Film from Italy -- Ferrania starting production 2014

wblynch · Jan 24, 2014

When Ferrania fires up the E-6 line again, perhaps they can arrange to get the Ektachrome recipe from Kodak and cook some up?

They could contract the supply back to Alaris and make millions of photographers happy.

StoneNYC · Jan 24, 2014

wblynch said:
When Ferrania fires up the E-6 line again, perhaps they can arrange to get the Ektachrome recipe from Kodak and cook some up?

They could contract the supply back to Alaris and make millions of photographers happy.

That's a seriously good idea...

Roger Cole · Jan 25, 2014

PE has said there is far more to duplicating a film than just mixing up some more emulsion to the same recipe. But presumably Alaris could do it without too much trouble, so if Ferrania could contract with them to make Ektachrome-in-all-but-name sold as Ferrania... well anything that seems too much to hope for probably is! E100G and some kind of 400 film please!

pbromaghin · Jan 25, 2014

As far as I can tell, they have committed to reproducing film they made in the past. I don't think Kodak ever allowed anybody else to make Kodachrome, so just forget about it..

StoneNYC · Jan 25, 2014

pbromaghin said:
As far as I can tell, they have committed to reproducing film they made in the past. I don't think Kodak ever allowed anybody else to make Kodachrome, so just forget about it..

They are still going to update it I think though, it will be better than the last version at least.

railwayman3 · Jan 25, 2014

pbromaghin said:
As far as I can tell, they have committed to reproducing film they made in the past. I don't think Kodak ever allowed anybody else to make Kodachrome, so just forget about it..

Kodak abandoned the Kodachrome patents years ago, so the info is all there for someone to make it.

StoneNYC · Jan 25, 2014

railwayman3 said:
Kodak abandoned the Kodachrome patents years ago, so the info is all there for someone to make it.

Let's not turn this into a Kodachrome thread, seriously...

AgX · Jan 25, 2014

Roger Cole said:
PE has said there is far more to duplicating a film than just mixing up some more emulsion to the same recipe. But presumably Alaris could do it without too much trouble, so if Ferrania could contract with them to make Ektachrome-in-all-but-name sold as Ferrania... well anything that seems too much to hope for probably is! E100G and some kind of 400 film please!

Why should someone invest in a own production, just to have a product toll-manufactured by another company?
Well, we know nothing about the background of Film Ferrania, so we actually cannot answer this.

railwayman3 · Jan 25, 2014

StoneNYC said:
Let's not turn this into a Kodachrome thread, seriously...

Definitely not....I think we've exhausted that line of thought very thoroughly in other threads! I suppose I was just speculating, from the previous post, whether Kodak had released similar information on the E6 process and films, bearing in mind that it quickly became the standard process for the other slide film makers, Agfa, Fuji. Konica and Ferrania themselves.

Ricardo Miranda · Jan 25, 2014

Bill,
It is nice to dream of things we would like to see, but the reality is different.
First question you have to ask yourself is: where are those "million" of people that would like to see Ektachrome back?
Are those the same millions that stopped using film and bought millions of Iphones and other D devices?
Or, is it more realistic to say that only a small minority, a few thousands, still use film daily or at least once or twice a week?
The sales of what film remains in production speaks for itself: just look at Fuji or Kodak sales figures.
The market has shrunk a lot.

So, how does Ferrania is going to compete with such a small market?
They have to scale down from what they used to produced. They can't afford to employ 4000 people as they used to. And the machinery has to change.
But, better is to read from the man in charge. Here is an interview with Nicola where he outlines his plans:
http://www.japancamerahunter.com/2013/08/film-news-ferrania-is-back-exclusive-interview/

When Film Ferrania is ready, we will hear the news. No doubt about that!

Roger Cole · Jan 25, 2014

AgX said:
Why should someone invest in a own production, just to have a product toll-manufactured by another company?
Well, we know nothing about the background of Film Ferrania, so we actually cannot answer this.

Shrug. They shouldn't. Though someone who could take on the marketing and distribution might be able to get Kodak to whip up some more E6 cheaper than doing it themselves, dunno. I'll be happy with another E6 choice. Someone just mentioned it and the Kodak emulsions are known quantities.

Xmas · Jan 25, 2014

Ricardo Miranda said:
or at least once or twice a week?

Well I shoot film twice a week but never E6 processing is too difficult.
Only one C41 colour last year.
But if you wanted to make E6 id not start from a line that has been out of service for a few years that is like testing an umbrella by jumping out the 40th floor.
If they planned on a cheap 400ISO mono selling on eBay no middleman, id get a PayPal account.
Be nice if I was wrong.

cmacd123 · Jan 25, 2014

My impression is that the folks behind the Italian effort were mostly movie film users who were SHOCKED at the discontinuance of 16mm Ektachrome 100D. the inspiration is to make a good 100 ISO film for Movie use, being a close as legaly possible to the known formulas used in Scotch Chrome, to avoid R&D risk. The factory apparently has all the packaging tooling to make up 16mm, Super 8 and Regular 8 film still available. This is a market that Fuji is not occupying. Fuji's Movie product was "single 8" and they have allowed that to fall by the wayside in the last year or two. Fuji also did not directly offer a 16mm reversal product since the days of filmed TV news.

Now if the Kodak Allaris folks do start shopping to a plant to produce film besides good old building 38. They have two coating facilities - harrow and Colorado which were making paper at the time they took over the business. PE has confirmed that Harrow DID make film not that long ago, although probably not the current formulas. My guess is taht if they wanted to make some Ektachrome and EK was not willing to go along, they would turn to there OWN facilities before seeking help in the sunny south of Europe.

Prest_400 · Feb 19, 2014

Wittner Kinotechnik did a visit to the new film ferrania factory and they wrote a report:

http://wittner-kinotechnik.de/info/filmferrania/index.php
(Google Translated) http://translate.google.com/transla...er-kinotechnik.de/info/filmferrania/index.php

As Charles said in the last post, there is quite much excitement about their production and infact this company (Wittner) is dedicated to the finishing of MP film.
Interesting to see the installations, it is stated thet their installation is a former research building and it was operative until recently. Nice to see the coating machine (cascade coater I can see) and how the "diminutive" machine needs so much extra support.
It must be a toy compared to Kodak's B38 coater.

Looks great

Heinz · Feb 19, 2014

Thank you for this interesting link! It would be so great to get new slide film from them, and I would buy it even if the Fuji slide films stay available in order to support them!

StoneNYC · Feb 19, 2014

I would assume it will be tailored to skin tones more which is good news as I'm not as much a fan of Provia100f unless it's a mix landscape-model image. Would be nice. Hope it turns out to be really good film.

Trail Images · Feb 19, 2014

As a very long time transparency shooter only to date, I sincerely hope for the best out of this project........good luck to them.

StoneNYC · Feb 19, 2014

I just hope they come out with some kind of home processing kit that comes in smaller quantities that's more reasonable for the average person to use that's a 6/7 bath kit instead of the 3 bath kits. And sell it as a package deal, film and chemistry.

cmacd123 · Feb 20, 2014

StoneNYC said:
I just hope they come out with some kind of home processing kit that comes in smaller quantities that's more reasonable for the average person to use that's a 6/7 bath kit instead of the 3 bath kits. And sell it as a package deal, film and chemistry.

The thrust of the film ferania project is MP film, which requires large batch processing for constancy. for home use there are the kits that are already available. Starting ANY sort of Chemical production would be out of scope for their project. Lets just hope that the making of FILM does get going and that some distribution occurs in the north American market.

ntenny · Feb 20, 2014

StoneNYC said:
I would assume it will be tailored to skin tones more which is good news as I'm not as much a fan of Provia100f unless it's a mix landscape-model image.

What was the old Scotch Chrome film like? (It was gone before I returned to film, and in my youth we were a resolutely Fuji household and I was pretty clueless anyway.)

I'd like to see something with a warmer palette, like the old RSX films, as a market companion to the Fuji line. I like Provia 100F a lot, personally, but it definitely leaves some complementary niches open. (And the various Velviae are terrific at what they do, but their color rendition is just too Wagnerian for me.)

-NT

Paul Howell · Feb 20, 2014

The old Scotts Guard was made by 3M, it was sold by K mart and other discount stores as a house brand. The newer emulsion was developed in the 90s, Ferrania states that has nothing in common with the 3M emulsion, the Ferrania I shot in the 90 and early 2000s was nutural, I liked it as well as other E 6s of the time. If Ferrania new film makes it to market in the US I will try it.

wblynch · Feb 20, 2014

I want to buy a bunch of Ferrania film today!

StoneNYC · Apr 5, 2014

With new rhumors of Fuji killing another US imported E6 line of film, (Velvia100) I'm wondering how far along Ferrania is?

Ken Nadvornick · Apr 5, 2014

Wanna' know what would be da' sheeeets?

If Film Ferrania really was successful in bringing a re-engineered E-6 transparency film back to the market, and it turned out to be a wonderful film.

And Kodak E-6 was already tanked. Then Fuji E-6 also tanked. Then mainline E-6 was only available from the new Ferrania.

And their converted R&D/test coating equipment was too small to handle the remaining worldwide niche market demand for E-6. But there wasn't nearly enough worldwide niche market demand to resurrect the main coating lines.

And they have already let it be known that their original primary motivation was to supply the 8mm/16mm cine markets. Presumably to prevent extinction of those formats.

So we might end up in a permanent gray limbo situation where E-6 still photographers never had an assured supply. It was out there. It was fresh. It was good. But there just was never enough of it to go around, year to year.

That would really suck...

Ken

ambaker · Apr 5, 2014

Now that there, is what we call a Buzz Kill...

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Film from Italy -- Ferrania starting production 2014

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