C-41 colour film and the orange mask

[AgX]

Flavio,

There is

-) no basic research since a long time
-) no more lecturing of this technology
-) no interest at the major companies in preserving it
-) the youngest person involved I know of is Mirko
-) the way AgfaPhoto and partly Kodak went under is no means to attract academics

 

[Craig]

For lack of a better term, I think there is a lot of "tribal knowledge" involved in making colour film. It's things that are learned by doing, and are not written in textbooks or patents. It's learned from apprenticeships and is passed down knowledge and is very difficult or impossible to recreate. When that knowledge is lost, it's gone and has to be reinvented from scratch.

The classic example is Autochromes from the beginnings of the 20th century. The process was described in patents, the original machinery exists to make the plates, but so far all attempts to reproduce them a hundred years later have failed.

Patents are my speciality, and there is a lot of misunderstanding about them. They don't describe everything, and they are not a step by step recipe like a cookbook. They are aimed at a nominal skilled person in teh area of technology to which they pertain, so there is a lot that can go unsaid - a skilled person already knows those things. They also generally deal in concepts, rather than specific numbers. When they do detail a process and give things like concentrations, they range is very broad. It's not to lead you by the hand to a specific formulation, it is to exclude others from your space, while including a workable variant. I have seen things like specifying a range of a chemical's concentration from 2-98%. Maybe the only version that works is 22.63%, but it can take a lot of experimentation to figure that out.

Patents are just a signpost along the way to help you arrive at a destination, not a personal guided tour.

 

[ericdan]

unless we make use of fusion we'll run out of energy anyhow and even digital cameras won't function anymore. All recent history recorded digitally will be lost.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Craig, you are going down the right path.

PE

 

[flavio81]

For lack of a better term, I think there is a lot of "tribal knowledge" involved in making colour film. It's things that are learned by doing, and are not written in textbooks or patents. It's learned from apprenticeships and is passed down knowledge and is very difficult or impossible to recreate. When that knowledge is lost, it's gone and has to be reinvented from scratch.

Yes Craig, but there are some points to consider.

- "Tribal" knowledge is only oral. Companies such as Kodak or Fuji must have extensive internal documentation on all their processes, formulas, guidelines; in short, the whole knowledge.

- Such documentation is private and proprietary, but in the event of a bankrupt or closure of that factory, these assets (documentation) will probably be sold OR leaked into the public.

- We are in a different era regarding knowledge and communication between people. Back in 1995 i would never EVER thought that I would have been able to communicate with an actual photo engineer, or that i could chat with a representative of ILFORD. Or, in the case of the new Ferrania Factory, to be able to closely see what's going on inside a film factory or to be able to email the very same people who are making the film.

So engineers/scientists with this interest can join together worldwide in an easier way to share their knowledge and indeed their "tribal" knowledge with former photo engineers as well. This was not possible in the past. Internet has existed since the 70s but the scale of penetration of social networking is minimal compared to 2016. We would not have known each other even in year 2000, while here we are, communicating ourselves.

The classic example is Autochromes from the beginnings of the 20th century. The process was described in patents, the original machinery exists to make the plates, but so far all attempts to reproduce them a hundred years later have failed.

Craig, but the attempts to reproduce Autochromes were by enthusiasts hobbyists. I am pretty sure that if an entrepreneur wants to bring back autochromes (finding a good business case) he/she could get enough engineers and scientists to get a hold of the problem and engineer a process to create the colored starch plates as needed.

Also, the example is not comparable since we are speaking about an industrial process from 1903, where the handling of industrial documentation was primitive compared to now. You can bet that the proprietary documentation from Kodak describing everything about their color films is currently well archived in microfilms and in digital files. This makes their re-transmission, sharing, bootlegging, and preservation far easier than with 1903 documentation from a long defunct company!!

 

[flavio81]

Flavio,

There is

1) no basic research since a long time
2) no more lecturing of this technology
3) the way AgfaPhoto and partly Kodak went under is no means to attract academics

Dear and esteemed AgX,

1. Do we really need more research in 2016? I mean, slide film (Provia 100F) and color film (Portra) are, in my view, as perfect as they can get for practical purposes. Also, see the last paragraph on this post on this topic.

2. There is lecturing of this technology. You can call Photo Engineer and enroll yourself in a workshop if you wanted. You could also call Mirko and learn from him if you wanted to; i mean, if you had the time and money and disposition; for example volunteering into working at ADOX.

3. You are considering that "the way AgfaPhoto went under" will discourage scientists from following that career path, and I agree. But on the other hand. a career path, is not the only way to get scientists and engineers into the art of film making. I can foresee, very easily, enthusiastic chemists getting together via internet forums, to manufacture film again and creating a Kickstarter to raise money.

The times have changed, i strongly encourage us forumers to see things in the context of year 2016, where social networking makes knowledge sharing and transmission possible in a scale order of magnitudes bigger than even the year 1990; where things like Kickstarter, that didn't exist just years ago, make possible that we the "nerds" and "enthusiasts" can actually finance something that requires a strong investment of money.

Again, i insist that if we need to restart color film production again in a post-Kodak, post-Fuji world, we don't need to manufacture state of the art, Provia100F-like films; even films with really old technology like Ektachrome 64 would sell just fine to amateur photographers in a small scale production. Let's get honest, the film that many people mourn and cry for, let's call it "PKR 25", was introduced in 1974, that is, 42 years ago, for this film, for example, we are not talking about state-of-the-art proprietary knowledge that nobody could decipher in 2016.

 

[twelvetone12]

But documentation and drawings are not enough - you need the people that actually understand the problems, and properly formed in the matter. The "oral transmission" of knowledge is and experience is invaluable. Without that, even with the most complete technical documentation and the best engineers, you are basically starting from scratch.

Recently I worked on a project that required some very precision specialized mechanics. My group needed to pass the knowledge to another group - all expert mechanical engineers but with no experience in the particular field we were working on. They thought they just needed the drawings and the documentation. It turned out it was far than enough. Having them create a working prototype took us many many months of couching.
Now scale that to just a small factory like Ferrania, were you have thousands of specialized mechanics, electronics and software only to run the plant. No wonder they say their most precious asset are the old engineers that joined the team!

My point is that if you have an interruption of the inter-human knowledge, it is very very difficult to rebuild it, even with the best documentation. Mind - almost nothing is impossible, if you throw enough money and time to it. But the question is: if all the film making knowledge was lost could we rebuild it? Maybe, but who would finance the immense investment necessary? Maybe it is better to closely guard and treasure what we still have.

 

[flavio81]

To complement my above post.

Here is a list of films that if manufactured brand new again would be perfectly fine and acceptable today, giving just fine and nice color images. And the introduction date. In fact, some people yearn for some of such films to comeback.
I encourage you forumers to search the internet for scans made using such films and you will find the results are quite pleasing.

1961 K*dachr*m* II (25 ASA)
1972 Kodacolor II (C41 process)
1974 K*dachr*m* 25, 64
1975 E-6 process and films
1978 Ektachrome 64
1983 Kodacolor VR100, 200, 400, 1000 ISO (t-grain technology if i am correct)
1987 Kodacolor Gold
1989 Ektar 25

 

[flavio81]

Recently I worked on a project that required some very precision specialized mechanics. My group needed to pass the knowledge to another group - all expert mechanical engineers but with no experience in the particular field we were working on. They thought they just needed the drawings and the documentation. It turned out it was far than enough. Having them create a working prototype took us many many months of couching.

But that does not make it impossible. "many months" sounds perfectly fine and reasonable to my ears. I'm an engineer myself and i'm accustomed to projects that require one or two years to release an acceptable product. The point is, precision or high tech engineering always takes time, but that doesn't make projects impossible or even unfeasible.

Now scale that to just a small factory like Ferrania, were you have thousands of specialized mechanics, electronics and software only to run the plant. No wonder they say their most precious asset are the old engineers that joined the team!

On the topic of Ferrania -- i think the Ferrania situation has been a bit misunderstood. They do not require thousands of people to run the new, small scale plant. Their team is currently of about 10 people, this includes coating operators, coating engineer, organic chemists, etc.

The reason Ferrania has taken 2 or 3 years without manufacturing film, despite having the engineers and the facilities, are of issues that are not really directly related to film making, but logistics issues:

- they had to move lots of machinery from a GIANT facility that was about to demolished to other, smaller facilities
- they had to literally clean the walls of the new facilities and clean the machinery, with only two or three people available for this task.
- their power supply was interrupted due to the government building a highway in the middle of their power and water lines
- same for the water lines
- they needed a new chilling system

and
- italian bureoucracy is slow

None of these are engineering issues directly related to coating, emulsion engineering, film base engineering or manufacturing.

My point is that if you have an interruption of the inter-human knowledge, it is very very difficult to rebuild it, even with the best documentation.

I contend that if Kodak and Fuji go bankrupt and stop production, what will naturally happen is that the engineers that loved what they did inside, now out of work, will have a natural instinct to share and thus preserve their 'tribal' knowledge via the internet.

And if nobody purchases the intellectual property assets, ALL the microfilmed and printed internal documentation will be promptly leaked into the internet, which WILL cause a stir on forums for scientific-minded people (organic chemists, for example) and thus will cause discussions of what has been found in such documentation and so on. Tribal discussion at work.

I am never implying that this then means that any chemist will quickly engineer his own C41 or E6 film "at home" with a small lab. What i mean is that this open the possibility of some enthusiasts and chemists and engineers getting together, engaging amateur photographers through social media into raising money (i.e. via a Kickstarter), and thus, with financing and a long enough timeline, manufacture film again.

In case anybody forgot this, the guys at FILM Ferrania were able to raise USD $322,420 in only two months with support from 5,582 color film enthusiasts around the world.

I think this is worth repeating.

The guys at FILM Ferrania were able to raise USD $322,420 in only two months with support from 5,582 color film enthusiasts around the world.

 

[twelvetone12]

I think we are talking I'm slightly different terms. in you example it would be the kodak or Fuji engeneers that run the plants. what is none were available and you had to do it from scratch?
I think this it is more the scenario that says "when it is over it is over".

 

[flavio81]

I think we are talking I'm slightly different terms. in you example it would be the kodak or Fuji engeneers that run the plants. what is none were available and you had to do it from scratch?
I think this it is more the scenario that says "when it is over it is over".

I agree with you, but what I contend is that the most likely scenario after the Kodak and Fuji plants go down, is that the "tribal" knowledge gets preserved through modern information sharing technology.

 

[MattKing]

IIRC, much of the information at Eastman Kodak was compartmentalized. There is/was no single location for documentation that described an entire process, nor were there any individuals with complete knowledge of a single process.
All in the aid of defeating industrial espionage or inadvertent sharing of proprietary processes.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Bob Shanebrook's new book explains to some extent, how compartmentalized things were at EK. And, to make it even worse, we often could not move a formula from Rochester to Colorado or Harrow. The formula(s) just did not transition well and took much re-engineering. EK retirees for the most part don't care and wont take an active role in technology transfer. They might help Bob or me (see credits in our books) but they would not go further. I have asked a few and they are aware of what is going on in the film world and just don't care.

Same for Fuji and Konica. I have talked to them personally, or I have found that they are so old they cannot help.

PE

 

[ericdan]

If and when Fuji goes down, secrets will not leak and won't be sold. It's not about profit its about following rules in Japan.

 

[Photo Engineer]

At Kodak, looking at Fuji technology, we felt that we were about 10 - 20 years ahead of them. Most of what they are doing is an EK invention and was licensed from EK patents. Agfa started out way ahead of EK, and then pulled up in the '70 but their films still had poor raw stock keeping and poor dye stability. Fuji had a clear lead in image stability in paper in the '80s but Kodak caught up.

Of course this is a gross oversimplification, but gives you a slight view of what went on. The field leaders in product quality was uneven. Some better, some worse, some even.

The point is that it doesn't matter what Fuji has or does not have. Neither company will release information that is classified as a trade secret. Sometimes, only one or two people know that secret detail and it dies with them. I have seen one serious case of this myself, up close.

PE

 

[Craig]

I agree with you, but what I contend is that the most likely scenario after the Kodak and Fuji plants go down, is that the "tribal" knowledge gets preserved through modern information sharing technology.

You're assuming that the knowledge gets out into "the wild" and is able to be shared. I suspect that it won't. I know from the oil and gas industry that a lot of knowledge never escapes those in the industry and is carried in their heads. PE's comments about the non transportability of emulsions even within EK speaks to the difficulties of recreating technology from the outside, if those on the inside have troubles.

 

[Craig]

- "Tribal" knowledge is only oral. Companies such as Kodak or Fuji must have extensive internal documentation on all their processes, formulas, guidelines; in short, the whole knowledge.

- Such documentation is private and proprietary, but in the event of a bankrupt or closure of that factory, these assets (documentation) will probably be sold OR leaked into the public.

I'm more pessimistic. I was looking for the Kodak tech pubs on the RA4 process last night, and had trouble finding the tech sheets. I just kept running into deal links and got nowhere. This is information that Kodak used to want people to be able to access easily. I eventually found part of what I wanted by googling the publication number and found an archived copy, but I had to know the publication number. This was due to the reorganization since Kodak's bankruptcy. If I didn't know the number I never would have found it - and this is something that was publicly available for years!

In the case of information that a company is actively keeping secret and out of public access, I think it will simply disappear into a black hole. The way the information is stored fragments might appear, but nothing like a whole process.

Or, the company goes bankrupt, the receiver comes in and wipes the hard drives before selling the assets at auction and any information is gone forever.

 

[flavio81]

At Kodak, looking at Fuji technology, we felt that we were about 10 - 20 years ahead of them. Most of what they are doing is an EK invention and was licensed from EK patents.

This is a different topic, but my impression was that back in the 1990s-2000s when Velvia was released, Kodak had no E6 competing product and then had to release Ektachrome E100VS ("very saturated") to compete with. We all know that Velvia (and later improved E6 films by Fuji and Kodak) was what killed Kodachrome!!

Astia 100 was released and had supposedly the finest grain of all slide film with excellent skin tones, at first Kodak had no product with those characteristics. Kodak had Ektachrome 100 Plus (EPP) which had great skin tones but apparently it was not as finer grained. Astia was wonderful, wonderful film, jaw dropping portraits were made with this.

Provia 100F was released with the finest grain (while keeping really good colors) and then Kodak released E100G as a competing product.

Fuji had "Fujichrome MS100/1000" which could be shot (and pushed) from ISO 100 to 1000 with success, Kodak had no such product.

In consumer films, Fuji Superia 800 was noticeably finer grained than Kodak "MAX" 800, while having excellent colors. Previously, there was Kodak "Royal Gold 1000" which had much, much coarser grain; then came Kodak Supra 800 which was very good, but that was no consumer film.I used Kodak Supra 800 and Fuji Superia 800, and liked the latter a bit more.

Fuji Reala 100 (and later Superia Reala) was released to quite a stir and became the preferred ISO 100 color neg film of choice for many, and only later Kodak answered with their Supra line of films.

My impresion was that Fuji was ahead than Kodak. There, i said it. I don't write this to offend anyone at Kodak, but it simply surprises me that you guys felt that you were "10 - 20 years ahead of Fuji". Perhaps in the 1970s and 80s they were ahead of Fuji; i would fully agree in this case. But here, at least in my city, during the late 1990s, early 2000s, which was the period I used color film for professional purposes, all the pros 'converged' in the same professional photo lab and the great majority of them were partial to Fuji - Astia, Provia, Velvia, NPS, NPH, NPC, Reala... you name it, mostly 6x7 format. It was very rare to see pros using Kodak film, to be honest! Whey they used it, i saw a lot of Kodak EPP (Ektachrome 100 Plus) even after the newer E100V and VS were introduced. It seems pros were faithful to EPP.

Black and white was a different story and everybody swore by the Kodak films. Nobody used Fuji B/W film except for Acros 100. Neopan 400, 1600, Neopan SS? No one used it.

I would really like to know what is your take on this. Again, i'm not writing this to alienate anyone, and my respect and admiration for the engineers behind all major film brands is huge. But i can't re conciliate such a comment with what I saw back then when all the pros were using film.

 

[flavio81]

You're assuming that the knowledge gets out into "the wild" and is able to be shared. I suspect that it won't. I know from the oil and gas industry that a lot of knowledge never escapes those in the industry and is carried in their heads. PE's comments about the non transportability of emulsions even within EK speaks to the difficulties of recreating technology from the outside, if those on the inside have troubles.

Food for thought, perhaps you are right and i'm being over optimistic.

 

[Photo Engineer]

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

 

[Prof_Pixel]

Ron, there is the old saying: "no job is impossible to the person who doesn't have to do it". Maybe in the context of his message thread we should change it to: "no job is impossible to the person who hasn't tried to do it"

Fred

 

[Craig]

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?

 

[Gerald C Koch]

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. Then there is Tironamine-C used in Chanplin 16 and Edwal 36. The composition forever lost. To name a couple.

 

[AgX]

It is not necessarily so in all cases that, as Ron hints at, knowledge is locked up to a point that one no longer knows who has the keys, but instead being neglected. With the same outcome.

 

[flavio81]

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

Thanks for your "kind" words, Ron.
I'm out of here, goodbye.