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CatLABS X FILM 320 35mm has finally arrived

CatLABS

Member
Joined
May 20, 2011
Messages
1,576
Location
MA, USA
Format
Large Format

After a long delay, CatLABS X FILM 320 35mm film is finally here - for a short time only - buy a 10 pack and get a free CatLABS film box.
Check out some sample shots on our website in the link bellow.

• CatLABS X FILM 320 is a classic, medium-speed film, designed for a wide array of shooting conditions

• An ideal “street film”, offering versatility and unique characteristics

• Characterized by its distinct grain quality, contrast and tonal range, not found with other traditional films

• Produces unique, deep, grey tones with an almost silver/metallic look

• Suitable for low light or available light conditions

• Exhibits a wide exposure latitude under various lighting conditions

• Rate it at 200 ISO when shooting outdoors under bright sunlight, or push it as high as 1600 when shooting under artificial/low light conditions

We greatly appreciate it when you support our small locally owned resellers, such as Brooklyn Film Camera and Blue moon camera in Portland. Also available from Ultrafine online (photowarehouse), BH and other online photo retailers.

To get the 10 pack deal mentioned above visit this link https://www.catlabs.info/product/catlabs-x-film-320
 
A speed of 320 is unusual Only Foma I think has a film of a similar speed. If you have already told us all about this film then just point me to the link. I am interested in how it came about. Is this a film made by CATLABS at its own facility or if not what is CATLABS input into its production ?

Thanks

pentaxuser
 
This film has nothing to do with Foma.

All the details about the film are in the initial post and some samples posted on our website.
 
Just because two films have the same ISO does not prove that they are in anyway related other than that they have the same speed and that they are film. If that is all you have, please save the bandwidth.
 
CatLABS said:
This film has nothing to do with Foma.

All the details about the film are in the initial post and some samples posted on our website.
Click to expand...

Who is coating this new film? You guys? Or somebody else?

Jim B.
 
CATLABS , I have to take it by your reply that you have given us all the details we are going to get and questions about you film facilities, who coats it etc will not be forthcoming. That's fine but making an announcement of a new film on a site like Photrio is bound to produce questions such as mine and now Mackinaw's, I would have thought, given the interest in who makes what in terms of films these days

pentaxuser
 
I'm not so sure a company has any obligation to reveal their production details. They took the risk and spent the capital to introduce a new product. That should be good enough. Digital photography all but devastated conventional process from top to bottom. Be glad a company stepped up to restore so much if what was needlessly lost. Buy some film and give it a shot. You have nothing to lose. But nitpicking details out of these companies can make for such a hostile atmosphere, the next company with an idea to make film may say to heck with it and use that money to flip real estate.
 

I'm just curious. Coating film is difficult and only a handful of companies are set up to do it. If CatLABS is now coating film, this is big news and we should all be talking about it. But if this film is coated by somebody else, they should just say so. There's no shame in admitting that "Company X" is coating their film.

Jim B.
 
You can bang on the door all you want but no company is going to release proprietary information. It is time to stop asking the same questions over and over and over and over again again again. Get over your self. BTW just because two films have the same ISO it not ipso facto proof that the two films are related beyond that fact that they are films and have the same ISO. SAVE THE BANDWIDTH!!!!
 
Right, nobody ask any questions. CatLABS is sacrosanct.
 
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When Colgate Palmolive starting making toothpaste, there was no internet for people to question it. They just bought toothpaste because their teeth were rotting away. Was Proctor and Gamble making it for them? Maybe. Who knows? If so, at one point they made enough money to spend the capital to build their own mixing equipment. All this post was, was an announcement. Not an invitation to open fire. Too much information is worse than none at all. At least let them get their horse out of the gate.
 
It is difficult to say who Sirius is annoyed at but if it was me then all I can say is that I simply commented that the choice of 320 was unusual and only Foma in recent years launched a film of this speed. I had hoped that maybe CATLABS would use the opportunity to say what brought about this decision to go for 320.

We have recently had Mirko state, I thjnk, that there were only 3 factories left who could do coating. I don' t think CATLABS was one of those mentioned. However there may now be a fourth namely CATLABS. Recently there has been extensive threads on who makes what and clearly as film users it is natural for us to ask about the background to a new film. I thought as a forum that our first loyalty is to each other as users. Isn't advancing our knowledge of film in general a prime objective of Photrio and we do this by engendering discussions the objective of which is to improve our knowledge and by this our choice of what we buy?

Finally I had always thought that CATLABS as a company on Photrio would expect to be asked questions about a new product it has announced but maybe we should look on CATLABS and Ilford for that matter as simply sellers whose relationship to us is no different to those companies we buy from on Amazon.

It would look as if in the future based on opinions I have seen that when, say, Ilford introduces a new film or deletes a current one we should accept a one line announcement to that effect as we are entitled to no more. End of story.

If Ilford, to continue with the example above, were to do this then I might still have to buy its films but I have to say it would affect the way I viewed it for the future

pentaxuser
 
pentaxuser said:
We have recently had Mirko state, I thjnk, that there were only 3 factories left who could do coating.
pentaxuser
Click to expand...

Well, your statement is not correct. Fortunately .
You are referring to this thread: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/new-metropolis-film-on-kickstarter-from-lomo.168733/page-2
There is the Adox statement, that currently three film factories are producing colour film. And not that there are only three factories left who could do coating generally. That is a huge difference!

The three factories mentioned (Kodak, Fujifilm, InovisCoat) are also producing BW film. And in addition we have worldwide the following factories which are currently also producing BW film: Harman technology / Ilford Photo, Agfa (Belgium), Foma, Polaroid, Adox, FilmoTec (no own coating, but emulsion making), Lucky, Shanghai, Tasma, Micron. And in the future probably Film Ferrania, too.

Best regards,
Henning

P.S.: To be absolutely precise: Carestream is also producing BW X-Ray film. So they have to be added to the list.
 
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faberryman said:
Right, nobody ask any questions. CatLABS is sacrosanct.
Click to expand...

No, ask reasonable questions. You really should look into taking remedial reading classes for comprehension and understanding. Good luck with that.
 
Henning, thanks for the information on who can make film and make emulsion I was simply trying to find out if this is a new emulsion and if so made by whom it is made. There may be genuine differences in CATLABS film which gives it a unique "edge" on other films at 320 I have also been informed that there is another 320 film besides Foma and CATLABS. That film is an Ars Imago film. So how many different 320 films do we have?

I have no knowledge of CATLABS capacity to either make film, make an emulsion or commission an emulsion to its own unique requirements

It doesn't look like I am going to get any answers "direct from the horse's mouth " i.e. CATLABS, to use a British expression.

pentaxuser
 
pentaxuser said:
.......It doesn't look like I am going to get any answers "direct from the horse's mouth " i.e. CATLABS, to use a British expression.......
Click to expand...

CatLABS, by their silence has answered the question. I'm sure if they were really making film, they would be like Ferrania and Adox, proud of what they've done or are or trying to do, and would be quite open about it. Instead we get nothing. As already mentioned, there's no shame in admitting that somebody else is making their stuff.

Jim B.
 
If a film has a competitive edge i.e. a feature that has been built into it by commissioning an emulsion that other 320 films lack then fine but unless we hear something that indicates this then we are looking at a price edge only. At $9 a roll is this a competitive price edge if it is not a different film from that which already exists? Not a rhetorical question on my part I don't know the prices of other 320 films nor 400 films in the U.S. which are close enough to be included in the comparison.

The Ars Imago 320 film in Europe has been pointed out to me. It does say to quote:
"No, it is not a new emulsion, but it is a film that is not presently on the market. We have used an existing emulsion, tested and studied it in order to determine which ISO and development times guarantee the best results."

However it also says it is a limited edition. If that much thought and effort has been put into it why a limited edition, I wonder? It has now been sold out So presumably Ars Imago made a miscalculation as it would appear that demand exceeds supply.

Certainly when translating the price into GBP from Euros it is not particularly competitive against Foma or Ilford Kentmere

I use the example of the Ars Imago film not to divert attention from CATLABS film but simply to illustrate that unless whenever obvious questions arise that have not been answered, then more information is needed by me to make me consider purchase.

If I am in a minority of one or even in a small minority then it may make sense not to give out more information. It might at best increase sales by a few films but have "costs" in releasing information which is believed to be commercially damaging.

So be it. As in all matters of purchase, each of us needs to decide if we have enough information such that the product price justifies the purchase.

No prizes for guessing my decision

pentaxuser
 
  • AgX
  • Deleted

Henning, your list is incomplete. Add Rockland, Film Washi and Pictoriographica to your list of emulsion makers, and Film Washi and Pictoriographica to your list of coaters. I believe there are more.

Regards,
Jason
 
Nodda Duma said:
Henning, your list is incomplete. Add Rockland, Film Washi and Pictoriographica to your list of emulsion makers, and Film Washi and Pictoriographica to your list of coaters. I believe there are more.

Regards,
Jason
Click to expand...

Hello Jason,
with my list I was referring to real film factories producing film in an industrial way. With e.g. state-of-the-art emulsion kettles and coating machines. And higher volume converting/finishing machinery. I've seen several of these factories from the inside and talked to the engineers. Just visited another one - one of the most modern - just two month ago.
The projects you mentioned like Film Washi are completely different to that, not comparable, and not an industrial-scale production.

Best regards,
Henning
 
Well ok, Henning..but that wasn’t clear.

And as you may know or should know, small businesses are just as important to a healthy industry as the big guys.

Regards,
Jason
 
Hello Jason,

Nodda Duma said:
Well ok, Henning..but that wasn’t clear.
Click to expand...

please just look at my first posting: I wrote "factories". That is a very clear and precise standard term for industrial production.

Nodda Duma said:
And as you may know or should know, small businesses are just as important to a healthy industry as the big guys.

Regards,
Jason
Click to expand...

Yes and no.
Just imagine the three you mentioned stop their activities: Would that have a significant impact on the film industry and film shooters? No. 99.99% of the global film shooter community would probably not even realize that they have stopped because they have never used one of their products or even don't know that these guys exist at all.
And now imagine if one of Kodak, Fujifilm, Ilford, Foma, or Polaroid would stop production. That would really have a significant impact on the industry and all of us. Because each of them is producing millions of rolls of film p.a., some of them even dozens of millions of films.
I am doing market research for a very long time. I've just got the newest data from the film market in. The demand for film is significantly increasing. It is so strong, that currently the volume of film backorders (orders surpassing supply) globally is in the two-digit million volume. It is so strong that some manufacturers have problems to keep up with demand, and have to run their converting lines in two or even three shifts per day operation.
And the demand will further increase in the coming years. We are just at the beginning of the film revival. We need modern, state-of-the-art industrial film production of high(er) volume to satisfy the demand of this market. And that cannot be done at all by small 1-2 employee workshops. I really appreciate what these enthusiastic people do, but they cannot offer what the global film market needs to flourish globally.

Best regards,
Henning
 
Henning it sounds as if we need you to comment each time A "new" film is launched but not by any of the well known players such as Kodak Fuji Ilford Adox or Foma. In case this sounds sarcastic it is not. You have a range of knowledge on film manufacturing facilities that may be better than nearly all of us.

Just as an aside I did wonder why the annoucement of the new CATLABS 320 film in question did not meet with the usual interest on Photrio. I was the first to ask a question and by then nearly 24 hours had elapsed. Within minutes of the announcement of the new Acros there were about 3 threads running I have since seen another thread on CATLABS 80 film which had largely passed me by and I am now a little clearer why the usual forum enthusiasm seems absent

pentaxuser
 
pentaxuser said:
So be it. As in all matters of purchase, each of us needs to decide if we have enough information such that the product price justifies the purchase.
Click to expand...


The decision is made by shooting the film and trying it out. Origin, who made what and where, neither of those questions are going to tell you what’s most important, how does the film look and shoot. I’m excited to buy a few rolls.
 
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