Film from Italy -- Ferrania starting production 2014

[Roger Cole]

You're dreaming if you think kodak would make that deal.

MAYBE Eastman, but not KA

Why not? If EK stopped production but FF offered it to Alaris, and the business case and market were there - it could happen.

 

[Roger Cole]

I do not see the point behind this: in both cases one could come across the same visual enlargement.

(Except for those cases one puts his nose against a mural, what one likely would not do at a screen...)

What is it exactly that you don't see the point about? Seriously, I didn't understand this post.

My "point" in shooting C41 rather than E6 for prints if that's what you mean (guessing here) is a) I would want to wet print it soon when I start RA4 printing again, and b) C41 film blows E6 away in terms of granularity and color accuracy in most situations. Yes yes, there are people who like Velvia to scan and print and it can look amazing with the right light and subject but it is a VERY short range film, almost cripplingly short range compared to C41. You can expose C41 haphazardly, almost completely so, and as long as you get enough exposure you can print it fine. Try that with E6. Got a subject with a range of 10 stops in which you want detail? Unless you can add some fill flash or something you're out of luck with any E6 and even more so with Velvia. C41 - expose for the shadows and it's almost impossible to blow the highlights.

PE has said it many times but modern C41 is just superior - unless you want to project it. I know when you scan it yourself that E6 is said by many to be easier to get good scans from, but currently I'd be getting professional scans done anyway. And wet printing E6 - well you can reversal process RA4 as PE has also written about but the problems are considerable such that it really only works well sometimes, and it's a DIY figure-it-out PITA.

 

[StoneNYC]

Why not? If EK stopped production but FF offered it to Alaris, and the business case and market were there - it could happen.

I think EK would, but KA wouldn't. It's because EK has the movie distribution and connections, but KA doesn't care about film at all.

What do I know though, not much.

 

[Nzoomed]

Stone, perhaps you remember the thread asking where I have been? I just spent about 2 weeks in the hospital and am now in my 3rd week of therapy to walk so I will be up and around for 2 workshops at GEH.

I hate to bring this up here, but your comments verge on being impolite as you know about the other thread. In addition, they have not asked me, and I have no reversal color paper experience beyond the rudiments of structure and curve shape. So, why don't you do it?

PE

Sorry to hear you havnt been too good, i hope you make a full recovery

Anyway, i take it that kodak made a reversal paper, or did you have to make prints from internegatives? As ive got a couple of old printed photographs that have been taken from a kodachrome slide.

They probably are unaware of you at FF, unless they have been following you on the APUG forum.

I dont know if your bound to any secrecy from Kodak or not but i expect its more about any competitors being unable to use kodak's patents than anything.
Molecules can be patented, and obviously only so many are property of kodak, or as an example all E6 films would be technically in breach of such patents if they contained any molecules kodak holds a patent for.
The only other things that patents would affect im guessing would be certain processes during the manufacture and coating of the film etc.

Anyway i hope you can take this as a compliment, im sure others are not trying to be impolite when they say you should help them
If you were offered a free trip to Italy for you to help them and give them training would you say no? Apparently they want to make the top floor which was used as a theatre for testing films into a classroom for training puropses.

Im sure it would do you a lot of good in your recovery too, you could make a holiday out of it at the same time!

I hope that the team at Film Ferrania can jump on board here on this forum at some point. Im sure you can give them some insight on film production from a "different" (kodaks) perspective than what they may be used to. It doesnt mean one way is right or wrong, but i am a firm believer in sharing knowledge before its gone.

 

[ME Super]

And the weather would be warmer at the Ferrania plant than it would be in Rochester in the winter! They're just a few miles from the Mediterranean Sea, not along the shores of the Great Lakes which are known for lake effect snows. Bet you wouldn't have any trouble convincing the Mrs. to go to Italy in the winter for a vacation.

Though I should say that PE's first priority is to get better so he can teach those workshops at GEH. And I am also a believer in sharing knowledge before it's gone.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...i take it that kodak made a reversal paper...

Yes

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/e1766/e1766.pdf​

as did Fuji

https://www.fujifilmusa.com/shared/bin/AF3-718E.pdf.​

 

[Nzoomed]

Yes

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/e1766/e1766.pdf​

as did Fuji

https://www.fujifilmusa.com/shared/bin/AF3-718E.pdf.
​

OK, so there was, but what about in the kodachrome days before E6 reversal films were developed?
I take it the R3 process is now obsolete?

 

[Prof_Pixel]

OK, so there was, but what about in the kodachrome days before E6 reversal films were developed?

I worked in a photo store from 1957-1962 and during much of that period Kodak offered prints from slides known as Kodachrome prints on a white safety (acetate) base. See for example http://bit.ly/ZlNu1t

 

[Roger Cole]

I go back as far as Kodak Type 1993 (nothing to do with the year, this was in use in the 1970s) though I didn't print on it. The first one I printed on was 2203 or 2223, something like that, I think, its successor. Of course there was Cibachrome later called Ilfochrome. Two very different processes but both worked well. Cibacrhome was more popular mostly due to its dye stability and nearly idiot-proof simple processing (we won't talk about the nose curdling odor of the early stuff or the fact the bleach ph was something like 1 and it it actually sizzled when spilled on concrete - it came with a packet of "neutralizer" which was, apparently, nothing more nor less thank baking soda. For home quantities, once neutralized it could be safely dumped. The same can be said of the sulfuric acid in your car battery or the hardener solution of Rapid Fix.)

I miss Ilfochrome. But I'm hardly the only person who feels that way and I understand by the time it ended the QC was not good (it was excellent when I was using it) and the already high price had gone up a lot. I printed on the RC Pearl (which some folks on here once argued didn't exist until others posted links to ads of those days - it certainly did) because it was far more affordable than the glossy acetate or whatever the gloss base was. I was broke in those days.

 

[Nzoomed]

I go back as far as Kodak Type 1993 (nothing to do with the year, this was in use in the 1970s) though I didn't print on it. The first one I printed on was 2203 or 2223, something like that, I think, its successor. Of course there was Cibachrome later called Ilfochrome. Two very different processes but both worked well. Cibacrhome was more popular mostly due to its dye stability and nearly idiot-proof simple processing (we won't talk about the nose curdling odor of the early stuff or the fact the bleach ph was something like 1 and it it actually sizzled when spilled on concrete - it came with a packet of "neutralizer" which was, apparently, nothing more nor less thank baking soda. For home quantities, once neutralized it could be safely dumped. The same can be said of the sulfuric acid in your car battery or the hardener solution of Rapid Fix.)

I miss Ilfochrome. But I'm hardly the only person who feels that way and I understand by the time it ended the QC was not good (it was excellent when I was using it) and the already high price had gone up a lot. I printed on the RC Pearl (which some folks on here once argued didn't exist until others posted links to ads of those days - it certainly did) because it was far more affordable than the glossy acetate or whatever the gloss base was. I was broke in those days.

Ive been reading a bit about Ilfochrome, it sounds like its pretty much fade proof, in much the same way that technicolor is.

But it seems unclear if its still available, i see there are labs that claim they can offer prints with this. Is it still available or is it now obsolete?

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

The Film Ferrania KickStarter project has now almost reached $200,000 with 22+ days to go.

There are two best things about this thread. The first is that at 962 posts, the more people keep talking, the better it is for FF. And the second is that no matter how many negative posts are made regarding FF's foolhardiness, ineptitude, misguided goals, lack of technical acumen, lack of business acumen, and all the rest...

...by all current indications they still intend to give this project a good faith run for the money. They might well not make it. Most likely won't. No starry-eyed expectations or predictions here. But it does seem they are honestly going to try.

So to the endless critics around here of that, or any, good faith effort, it's probably time yet again to offer the following quote by Teddy Roosevelt:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."



Ken

 

[mnemosyne]

Ive been reading a bit about Ilfochrome, it sounds like its pretty much fade proof, in much the same way that technicolor is.

But it seems unclear if its still available, i see there are labs that claim they can offer prints with this. Is it still available or is it now obsolete?

Ilford Imaging of Switzerland, the company that produced Ilfochrome aka Cibachrome materials, went belly up last year. The Ilfochrome product had already been discontinued about two years earlier. I guess those labs that used Ilfochrome on a regular basis piled up some stock when the "last order" notice from Ilford came, so it wouldn't be surprising if some specialist labs continue to offer ilfochrome prints for a couple of years. Whatever paper or chemicals you find out there now are old stock. The Ilfochrome dyes are indeed very stable. I have a couple of prints from the second half of the 1980s and they still look "like new" to me. But I should add that they were never on display and I understand that color negative paper technology has made big leaps forward in terms of fade resistance during the last decades.

 

[Nzoomed]

Ilford Imaging of Switzerland, the company that produced Ilfochrome aka Cibachrome materials, went belly up last year. The Ilfochrome product had already been discontinued about two years earlier. I guess those labs that used Ilfochrome on a regular basis piled up some stock when the "last order" notice from Ilford came, so it wouldn't be surprising if some specialist labs continue to offer ilfochrome prints for a couple of years. Whatever paper or chemicals you find out there now are old stock. The Ilfochrome dyes are indeed very stable. I have a couple of prints from the second half of the 1980s and they still look "like new" to me. But I should add that they were never on display and I understand that color negative paper technology has made big leaps forward in terms of fade resistance during the last decades.

OK, thats interesting to hear, i would have liked to have gotten some prints made with it at some point.

Anyway your right, the new negative papers seem to hold up OK, ive dug up some of our old family photo prints shot on 110 and printed on Kodak paper, i must say that the colour on them is still perfect, they would have been shot in the late 80's / early 90's.
Cant be said for C41 negatives though, especially older ones, it seems alot of ours have faded real bad from the 70's, almost no image left, yet others around the same age or older are OK.

 

[Xmas]

The thread is titled "Ferrania starting production 2014" and I am taking my thesis from there. They have to have sufficient stocks of GOOD film by the end of this year to fill a decent pipeline and also sample some of it to editors and big customers. Then, if problems are found, they remake a good coating and refill the pipeline so that things being moving by April.

I'm not just making this up. BTDT. I am of the opinion that they must have a good, salable coating by January 2015!

And, as we blather on here, the market for E6 products is shrinking. What happens if the volume falls below some projected sustainable level for Ferrania?

PE

HiRon

Hope you better soon.
Don't understand the timescale steps.
I thought Ferranni had done a successful coat on the small coater so now they need to rescue bits to build a high volume coater.
So the film the kick start people get is from the prototype run?
Which they could repeat if the prototype machine is independent of the volume machine?
So the production volume maybe not until about next September, but they might run at lower volume in your timescale.
They are relocating machinery recommissioning and then attempting to replicate the prototype material?
Maybe Im wrong again?
But these would be tight timescales in the factories I worked in.

Noel

 

[ericdan]

Is this the stuff they are resurrecting?

 

[Ricardo Miranda]

No, not yet.
That is the C41, colour negative Solaris.
They are starting with an E6, slide film.
BTW, that Solaris FG Plus was very good.

 

[ericdan]

How the 400?
Found this old place in japan that has a bunch of this stuff.

 

[Ricardo Miranda]

HiRon

Hope you better soon.
Don't understand the timescale steps.
I thought Ferranni had done a successful coat on the small coater so now they need to rescue bits to build a high volume coater.
So the film the kick start people get is from the prototype run?
Which they could repeat if the prototype machine is independent of the volume machine?
So the production volume maybe not until about next September, but they might run at lower volume in your timescale.
They are relocating machinery recommissioning and then attempting to replicate the prototype material?
Maybe Im wrong again?
But these would be tight timescales in the factories I worked in.

Noel

Noel,

I might be very wrong, but I haven't read anything about a first coating having been done.
In fact, the film rewards are from the first batch. So, yes, we will have the prototype.
Don't forget the people working now at Ferrania are the same that worked the last Ferrania formulas. They're the same people.

Which they could repeat if the prototype machine is independent of the volume machine?

I believe they only have one small machine now and he same machine, but enlarged. Or as Nicola said, the "Big Boy" on a "crash diet" and incorporated into the smaller machine.
Yes, it is a tight timescale.

 

[Xmas]

If you look at Film Ferrania's timeline, near the bottom of their Kickstarter page, test coating and moving equipment to storage is to happen in Nov/Dec. 2014. Production of the first batch is to happen in Jan/Feb 2015, with cutting and spooling happening in Feb/Mar 2015, and shipping the film rewards in early April 2015.

There is 1 50-speed E-6 emulsion made by Fuji, and two 100 speed E-6 emulsions made by Fuji. There's still stock of the one 200-speed E-6 emulsion made by Agfa, and that is all. When Kodak decided E-6 was no longer profitable, they left the market. Fuji will do likewise, though I suspect Fuji did get a bump in sales when Kodak stocks ran out. What Ferrania is trying to do, and I commend them for it, is to build a factory that is the right size for the market, and that can be adapted to some degree if their share of the market grows (which I also suspect it will do at the point in time that Fuji exits the market). This will likely leave Film Ferrania with 100% share of the market. Hopefully at that point there are enough of us E-6 shooters left to keep at least one right-sized film maker making it.

Blue sky thinking when Kodak stopped all commercials who were using E6 for some/any shots will have executed their plans to switch to digital or C41 cause dependency on a single supplier is commercial suicide. Few will have gone to C41. Digital backs, desk top printers, staff training, etc.

Dumping in house E6 processing machines.

People running E6 labs typing up CVs.

So Kodak leaving big hit on Fuji sales.

 

[Ricardo Miranda]

Dear Ron,

I hope for a speedy recovered to you.

 

[Xmas]

Noel,

I might be very wrong, but I haven't read anything about a first coating having been done.
In fact, the film rewards are from the first batch. So, yes, we will have the prototype.
Don't forget the people working now at Ferrania are the same that worked the last Ferrania formulas. They're the same people.



I believe they only have one small machine now and he same machine, but enlarged. Or as Nicola said, the "Big Boy" on a "crash diet" and incorporated into the smaller machine.
Yes, it is a tight timescale.

HiRicardo

If your perspective is correct without any prejudice, then Ron's timescales are a bit optimistic.

Noel

 

[Xmas]

Is this the stuff they are resurrecting?

http://www.lomography.com/magazine/...ia-solaris-fg-plus-400-somewhat-disappointing

 

[spatz]

I asked my question to Ferrania through twitter and they responded within a day! I mean c'mon if they producd something decent this will be the company that ought to get our support! Initially they said that they were not sure but then 7 hours later re-responded by saying, and i quote, "yes! It will be the first improvement." So there you have it

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...it's probably time yet again to offer the following quote by Teddy Roosevelt...

Taking this on a tangent, it's interesting to note that Ken Burns used film to shoot "The Roosevelts - An Intimate History." See the credits here

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-roosevelts/about/credits/,​

which include four different entities under "Film Dailies."

 

[kb3lms]

As someone else mentioned, the guys working at FF have made this film before - although they say they have "re-engineered" it. They say that they will make a coating by the end of the year, albeit a small one. They size of the coating sounds capacity limited, though. My point is, if they are committing to a small "production" coating by the end of the year, I am guessing they are on Ron's schedule.

Additionally, since they are now gathering up machinery at this point, I would venture to guess they have completed successful tests. No doubt, and as with any major project, they are not as far along as they would like to be but I am guessing they have some confidence in what they will be able to do.