Film from Italy -- Ferrania starting production 2014

TheToadMen · Sep 6, 2014

ME Super said:
No worries, I'll buy the 100. And Wittner's 200D made by Agfa-Geavart. And Velvia 50/Provia 100F by Fuji (Velvia 50 is magic, I love it for the inky blacks. Provia 100F looks good at box speed as well as pushed to 320/400). And HP5+ by Ilford. And some Porta 400/Ektar 100 by Kodak (though that gets fed to my box camera, which uses 620 film). I like all I've listed that I can currently buy. I'm sure I'll like the Ferrania too.

And don't forget specials like Adox CHS 100 II, Fomapan R100 and Washi Film to complete your inventory

(I just received my first 10 rolls of Washi film myself)

Curt · Sep 6, 2014

In a really simple statement can someone tell me what the new company is expecting to make? I tried to keep up but it's on page 63 now. 35mm or 120? Sheet in what size etc..

Ricardo Miranda · Sep 6, 2014

First a bit of background of what Ferrania did in the past:
At the time of closing film operations in 2009, they produced the following: Ferrania Solaris FG Plus 100, 200 and 400 colour negative.
The last slide film they had was an ISO 100.

Now, what the new company is trying to do is to reformulated the last 2 emulsions that were introduced in the past, that is the ISO 100 C41 and E6 emulsions. They are the newest formulations.
Sizes already said to be offered are 35mm and 120 still formats. 16mm and Super 8 for cine formats.

ME Super · Sep 6, 2014

I've heard that Adox's Silvermax is excellent when reversal processed. I might just give that one a try sometime, though I'll probably use DR5 for that since I don't do my own processing.

Xmas · Sep 6, 2014

Ricardo Miranda said:
First a bit of background of what Ferrania did in the past:
At the time of closing film operations in 2009, they produced the following: Ferrania Solaris FG Plus 100, 200 and 400 colour negative.
The last slide film they had was an ISO 100.

Now, what the new company is trying to do is to reformulated the last 2 emulsions that were introduced in the past, that is the ISO 100 C41 and E6 emulsions. They are the newest formulations.
Sizes already said to be offered are 35mm and 120 still formats. 16mm and Super 8 for cine formats.

Aside from making the factory work again they need to find substitutes for contrabanded chemicals hence the choice of the two most modern film types first.

wblynch · Sep 6, 2014

I don't know what contrabanded chemicals are needed to make color film but seriously, governments should be more concerned with GMO's in food and global climate change than policing a minuscule little film industry.

I mean they aren't selling and processing a billion rolls a year anymore.

StoneNYC · Sep 6, 2014

wblynch said:
I don't know what contrabanded chemicals are needed to make color film but seriously, governments should be more concerned with GMO's in food and global climate change than policing a minuscule little film industry.

I mean they aren't selling and processing a billion rolls a year anymore.

Those contraband chemicals are part of what causes global climate change... Just a thought.

ME Super · Sep 6, 2014

+1 to Bill's comment, though I am a fan of taking care of our environment, since we've only got the one habitable planet.

Lately there have been a lot of posts on their website, at least since David Bias joined their team. I'd like to think that Film Ferrania has taken a lesson from all the love that is shown to Ilford Photo around here, and that David is their version of Simon Galley. I've seen quite a few responses from David to comments and questions on their site, which leads me to think this way. Go Film Ferrania!

Xmas · Sep 6, 2014

I did not say global warming and normally the contraband is to protect the workers when something is discovered to have long term health problems.

Eg Formalin, lead in optical glass, etc.

StoneNYC · Sep 6, 2014

Xmas said:
I did not say global warming and normally the contraband is to protect the workers when something is discovered to have long term health problems.

Eg Formalin, lead in optical glass, etc.

No one said global warming, but global climate change is pretty much the same thing..

Photo Engineer · Sep 6, 2014

Lead salts, Mercury salts, Cadmium salts and many many organic compounds too numerous to mention (and which differ from company and product to company and product). Don't be blind to the fact that all products are being re-engineered to fit new standards and these films must measure up to the same test.

PE

Rudeofus · Sep 6, 2014

The problem is not necessarily that chemical compounds have become illegal in commercial products, but that they are no longer made. Ferrania hasn't coated still film for several years, so why should suppliers have held on to production expertise and facilities for these compounds?

Ricardo Miranda · Sep 6, 2014

Ferrania hasn't coated still film for several years

4 to 5 years. Is that many years?

Ken Nadvornick · Sep 6, 2014

ME Super said:
Lately there have been a lot of posts on their website, at least since David Bias joined their team. I'd like to think that Film Ferrania has taken a lesson from all the love that is shown to Ilford Photo around here, and that David is their version of Simon Galley. I've seen quite a few responses from David to comments and questions on their site, which leads me to think this way. Go Film Ferrania!

Couldn't agree more. One could do far worse than to aspire to become the Color Ilford. Modern marketing, which is what this is, will be hugely important to any chance of long-term success. Combine that with viable products produced in appropriate volumes for today's markets and they could be around for a good long while.

And make some good money. Not 80s money for sure. But 10s money not left on the table still spends the same.

Ken

Rudeofus · Sep 6, 2014

Ricardo Miranda said:
4 to 5 years. Is that many years?

If you run a production line for $widget, you will encounter the following things over the years:

The person who knew the process for making $widget leaves/retires. Do you train another person for this process?
A machine needed for making $widget has a controller which runs on an 80386 computer under MSDOS. That machine has been flaky lately ...
The vendor for a machine gets bought out by their competition, and the new company won't support the old machines. Will you contract one of their former engineers to fix that machine for big wads of money?
A key ingredient for $widget is now made with a different process which makes it behave a bit differently. You have to adjust your process for $widget in order to make it work with new version of $key_ingredient.
Some jerk discovered that you can make something nefarious with a compound similar so $widget and starts flooding the black market. Are you going through the red tape now required for making and selling $widget?

Now imagine any of this happens after your only customer for $widget announced that "we are not going to make $product any longer, so we won't need $widget in the foreseeable future" ....

Photo Engineer · Sep 6, 2014

I think that Rudi has summarized that well. At EK, our copiers used the 4004 microprocessor when the '386 was in general use. Our 4004s were special made by Intel at a premium price.

PE

Ken Nadvornick · Sep 6, 2014

Rudeofus said:
If you run a production line for $widget, you will encounter the following things over the years:

The person who knew the process for making $widget leaves/retires. Do you train another person for this process?

A machine needed for making $widget has a controller which runs on an 80386 computer under MSDOS. That machine has been flaky lately ...

The vendor for a machine gets bought out by their competition, and the new company won't support the old machines. Will you contract one of their former engineers to fix that machine for big wads of money?

A key ingredient for $widget is now made with a different process which makes it behave a bit differently. You have to adjust your process for $widget in order to make it work with new version of $key_ingredient.

Some jerk discovered that you can make something nefarious with a compound similar so $widget and starts flooding the black market. Are you going through the red tape now required for making and selling $widget?

Now imagine any of this happens after your only customer for $widget announced that "we are not going to make $product any longer, so we won't need $widget in the foreseeable future" ....

All true. And given Ferrania's impending "big announcement" in a couple of weeks, my guess is that they have already identified, researched, and then either mitigated or signed off on all of these risks. And probably many, many others.

Let's give them some credit...

Ken

StoneNYC · Sep 6, 2014

Photo Engineer said:
I think that Rudi has summarized that well. At EK, our copiers used the 4004 microprocessor when the '386 was in general use. Our 4004s were special made by Intel at a premium price.

PE

There's a lot of hope in the New World, there's probably an iPhone app for that

I'm being a little cheeky in my comment, but in all honesty with today's computing power in small devices they have been able to overcome some of these obstacles through the use of systems that mimic the original architecture in software rather than hardware, and that has enabled at least some things to be overcome and given the ability to use new reliable equipment.

That said, it still requires a lot of research and development before that can be done, still going along the same lines of needing the expertise of former users of the software etc. but obviously at least there's some hope.

AgX · Sep 6, 2014

Rudeofus said:
The problem is not necessarily that chemical compounds have become illegal in commercial products, but that they are no longer made. Ferrania hasn't coated still film for several years, so why should suppliers have held on to production expertise and facilities for these compounds?

One should not overlook that Ferrania was (and still is) a chemical plant. They are able to produce necessary elements for film manufacture on order from Film-Ferrania.

Dr Croubie · Sep 6, 2014

Sounds familiar. I went to a talk on Project Management the other day, talking about australia's Collins Class Submarines. Because a sub takes a while to build, and there were quite a few of them, by the time the first one was finished it was using parts that were superseded. By the time the last one was finished it was using parts that had been obsolete for 10 years...

ME Super · Sep 6, 2014

Sounds familiar. In my line of work, the web sites we create must work in Firefox, Chrome, Safari (MacOS and iOS versions), the Android stock browser, and Internet Explorer. The worst one to support by far is Internet Explorer, as it's taken them so long to decide to follow the Web standards instead of doing things their own way. A distant second is the iOS version of Safari. The worst thing about it is that what will work on one iOS device won't on another, and they're running the same version of the OS and the same version of Safari.

Some of us complain about not having the older stuff supported, while others of us complain about having to support the older stuff, when the newer stuff makes our jobs much simpler. So yeah, I get it. I don't understand all the ins and outs, but the concept is at least familiar to me.

And then there are those of us who attempt to build network accessible storage from a $35 credit-card sized computer and an externally powered USB drive, just to see if it can be done (it can - the hard drive draws more power than the server, which runs off of a cell phone charger). Yeah, I'm one of those guys. I could've built it with more powerful hardware so it would have better performance, but this is good enough - I can use it for a media server and store backups on it, which is all I really needed anyway.

cmacd123 · Sep 6, 2014

Perhaps unlike the test coaters at some of the other film factories, apparently 3M designed the one at Ferrania to be a work alike for their "Big Coater" so hopefully they will be able to produce a commercial grade product on it.

Other notes:

The Solaris colour negative films were masked could negatives designed to print on the "Kodak Channel" of a photofinishing colour printing machine. I could not imagine any reason why anyone would make an Unmasked colour negative for pictorial use. Solaris film has green and red "Plus sign" markings between the perfs to identify the film, the exact pattern depending on the version. Most of the Solaris film was sold in the private label market. It was also sold earlier as "Scotch Colour" but when 3M sold off the business, I understand the film was redesigned to be better and sold as Solaris.

Supplies would be a major consideration, Back when 3M ran the complex, a lot of the chemicals were made in house. The Chemical plant is now under different management and so may of may not have the ability or interest to provide the special chemicals. A good part of the resurrection may be the effort to find a source of all the ingredients needed.

Most of the old plant is being torn down, and Film Ferrania is scavenging equipment that they will need to implement their broader plan.

The old Ferania company was at one time a major supplier of Movie film in the European market, before the 1950s, a lot of the black and white educational films we all watched in school were also printed on Ferrania/3M stock. The impetus for the whole film ferrania project was to provide a substitute for for 16mm Kodak 7285 (Ekatachrome) 100D reversal film.

They have listed making a B&W negative film as a longer term goal, but whether a movie or a still stock (or both) is in the fuzzy future I would guess.

Ricardo Miranda · Sep 7, 2014

Rudeofus said:
If you run a production line for $widget, you will encounter the following things over the years:

The person who knew the process for making $widget leaves/retires. Do you train another person for this process?

A machine needed for making $widget has a controller which runs on an 80386 computer under MSDOS. That machine has been flaky lately ...

The vendor for a machine gets bought out by their competition, and the new company won't support the old machines. Will you contract one of their former engineers to fix that machine for big wads of money?

A key ingredient for $widget is now made with a different process which makes it behave a bit differently. You have to adjust your process for $widget in order to make it work with new version of $key_ingredient.

Some jerk discovered that you can make something nefarious with a compound similar so $widget and starts flooding the black market. Are you going through the red tape now required for making and selling $widget?

Now imagine any of this happens after your only customer for $widget announced that "we are not going to make $product any longer, so we won't need $widget in the foreseeable future" ....

My dear Rudi,
I was simply commenting about how kids these days perceive 5 years as being many years when it isn't.
I'm aware of your points. Can only comment on the first though: that's the reason why the new Film Ferrania is employing the old Ferrania employees.

Charles,
What you said above is correct.

Xmas · Sep 7, 2014

StoneNYC said:
There's a lot of hope in the New World, there's probably an iPhone app for that

I'm being a little cheeky in my comment, but in all honesty with today's computing power in small devices they have been able to overcome some of these obstacles through the use of systems that mimic the original architecture in software rather than hardware, and that has enabled at least some things to be overcome and given the ability to use new reliable equipment.

That said, it still requires a lot of research and development before that can be done, still going along the same lines of needing the expertise of former users of the software etc. but obviously at least there's some hope.

Nooooo

Computer chips are in phones and splitters and coaters if the chip fails you need the same one from prehistory or scrap the splitter etc.

When you phone chip fails you trash can it...

Ken Nadvornick · Sep 7, 2014

Xmas said:
Nooooo

Computer chips are in phones and splitters and coaters if the chip fails you need the same one from prehistory or scrap the splitter etc.

When you phone chip fails you trash can it...

Virtual machines (VMs) that simulate no longer supported software and hardware platforms are a mainstay of the industry. Working from home I have access via VPN to an entire range of VMs on which I can test software still under development for backward compatibility.

This very Windows 7 machine on which I am typing contains a virtual simulation of MS-DOS running on an ancient Intel 8088 segmented architecture CPU chipset, and it functions eerily correctly. On it I can still run an equally ancient native x86 assembly language graphics application* and it too works utterly perfectly.

Besides, how do you think all of those old discontinued film scanners keep working? The ones whose drivers were never updated beyond Windows XP? Well, they're running on WinXP VMs hosted on much later and more modern software and hardware architectures.

Or in the case of someone I know, a Nikon 5000 ED scanner is running on a Windows VM hosted on a Mac, with nary a problem.

Ken

* Does anyone remember the stunningly beautiful SkyGlobe planetarium program by Mark Haney of KlassM** Software? This would have been in the late 80s to early 90s, when men were men and software was pure opcodes and chip-level programming.

** You know, Class M, from the Vulcan Minshara***, denoting an oxygen/nitrogen/liquid water planet capable of supporting carbon-based life forms, including humans? If it ain't Class M, then you don't even want to think about beaming down...

*** One of a series of classifications from the Vulcan Planetary Classification System, the term roughly translates into English as mentally defective. It's use thus derived as a cleverly pejorative Vulcan description of Earth and its illogical native inhabitants.****

**** Which brings us back to APUG.*****

*****But I digress...

Film from Italy -- Ferrania starting production 2014

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency