustworthy. Very little is made in the US anymore, at least under US brand names - almost all of it is Chinese junk.