Forte Receivership and Kodak Chemical Woes?

[Phillip P. Dimor]

I'm sorry for posting this if the answer is somewhere in front of me. I can't seem to find any of the threads!

Is Forte done for? I really enjoy their FB papers and would have loved to try their 120 and sheet film under the Freestyle Arista.edu lable.

*snicker* My local retail shop stopped carrying Kodak chemicals.
They only have Zonal Pro (good stuff) but lack their rapid fix. Now I get to drive half an hour just to pick up something that was five minutes away.

The owner claims that Kodak is raping them on shipping and is phasing out their traditional consumer-market black and white photographic chemicals.

 

[Ian Grant]

Forte's still alive just, so support them. They are only producing to order but recently supplied Fotoimpex (& J&C), Berrger and other bulk pirchasers with freshly coated materials, Film & Paper.

As for Kodak chemicals, in the UK it was a farce just over a year ago, Kodak ceased manufacture of powdered chemicals here, Sangers became the official UK distributor (they already imported Kodak Minilabs), then suddenly last year they announced they were dropping their Kodak distributorship.

So maybe Kodak aren't interested in us consumers any more.

 

[Sean]

I'll be very sad if Forte Polywarmtone Fiber disappears

 

[Phillip P. Dimor]

I didn't mean to set off a scare
I suppose anything could happen at this point..

Kodak.. argh.

 

[Ian Grant]

Sean

The last batch of Classic (Forte) Polywarmtone FB is quire different. Very much warmer brown almost needs no selenium toning, in fact selenium works an awful lot faster with it. You can see a significant shift in 30 seconds, compared to 2 minutes + with the older batches.

But this is very fresh paper from the last coating run and may settle a litte as it ages.

I should add I used both old (pre August 04) and March 05 coated paper in the same session with exactly the same dev & fix.

Someone else mentioned the latest Berrger (Forte) Polywarmtone FB papers sticking during drying or flattening and I can confirm that this is more of a problem with the fresh batch.

It would be interesting to hear comments from others.

Ian

I'll be very sad if Forte Polywarmtone Fiber disappears

 

[jandc]

Sean

The last batch of Classic (Forte) Polywarmtone FB is quire different. Very much warmer brown almost needs no selenium toning, in fact selenium works an awful lot faster with it. You can see a significant shift in 30 seconds, compared to 2 minutes + with the older batches.

But this is very fresh paper from the last coating run and may settle a litte as it ages.

I should add I used both old (pre August 04) and March 05 coated paper in the same session with exactly the same dev & fix.

Someone else mentioned the latest Berrger (Forte) Polywarmtone FB papers sticking during drying or flattening and I can confirm that this is more of a problem with the fresh batch.

It would be interesting to hear comments from others.

Ian

Forte had to change paper suppliers because the old one went out of business. The emulsion hasn't changed but the paper base has.

I agree that the emulsion will settle down over a few months and be much more like the older papers.

 

[phfitz]

Hi there,

Not to put too fine a point on it BUT you just have to know how much the big yellow dog loves large format photographers

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=2608/2609/2615/3999&pq-locale=en_US

Yes they do still make PanatomicX, PlusX, SuperXX and TriX with the old formulas, they just don't sell it to us. You can now smile till your face hurts. (Yes, they can leave out the extra red sensitizing dye, it would be cheaper for them)

Just a thought.

 

[c6h6o3]

It's certainly good to see Bergger paper back in the stores again.

I don't have any trouble buying Kodak chemistry, but boy is it expensive. The quart of KRST concentrate I bought last night was $22.70 USD.

400TMax in 120 is now $4.65 a roll at my local camera store. How long will people keep buying it at those prices?

 

[Nick Zentena]

$4.65 US? That's more then the Canadian dollar price here.

 

[David Henderson]

"400TMax in 120 is now $4.65 a roll at my local camera store."

The same film is available at B&H for $2.89 /$3.15. Sadly the real question may be how long people are prepared to buy from their local camera store.

 

[Dave Parker]

Hmmm, I am only paying $2.93 for 120 TMAX here at my local store.......

Dave

 

[c6h6o3]

They saw me comin', didn't they? Payback, I guess, for all the Hasselblad lenses I bought from them at $0.20 on the dollar.

I'll start ordering it from JandC. It's not worth that much of a differential to be able to stop in on the way home from work and buy it.