The business decisions the last decade to decade and a half, however... .
Yes, your correct, i expect there would be quite a few more pages in that notebook to that formula, and im sure that Ferrania will just make all that info public for their competition to see since that film was a flagship product of theirs!
I cant quite make out all the writing in the photograph, but i can make out AgNO3, and KBr which is the Silver nitrate and Potassium bromide components of the film.
So if thats all the chemicals used in that film, it should be pretty straightforward since they are the two major components of a B&W film, i dont see any Cadmium or Mercury compounds mentioned there, unless its on another page.
To give a different example, I would kill for a batch of my grandmother's chocolate chip cookies, but she is long gone. I can, and have, had my daughter - a professionally trained chef who knows what she is doing - make the cookies off the very same recipe on the very same piece of paper. (Yes, I have it archived!) But here's the thing: while they are very good, they aren't even close to the same thing.
The difference was probably due to, inter alia, your grandmother's cookie sheet.
Then there is the un-spoken knowledge that Guido, Vincenzo and Carlo applied in the emulsion room when they actually poured the ingredients in the kettle. Is the kettle still around, because that will matter. Is has certain heating and cooling profiles and what it's made of might even make a difference.
At least with chemicals, AgNO3 is AgNO3, except that still the 0.1% worth of impurities may be different to what they used to be, depending on how they process/transport/store it. Once that gets precipitated into an emulsion, that's where all the screwy differences kick in...
Actually, the entire formula for P30, at least at one time anyway, IS probably on those two pages. I've been doing some lunchtime analysis on that image and you can see through the paper on the right page that there is another formula on the next page.
See, besides the list of ingredients, we are given parameters for ripening and digestion. Also coating weight and all the addenda as well as the base and the types of gelatin. However, it is all in Italian and then in Ferrania lingo, just like any company does.
Many of the ingredients are specified as "Solution 42" and "Sol 13". What are these magical solutions? Well, we don't know. Most likely they were stock Ferrania solutions made in their chemical plant and then supplied to the emulsion department. We don't know what's in them. We can make some intelligent guesses and maybe you would get something like P30 or, maybe not. Maybe it would work well or it might be crap. Maybe the FILM Ferrania guys know what all these solutions were, or maybe they are lost to time. We, on the outside, do not know.
Then there is the un-spoken knowledge that Guido, Vincenzo and Carlo applied in the emulsion room when they actually poured the ingredients in the kettle. Is the kettle still around, because that will matter. Is has certain heating and cooling profiles and what it's made of might even make a difference. And what about Guido, Vincenzo and Carlo? Are any of them still around or are they all making P30 for the angels?
In no way do I want to over-complicate basic emulsion making but to make a repeatable, quality emulsion "just like" P30, or Plus-X, or Neopan or Verichrome Pan or HP3, you cannot just dump ingredients in the pot, mix it up, slather it on some PET or acetate and get the same thing. It just isn't quite that simple.
To give a different example, I would kill for a batch of my grandmother's chocolate chip cookies, but she is long gone. I can, and have, had my daughter - a professionally trained chef who knows what she is doing - make the cookies off the very same recipe on the very same piece of paper. (Yes, I have it archived!) But here's the thing: while they are very good, they aren't even close to the same thing.
Actually, there are lot's of analogies between making emulsions and film and baking from scratch.
What if P30 was one of the emulsion components of the color film being formulated now? You know, most color films use up to 9 emulsions and often start with a B&W emulsion with the same speed as needed in the color product.
PE
What if P30 was one of the emulsion components of the color film being formulated now? You know, most color films use up to 9 emulsions and often start with a B&W emulsion with the same speed as needed in the color product.
As a EK retiree, I certainly can find lots of things not to like about it's management over the last 25 years. However, NOTHING they could have done would have had much effect on slowing the conversion to digital and loss of film sales - especially in the consumer marketplace. 25 years ago, who could have imagined the quality of the digital cameras in our cel phones.
They could have done what Fujifilm did, which is divest out of photography entirely. That would have saved the company and the retirees. Kodak did the opposite, selling off every asset they could. Absolute lunacy!
Did you see the recent Fujifilm news about Ebola? Apparently they have developed a drug that is an effective treatment for Ebola and just this week bought a US pharmaceutical company to help increase their manufacturing ability of this drug. THAT is divesting away from photography!
Go film Ferrania!
Make us proud, we know you can do it!
You are the new Kodak!
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Not another Kodak!
Ferrania are the new Ilford (we hope)
But yeah, i was implying that they would be the leaders in film technology like kodak, hence replacing them and keeping film alive with solid innovation etc.
Exactly. So we want Kodak's Chemists and Chemical Engineers from 1890 - 1990, and Harman Ilford's management, marketing, direction, and customer support / social media interaction from 2005-2014
Exactly. So we want Kodak's Chemists and Chemical Engineers from 1890 - 1990, and Harman Ilford's management, marketing, direction, and customer support / social media interaction from 2005-2014
AND Kodachrome...
(Note three tongues above!)
My Imperial Debonair uses 620 film. Don't know if it's a rebadge or not, but it doesn't say Kodak anywhere on it. It was manufactured for the Herbert George Company of Chicago, Illinois.
With FILM Ferrania around, if they continue to behave like a Color Ilford, we won't have to chain PE in the barn to make color film to feed our cameras. Won't he be disappointed!
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