Eastman Kodak: Strong increasing demand for movie film

[btaylor]

+1 on Plus-X!
My favorite b&w film.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...Plus-X is my request.

+1 on Plus-X!...

Nah, Matt, there are plenty of approximately ISO 100 monochrome film choices available. Since you've now admitted to having control over EKCo and KA, please ensure that 4x5 Panatomic-X is available for purchase not later than when COVID-19 movement restrictions are lifted. If HARMAN won't give us Pan F Plus in sheets, direct the Kodaks to fill this void.

 

[Rlibersky]

+1 on Plus-X!
My favorite b&w film.

+1 here

 

[MattKing]

Since you've now admitted to having control over EKCo and KA,

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Andrew,
I've passed on your desire for HIE, and Bob and Nicole's desire for EIR .
Plus-X is my request.

Thanks, Matt. Plus-X is a wonderful emulsion...and I'd be thrilled to see it come back... but, I'd rather see a real IR film. With HIE one could get fantastic wood effect with just a #25 filter.

 

[Lachlan Young]

The most likely candidates are those that transitioned to B38's coating machine - so anything that was still coated post 2002-4 - so 125PX is a likely suspect - or possibly 320TXP returning in a rollfilm format.

 

[lantau]

B38 is using IR monitoring. My guess is that there won't be any IR film coming out of that coater.

 

[miha]

B38 is using IR monitoring. My guess is that there won't be any IR film coming out of that coater.

But IR spectrium is quite wide - from visible light up to 1 mm.

 

[Lachlan Young]

B38 is using IR monitoring. My guess is that there won't be any IR film coming out of that coater.

All modern coating machines use it - if you were to use perhaps 1000nm, you'd probably be fine. It's more the massive costs, potential environmental safety issues and very short shelf life of of the sensitising dyes that are the problem. Mirko has commented on this regarding Adox's products. With sufficient R&D, and without the probable military/ industrial needs for HIE's specific sensitisation, a similar product could probably be engineered with slightly shorter sensitisation - the two important visual aspects are the green 'gap' in sensitisation and the minimal anti-halation.

 

[iandvaag]

I'm constrained by a couple of things

Fair enough, I thought as much.

If we're asking for weird and wacky things, I'd love to see:
Kodak Professional B&W duplicating film
Kodak Edupe
And most of all, a material that makes slides from colour negs.

But I'm sure these are all terrible commercial ideas. I could see aerochrome being quite successful nowadays.

 

[Agulliver]

I doubt HIE would be first in the queue.

Plus-X would seem to be a possibility. I do miss it. Especially in super 8.

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Plus-X? Yet an other 100 asa (125asa but whatevs) film? Wooweee.


Like the many 100asa speed films already out there.

I'd like something special, unique that has no equivant. Like EIR

 

[cmacd123]

Kodak Professional B&W duplicating film
.

can you use the Motion picture B&W intermediate films?

 

[iandvaag]

That's a great idea, Charles. I haven't done enough research, but possibly yes. From what I can see, Kodak offers two B&W duplicating films: 2234 (for making negs from positives) and 2366 (for interpositives). When these two films are used in tandem, it seems like you can do a huge number of generations without appreciable loss in quality. I'm not sure how well they perform when trying to image a print or slide (which I expect has much higher contrast than an interpositive). The nice thing about Kodak Professional B&W duplicating film is that it had an upswept curve in the highlight region. This higher contrast in the highlight region helped increase highlight separation when duplicating materials whose image "data" lies on the shoulder of the curve, that is, whose highlights are compressed. It doesn't look like either of the motion picture films have that same upswept characteristic curve. I'd love to try them none-the-less, but the minimum orders are prohibitively large for me at the moment.

I'd also really like to try Kodak's motion picture print film for making colour slides from colour negs. I know that PE said that the contrast of motion picture negs (~0.6) compared to still photography negs (~0.7) might be problematic when trying to print them, but I think if I used Portra 160 and pre-flashed the neg, I might be able to decrease the contrast enough to make some nice slides. Again, the minimum orders (and lack of free time) have prevented me from trying this out yet. If I was filthy rich, I would just buy some 70mm ECN-2 camera film, pay someone to spool it on to 120 and then print slides onto ECP film!

Ian

 

[Lachlan Young]

I know that PE said that the contrast of motion picture negs (~0.6) compared to still photography negs (~0.7) might be problematic when trying to print them,

I recall Ron saying something to the effect that professional still C-41 films had a 0.6 aim and amateur had a 0.7 aim to compensate for higher flare in cheaper optical systems. Something like Vericolor print film is probably what you're after - that it never transitioned to Portra technology and fell off the market in the early 2000's should probably say how popular it was... I think it was effectively an unmasked tungsten balanced film emulsion set - the data sheet suggests 20M, 30Y start points for filtration - and the processing instructions also make clear that the couplers were the older ones that needed a formalin containing stabiliser - which is the strongest indication of how much older the emulsion technology was.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I doubt HIE would be first in the queue.

Plus-X would seem to be a possibility. I do miss it. Especially in super 8.

HIE and EIR will NEVER be in the queue. Both were heavily subsidized by the US Government to keep and preserve that national asset. To save money in the budget, a lot of money, the support was removed since the intelligence community and the Defense Department determined that the capability in digital IR was good enough to no longer support preserving IR films. Do not bother to bring it up again unless you can bring that much money to the table.

 

[iandvaag]

Something like Vericolor print film is probably what you're after

Yeah, that's the stuff!

 

[Agulliver]

HIE and EIR will NEVER be in the queue. Both were heavily subsidized by the US Government to keep and preserve that national asset. To save money in the budget, a lot of money, the support was removed since the intelligence community and the Defense Department determined that the capability in digital IR was good enough to no longer support preserving IR films. Do not bother to bring it up again unless you can bring that much money to the table.

I've read that before....I guess I was just trying to be a bit kinder to the "I want HIE" crowd.

If Kodak are able to bring back films, it will be relatively popular films that disappeared recently. We've seen how bringing back Ektachrome was something of a labour of love and a real trial that took over two years. P3200 was probably easier to resurrect after EK had mastered the ability to do smaller coating runs. I'd hazard a guess that B&W films which don't require unobtanium chemicals would be the first.

What was the reason for switching to the "new" Tri-X ?
What was the reason for axing Plus-X ?

If it was just lack of demand, then maybe films can be brought back. If it was because some constituent is no longer manufactured, then it's far more difficult.

 

[cmacd123]

I

What was the reason for switching to the "new" Tri-X ?
What was the reason for axing Plus-X ?

official reason given was that the two films were reformulated to allow production on the Coater in Building 38. previously as niche products they were probably made on a smaller coater.

Plus-x Reversal was reformulated to work better with a more environmentally friendly bleach, when Kodak revised the B&W reversal process. The new process does not seem to work with FOMA r-100 BTW.

 

[MattKing]

official reason given was that the two films were reformulated to allow production on the Coater in Building 38. previously as niche products they were probably made on a smaller coater.

It was more the case that Eastman Kodak consolidated all their film production to the single, high volume, high efficiency coating line in Building 38. That meant that all other coating lines - including lines in other production facilities around the world - were closed down.
The consolidation meant that the products had to be adjusted anyways, to take into account the new line. At that time the opportunity was taken to incorporate other improvements that had been R&D'ed but not yet incorporated into all production.
I don't know whether it applied to Tri-X, but certainly there were meaningful differences between different versions of the same Kodak films that related back to which production facility was used. As an example, some of the motion picture camera film made in the Kodak Pathe plant in France had a distinctly different character when compared with the same film made in the US.