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Did Kodak get back into the b/w paper market and we all missed it?

bob100684

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I was on kodak gallery today for the first time in litterally a year...and there was an ad for their new "pro gallery". They advertise having a true b/w paper. Are they farming this out to another lab? Would they really sell an ilford product? I though Ilford had some sort of strategic partnership with Fuji.
 
Curious.
 
maybe like the ilford fb light jet paper
this is a b/w paper, made for light jet,
this paper, like endura, is a color paper, but made
for printing b/w images at a pro-lab ...

just a guess
 
I honestly feel really stupid asking that question because my gut says they wouldn't have restarted without someone hearing about it before a digital printing site went live with it. My gut also says kodak wouldn't sell an Ilford product though.
 
jnanian said:
maybe like the ilford fb light jet paper
this is a b/w paper, made for light jet,
this paper, like endura, is a color paper, but made
for printing b/w images at a pro-lab ...

just a guess
Click to expand...

Yeah...they used to make a monochrome RA-4 paper, but I believe that was dropped long before they dropped their real b/w papers. And I don't think they'd be labeling prints as "true black and white" if it was just someone at a noritsu or frontier hitting the greyscale button and outputting on a regular color paper.
 


true black and white is all relative,
and in today's marketplace -
you never know ..
considering numeric b/w is really
lagging behind it's over the top sibling
it might all be one of those things -
 
Sorry for starting the thread...further poking around lead to this http://assets.kodakgallery.com/A/help.html Under "new offerings exclusively on the Kodak gallery beta" there is this, " 1. Printed with Professional Color Management
2. Select from the following paper choices: KODAK PROFESSIONAL ENDURA Paper, KODAK PROFESSIONAL ENDURA Metallic Paper and ILFORD Professional True Black and White Paper
3. Shipped via expedited shipping methods"

they really hid that.
 
Well, that's cool that they're buying paper from Ilford. Now if they could finish Ilford rollfilm in 220...
 
I am seeing Kodak black and white film (C41, of course) on displays in some drug stores in North Carolina. That is interesting, because in these stores, the Kodak space is only about 8 spaces, and one of them is devoted to this oddball film. With the shrinking of shelf space for film everywhere I look, the presence of this film looks like test marketing.
 
They aren't selling boxes of b&w paper that we can print on, they are using some sort of silver based b&w paper in-house to print digital images that we upload to the Kodak beta site. It could be Ilford or maybe old Kodak stock. It might even be newly manufactured Kodak b&w paper. Who knows?
 
I would be nice if they made black and white paper again.
 
bob100684 said:
2. Select from the following paper choices: KODAK PROFESSIONAL ENDURA Paper, KODAK PROFESSIONAL ENDURA Metallic Paper and ILFORD Professional True Black and White Paper
they really hid that.
Click to expand...

Hah, hell has officially frozen over.
 
Given that the b/w paper is more expensive...they seem to admit that at least some people are willing to pay a premium for a real RC b/w paper vs an RA-4 paper.....to bad they can't turn that into making a profit and finding it feasible to sell b/w paper themselves.
 

Yep. You'd think it'd be 1+1 = 2. At the same time - it's better they do offer this than don't. BTW: Is it even possible to make "laser" style paper work with traditional enlargers or just forget it?
 
clayne said:
Is it even possible to make "laser" style paper work with traditional enlargers or just forget it?
Click to expand...

It is and it isn't. Since digital enlargers use RGB lasers to record the image, digital B&W paper is made to be panchromatic. Because of this (and the fact that it's not available in sheets) can be difficult to handle. I've never seen it made in more than one grade either.
 
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clayne said:
Hah, hell has officially frozen over.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I guess corporate pride falls in the face of economic reality.

If someone had told me 30 years ago that Nikon would put their name on a 35mm SLR made by Cosina I would have said it would never happen.

Just goes to show ya.
 
clayne said:
Is it even possible to make "laser" style paper work with traditional enlargers or just forget it?
Click to expand...

I have wondered about this too.

On their website, Ilford say that they have worked with Fuji to modify a minilab machine to work with black and white paper for their black and white only process and print service.

EDIT: My initial assumptions of this paper are that it is not multigrade and the light source in the mini-lab is not RGB any more but is a single colour - probably blue or green. I suspect that all contrast adjustments are done by software rather than the traditional methods we are familiar with.

So I suppose the paper could be used with a traditional enlarger but there would not be much control possible other than amount of exposure.


Steve.
 
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lxdude said:
If someone had told me 30 years ago that Nikon would put their name on a 35mm SLR made by Cosina I would have said it would never happen.

Just goes to show ya.
Click to expand...

I think you'll find Nikon were having SLR cameras made elsewhere nearly 30 years ago, it's just it was a trade secret back then. It's rather like the products Ilford made for Fuji.

Ian
 
Steve Smith said:
I have wondered about this too.

On their website, Ilford say that they have worked with Fuji to modify a minilab machine to work with black and white paper for their black and white only process and print service.

Steve.
Click to expand...

On last years Ilford factory tour Simon told us that the paper was high speed and the problem would be controlling the short exposures with a normal enlarger.

The ramp up time of a conventional bulb makes very short exposures inaccurate. Maybe with a strong neutral density filter it might be viable, but a high speed paper would also be prone to fogging from the stray light that all enlargers tend to spill out from around the neg carriers etc.

Ian
 
Ian Grant said:
On last years Ilford factory tour Simon told us that the paper was high speed and the problem would be controlling the short exposures with a normal enlarger.
Click to expand...

That makes sense. I was editing my previous post whilst you were writing this and I have added some other assumptions (which are only my thoughts, not based on facts).


Steve.
 

Boy that sure would have been useful if they kept the papers the same. But yet again, speed, speed, speed - and for what? So the consumer/viewer can just quickly move on to the next thing?

As we march forward into modern times, we continually say goodbye to quality and keep pumping out the quantity. BTW: Do they even diagnose kids with ADD these days or is it now considered a requirement for birth?

Okay, ranting done.
 
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