My, my. Such shock among those allowed to see the sausage being made.
Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania (PART 2)
-
A
- Thread starter Sean
- Start date
Recent Classifieds
-
Free Mini Radio triggers: Light pix lab Flash Q
- Started by RoboRepublic
-
Want to Buy Kodak Polytoner
- Started by Guillaume Zuili
-
For Sale PLAUBEL MAKINA 67 GRIP
- Started by Guillaume Zuili
-
For Sale FS: Gundlach-Manhattan Hyperion Diffusion 7in f/4 Lens
- Started by B.S.Kumar
Forum statistics
- Status
I have watched both sausage and film being made! No surprise here. Sad to see this all taking place.
PE
MattKing
Moderator
I don't know - it seems to me that Film Ferrania is talking about increasing their staffing.
As I understand it, they have more people available - people who have been part of the project in the past.
They certainly seem to have space and equipment.
And I don't see any reference to there being a concern about complete unavailability of resources.
I don't expect it to be easy for them to expand. I think though that it is a good thing that they are realizing the necessity now, rather than later.
As I understand it, they have more people available - people who have been part of the project in the past.
They certainly seem to have space and equipment.
And I don't see any reference to there being a concern about complete unavailability of resources.
I don't expect it to be easy for them to expand. I think though that it is a good thing that they are realizing the necessity now, rather than later.
Yes, you have, but you were a part of a huge organization that had spent decades ironing out its distribution chain and were world class masters of marketing prowess long before you arrived. This is like Eastman in 1883.
Your mild criticism is entirely valid. Yes, a young company like this is VERY fragile and a couple missteps could bring the whole thing crashing down. But I don't think the situation is anywhere near as dire as some believe. It's clear that they have the scientific and engineering abilities to succeed. The critical path to success is now in sales management and distribution. Fortunately, the world has no shortage of people who can do that (nor is there a shortage of those who can really mess it up). Compare that to the number of people who can rehabilitate a factory (that was simply turned off and not properly mothballed) to recreate an exquisitely complicated and precise product from 40 years ago. Heck, you probably have personally met about half of the people who could do that.
When will P30 be available for regular sales? I really like the results I've seen and can't wait to try the film.
I didn't expect six people to manage production and distribution of P30 and colour reversal film.
The huge success of P30 preorders is a bare suggestion of what could happen when colour slide is on sale.
I'm 51 and I don't mind if I need to see some two or three springs before Ferrania slide film is available for sale.
I think at Ferrania they are learning from the recent experience. Demand for colour slide film could be just "huge" in terms of Ferrania productive scale.The end result could be having a product that people waits for for months.
That's also good. I hope they grow harmonically and without getting ahead of themselves. Success of P30 for the moment assures - so I believe - the continuity of the firm and is the basement over which the slide film building will be built. It will take some time. It's a firm growing almost from scratch. Provided that technical progress is being made, I'm happy and optimist.
The question I would ask to film Ferrnia is:
The "scale" problem to which reference was made refers only to the distribution and administrative side, or refers - as PE seems to understand - also to the manufacturing side?
The huge success of P30 preorders is a bare suggestion of what could happen when colour slide is on sale.
I'm 51 and I don't mind if I need to see some two or three springs before Ferrania slide film is available for sale.
I think at Ferrania they are learning from the recent experience. Demand for colour slide film could be just "huge" in terms of Ferrania productive scale.The end result could be having a product that people waits for for months.
That's also good. I hope they grow harmonically and without getting ahead of themselves. Success of P30 for the moment assures - so I believe - the continuity of the firm and is the basement over which the slide film building will be built. It will take some time. It's a firm growing almost from scratch. Provided that technical progress is being made, I'm happy and optimist.
The question I would ask to film Ferrnia is:
The "scale" problem to which reference was made refers only to the distribution and administrative side, or refers - as PE seems to understand - also to the manufacturing side?
Correct! We found thousands of pre-printed but otherwise unused cassettes in one of the (now destroyed) buildings. Most were Centuria, but there were some Agfa APX and even a few Solaris. All were neatly lined up on trays, stacked on carts and wrapped in shrink wrap to keep them clean.
Since the waiting period for ordering new cassettes can be months, we decided to use the ones we had already.
Now that you've peeled off our label - is the cassette sticky now? Just curious...
We will re-open the shop in September. However, stock will remain limited, so the shop will sell out quickly and might remain so for days at a time.
mine seemed to peal off fairly clean (DNP 200-24) but I stuck it back after looking. Slightly amused that DNP had their cassettes made the with extra barcode that Konica (who DNP bought their film operations from) also used in the day.
will the rules allow for economical size orders. with only 5 rolls at a time, the shipping alone was over a dollar a roll.
At this point, our primary problem with scale is finishing 135 rolls. This has been a bottleneck pretty much from the start since we do not have our own finishing machines online. We are working on three different solutions to this problem simultaneously. Any one of these solutions will open this bottleneck significantly.
Other aspects of "scale" include:
Emulsions making. Our 100 liter tank needed a bit of refurbishment, but is "back from the shop". Soon, however, we will need to add 2 staff to carry this forward at the proper rate. (Which has the added advantage of allowing Corrado to turn his attention to color!)
Length of coated rolls. We have recently installed some upgrades to the coater that allow us to coat a 25% more length per miniJumbo. Tests on this were successfully completed last week.
Number of coating runs per week. We can coat more often once we have the emulsions to do so. This one is easy to fix and costs us nothing to do.
Obviously, as others have mentioned, we must solve all of these problems with the relatively low-volume B&W film before it will be realistic to produce color.
(All of this is addressed in our next post, which we're polishing up right now)
Distribution will change a lot when the shop reopens. We have warehouses in place for EU and North/South America, and a partner eager to service most of Asia and India on our behalf. Until capacity issues are addressed thoroughly, we cannot sell through shops - but we have a long list of folks very eager to have our film on their shelves...
Administration is not any problem at this point in time. Next year, we will need to make a few key hires. (I'm personally quite eager to have an assistant, if nothing else...)
Last edited:
To be honest, we have not decided on the number, but there will be a limit on orders for some time yet.
As I said in another reply, supply will continue to be a problem for a few more months - and we want the largest possible number of people to be able to buy our film.
We are hoping that within a couple of months we will be able to adjust shipping costs downward. We think this will be possible, to varying degrees and depending on destination - but we cannot know until we pay the bills and analyze the data.
In one of the Kodak movies you could see how they changed the take-up jumbo "on the fly". My guess is they could attach a new Jumbo at the end of the active one. Do you have this hardware support on either the current coater, or the smaller 2-layer one in storage that you mentioned could possible be used for BW film?
We have addressed this elsewhere, but basically Kodak kept coating by splicing rolls one after another. Each "master roll" was about 5000 ft long and was stored in a "coffin" in a tempered chamber.
They just kept going!
PE
I'm told that this type of splicing for continuous coating is theoretically possible with our precision coater, but it has not been attempted yet.
With our miniJumbos being just 20cm by 300m (approx) - it's really easier to stop the coater and swap in a new one. The delay this causes is negligible.
In general, we are using the coater very very carefully. "Gingerly" as I would say. "With kid gloves" some might say. We are not pushing it to do things it wasn't originally designed to do.
I've taken your mild criticism quite seriously because it gets to the heart of what is different between our general status in 2015 as compared to today.
I wrote a response based on my knowledge, but then cut it and sent it to Nicola and Marco to confirm the accuracy. (Unfortunately, they've been in meetings all week and haven't replied yet.)
But in a general sense, "too small" is not the right phrase. It is more accurate to say that we are "less capable" of producing the Kickstarter batch in 2017 than we were in the spring of 2015.
When I get a response from Italy, I'll follow up.
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2012
- Messages
- 1,259
- Format
- 35mm
Exactly, nobody knows including them. I think new Ektachrome will sweep all the hype away. And Ektachrome is happening this winter
How can you be so confident?
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2015
- Messages
- 6,743
- Format
- 35mm
Because it costs him nothing.
Think about it. So, he's confident and looking forward to a niche product in an obsolete format that hobbyists enjoy. Worst case he's disappointing and can rant online for a while. He still got to enjoy months of anticipation and excitement. If Ektachrome fails no-one's livelihood is at stake. Win-win.
If however it does come out great! We have more another slide film to play with and complain about how it's not as good as the old stuff. I'll never plunk down $10 for a roll of 35mm and another $20+ for development and I'm still following Ektachrome with interest.
Yeah, the whole processing situation is something that is really not being addressed. The availability of processing for E6 film dwindles by the day and the cost is very high. I want all film manufacturers to succeed but I really dont see myself shooting E6 ever again. And I have dozens of rolls of Astia 220 in my freezer!!!
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2015
- Messages
- 6,743
- Format
- 35mm
I have about 8 rolls of assorted E-6 35mm and 120. I have no clue if or when I'll shoot it. For two rolls cost of processing and mounting I can buy a bulk roll of B&W. Someday I'll but an E-6 kit and shoot out all the slide film over a few months. But as of now I'm sitting on it.
Will Kodak provide E-6 processing, perhaps with a prepaid mailer. I have not heard anything about the processing side of the equation.
Astia? 220? That's like gold. A few good people around here, including me, would gladly dispose your pain by taking that 220 Astia.
On a more serious note, yes.
E6 needs a push, and Ektachrome may do it a favour.
For one, Barcelona hasn't had an E6 lab for a year to a couple years. There are some good news: when I passed by the Lomo store and struck a conversation, they told me there was a possibility that the same partnered lab will restart E6 operations. Something was going on about it.
Hope that next time I pass they'll have some CN film and the possibility of E6 processing!
Because it is a bit of a PITA having to split color film to send out, and if I mix an odd E6 roll, having to send it away to another lab with the added cost.
I am low on Provia and should get another pack... and shoot it.
If spanish postage rates to other EU countries are acceptable, a few countries will offer good service. I've heard France and Italy have labs. PS13 in Stuttgart has excellent quality. A 120 roll is €4.63 and a roll of 135 is €5.68. A sheet of 4x5 is €3,02. With discounts progressively starting at 10 sheets. C41 ist a bit more expensive and they also do Scala b/w reversal with a number of films. Delta 100 and Tmax 400 in 120 format are georgeous! As is Silvermax/Scala in 135. Scala processing in yet a little more money and only done once a week from what I hear. If you send in E6 only turnaround is very fast. The quickest lot was mailed out on Monday and back on Thursday.
Last edited:
- Status
| Photrio.com contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. To read our full affiliate disclosure statement please click Here. |
PHOTRIO PARTNERS EQUALLY FUNDING OUR COMMUNITY:  |