Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania (PART 2)

Europan · Jun 8, 2016

Well, it isn’t that simple to make and sell film even when your machine runs right because

you have to coat bases of different thicknesses for stills film, 35mm, and 16mm stock;
you have to perform different stockage techniques for the formats selling at slower and faster paces.

I should advise Ferrania to think of a slower speed Scotchchrome or whatever it will be called, an E-6 processable film of ISO 25 perhaps.
That would fit well as amateur-sunshine-fun-holidays stock in 16mm, Double-Eight, DS-8, and 9.5mm. The ISO 100, on a thicker base, would better make for 35mm ciné and stills stock. Ferrania won’t be able to compete with Kodak’s high speed Vision negatives, so the market segment clearly is an Ektachrome replacement.

Thinner-base film could be a powerful thing. Kodak and the others still don’t understand but to be able to put double a length in a camera, movie camera above all, is attractive. Imagine your 400-ft. magazine suddenly holding 800 feet or a little 50-ft. camera such as the Pathé Lido 9.5 loaded with 100 feet! A base thickness of 2.7 mils exists already with micro films.

AgX · Jun 8, 2016

Using thin base films means a special coating preparation and that again the means of the coater being able to do so. As you hinted at, there a lot of things to consider.

But in contrast to you I think a high-speed reversal film being attractive for still photography.

pdeeh · Jun 8, 2016

To see Ovid quoted on APUG -- and in Latin to boot -- is truly the greatest marvel I have seen here since joining!

Diapositivo sets the bar high ...

cmacd123 · Jun 8, 2016

Europan said:
Well, it isn’t that simpleyou have to coat bases of different thicknesses for stills film, 35mm, and 16mm stock;I should advise Ferrania to think of a slower speed Scotchchrome or whatever it will be called, an E-6 processable film of ISO 25 perhaps.
That would fit well as amateur-sunshine-fun-holidays stock in 16mm, Double-Eight, DS-8, and 9.5mm.

Thinner-base film could be a powerful thing. Kodak and the others still don’t understand but to be able to put double a length in a camera, movie camera above all, is attractive.

Typically three base thickness are used,

thin : roll film which means 120 these days.
Medium, 135 still film and movie film 35mm and 16mm

Thick Sheet film - often polyester these days.

I would agree that for shooting Movies in Daylight, given that you tend to have a fixed shutter speed, that a 25-50 ASA film would be useful.

thin base film is normally made on Polyester stock. this requires MANY trade-offs - particularly for Movie film. it may also require adjustments in many cameras, so the lack of products may be due to caution rather than understanding, Kodak understands quite well the tradeoffs. Microfilm is already often on Polyester base for other reasons, and so making a thinner base is an incremental step, with the cameras adjusted as needed. Many movie cameras also have a footage counter that would be confused with a 215 or 800 ft load,

DREW WILEY · Jun 8, 2016

High-speed reversal film? I salivate at the thought of resurrecting something resembling the grainy Agfachrome and Scotchchrome 1000's of the past.
Got some wonderful portraits prints that way.

Nzoomed · Jun 9, 2016

Oh, and if Film Ferrania are reading this, it would be great if you retain the iconic + and . markings in between the sprocket holes!
That was one way we could once tell is a house brand film was made in the FERRANIA plant!

BTW, does anyone know what the reason for these were?
I dont believe these markings were found on scotchchrome either, but was seen in negative films such as solaris.

twelvetone12 · Jun 9, 2016

Someone from Kodak is reading us? (bonus: seems shoot on super8!)

cmacd123 · Jun 9, 2016

Nzoomed said:
+ and . markings in between the sprocket holes!
BTW, does anyone know what the reason for these were?

back when the printing was all done on real paper direct from the negatives, each type of film had to have it's own tweeks in the printer. The dyes in the film were different between brands, and different versions had different printing characteristics. the DX bar the bottom of the negatives was supposed to cue the printer on what film was being used, and select the right "channel" so the prints would come out right.

to make it easy for the printer operator, some films started coming out with a green or magenta stripe on one of both sets of perfs. then as they changed two stripes or one solid and one dashed stripe. Konica had a Blue stripe, Agfa had a bunch of black squares and Ferrania had a contamination of dots and plus signs which changed with the different version.

the image posted here is a small part of the chart in the data sheet for Solarus FG200

Nzoomed · Jun 10, 2016

cmacd123 said:
back when the printing was all done on real paper direct from the negatives, each type of film had to have it's own tweeks in the printer. The dyes in the film were different between brands, and different versions had different printing characteristics. the DX bar the bottom of the negatives was supposed to cue the printer on what film was being used, and select the right "channel" so the prints would come out right.

to make it easy for the printer operator, some films started coming out with a green or magenta stripe on one of both sets of perfs. then as they changed two stripes or one solid and one dashed stripe. Konica had a Blue stripe, Agfa had a bunch of black squares and Ferrania had a contamination of dots and plus signs which changed with the different version.

View attachment 158625
the image posted here is a small part of the chart in the data sheet for Solarus FG200

Thats very interesting!
I know that DXn stored info on the bottom of the film in barcode film also for similar reasons.
Regarding colour compensation when printing, was the intention to make the colour balance come out the same for all prints, regardless of the film?
Its funny, because as you well know all films have a unique colour balance to their dyes and i did not think that this much effort was made to correct it!
Most people will prefer to shoot one film over another due to their characteristics, but how much of this was actually retained with such colur correction in the lab?
I know scanned film can also easily be corrected too, but i probably find most scans i see have little or no correction and you can see the difference between films.
Or perhaps the orange mask was never the same between films, that would explain a proper need for correction i guess.

cmacd123 · Jun 10, 2016

I believe to need was to make all the films have similar flesh tones.

The photofinishing printers had three different light sources each with a shutter. all three shutters would open, and when the phototube for each colour was satisfied that enough exposure had occurred for that layer. that shutter would close. when all three shutter were closed, the print was considered "exposed"

the filters on the photocells would react to the light a but differently than the paper, and the effect would change for different films. Most manufacturers tyied to make their film print well at the same settings that Kodacolor printed well of course, but I belive (Ron may be able to recall) about the time Kodacolor VR came out, the printer settings changed compared to Kodacolor II, which of course was Far different than Kodacolor X (c-22) In fact I vaugly associate Kodacolor VR with the first Green stripe, but my memory is Very hazy on that .

Photo Engineer · Jun 10, 2016

AFAIK, on easel printing never needed that sort of correction. It was mainly a matter of how automated printers handled over and under exposed film that was the problem.

We designed the "slope" problem out of color papers that we made at EK. This comes up over and over. Kodak papers handled Fuji and Kodak films. I'm not so sure about the rest. The mask had nothing to do with it.

PE

Photo Engineer · Jun 10, 2016

Yes, Charles, there was a change with C41, but the new dyes were selected to be virtually the same as the old dyes. There was a big reduction in reciprocity failure though and a big change in color correction (interimage) due to the use of DIR couplers. No one else could match the degree of correction or the lack of reciprocity failure.

This was most evident in Plus and Minus printing (Charles will understand this) vs Normal printing. This is part of the slope factor I referred to above. And, as I said was virtually non-existant when using a single bulb white light printer or enlarger.

PE

Oxleyroad · Jun 10, 2016

Welcome John. There is a wealth of knowledge here.

Nzoomed · Jun 18, 2016

Looking forward to the next update!

DaveTheWalker · Jun 20, 2016

Nzoomed said:
Looking forward to the next update!

Yes, "a few days" in Ferrania-land seems to mean "a few weeks" in the real World!

kuparikettu · Jun 20, 2016

Maybe Ferrania ought to upload a chart on "Ferrania Time" in the same way as Valve has explained theirs

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time

RattyMouse · Jun 21, 2016

Clearly there are some serious problems that were not expected. We were told many months ago that the time left was weeks rather than months.

Black Dog · Jun 23, 2016

pdeeh said:
To see Ovid quoted on APUG -- and in Latin to boot -- is truly the greatest marvel I have seen here since joining!

Diapositivo sets the bar high ...

Yes, Chapeau! to you Sir as us cyclists say

Nzoomed · Jun 23, 2016

RattyMouse said:
Clearly there are some serious problems that were not expected. We were told many months ago that the time left was weeks rather than months.

They will get there, im confident of that!

Jeff L · Jun 27, 2016

I wonder what's going on at Ferrania. Hopefully there'll be some type of update soon.

Nzoomed · Jun 28, 2016

I hope so too, perhaps they are waiting to get the first roll off the line before they do an update!

DaveTheWalker · Jun 28, 2016

An interesting interview with Kodak's president about the nature of "Film-making" vs "Video-making" here http://nofilmschool.com/2016/06/be-filmmaker-not-video-maker-interview-kodak-president-motion-picture-and-entertainment

Ferrania may be getting into movie film at just the perfect moment!

FILM Ferrania · Jun 28, 2016

davidwalkersharpe said:
Yes, "a few days" in Ferrania-land seems to mean "a few weeks" in the real World!

Fair enough...

I can only say in our (slight) defense that our timing is often skewed by trying to think happy thoughts about the speed and efficiency of those on whom we depend for our future.

Here's the latest - direct from Nicola Baldini:
Dead Link Removed

Nzoomed · Jun 29, 2016

All i know is ive waited this long, it doesnt make any real difference to me.
They have taken on a serious project, but at the end its all going to pay off, so kudos to Film Ferrania for their dedicated work to getting this far.
I know it wont be too long before they can get the first rolls off production

DaveTheWalker · Jun 29, 2016

I hope you didn't take my comment as an insult. It was intended as more tongue-in-cheek than that! I actually think you're doing an incredible job and I know how complex these projects can be. I remain extremely impressed with the level of effort and problem-solving that has gone into this mission so far and I have full confidence that all the remaining problems will be ironed out in good time. At the end, Ferrania will be better and stronger than they could have imagined, and they'll *really* know their factory inside-out, which is a huge advantage! Keep up the good work, Ferrania, we're all rooting for you.

Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania (PART 2)

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