Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania (PART 2)

[flavio81]

Slap on a warming filter and take her to E200 - EI400. No problems. At least one of Fujifilm's offerings has versatility and good behaviour built in!

Does the contrast pumps up when pushing Provia to 400? It would be great to have on a medium format camera.

BTW, do you know if Agfa Aviphot 200 pushes well? (leaving the strange color casts aside...)

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Does the contrast pumps up when pushing Provia to 400? It would be great to have on a medium format camera.

BTW, do you know if Agfa Aviphot 200 pushes well? (leaving the strange color casts aside...)

Contrast + is just a little. But colour is stable. Provia 100 is very often pushed to EI400 because of the scarcity of 400X (which BTW was frequently pushed to EI1600).

The "strange" (but normal) colour cast is why I am not using Rollei CR200 [Aviphot]; I can't stand the lomo-look stuff!

 

[Nzoomed]

The "strange" (but normal) colour cast is why I am not using Rollei CR200 [Aviphot]; I can't stand the lomo-look stuff!

The yellow cast with this film is usually due to bad storage or light piping.

Ive never had any issues with this film and will provide some shots to prove it.

Its far from a lomo film!

 

[DaveTheWalker]

Following hot on the heels of the resurrection of Ektachrome comes a titillating rumour...

Just for a laugh, because I know some people get excited about this sort of thing

https://petapixel.com/2017/01/09/kodak-investigating-take-bring-back-kodachrome/

 

[flavio81]

Following hot on the heels of the resurrection of Ektachrome comes a titillating rumour...

Just for a laugh, because I know some people get excited about this sort of thing

https://petapixel.com/2017/01/09/kodak-investigating-take-bring-back-kodachrome/

We're already at page 9 of discussion, the bets are that we can reach 25 pages:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Enjoy!

 

[DaveTheWalker]

Haha, I hadn't spotted that one Glad people are having fun!

 

[Cholentpot]

Haha, I hadn't spotted that one Glad people are having fun!

Yes folks, we all know it's far fetched and most probably not happening. As it is no-ones life or livelihood relies on whether an emulsion comes back so this is complete pure fun speculation. I'm enjoying it even though if it does come back I won't be able to shoot it due to the costs. I live in the domain of free expired film...

 

[FILM Ferrania]

I notice new people was added to "The Team" on Ferrania's webpage:

Ivano del Prato - Covered in an earlier, exciting video on Ferrania's page, preparing the "purple stuff" (a sensitizer). I guess this is the most difficult part of all the chemical processes required for making a film.

Luisa Tavella - "Our Product Specialist and researcher for photographic emulsion making at industrial scale. Luisa holds a number of patents and has knows the film manufacturing process from end to end."

Indeed, i've done a Google Patents Search and Luisa does hold patents on photographical emulsions for Ferrania SpA.

I've also seen that Ferrania holds many many patents, some of them going back to 1958 (and then cited by other companies like Kodak, Polaroid, etc.; and viceversa of course)

I also see some of these patents related to photo film are as recent as 2005, which for me is a good thing, that means they kept doing R&D all the way while films were still generally used (more or less in 2007-2008 you could argue digital really took over in a general way)

Giuseppe Valle - "A high-precision mechanical technician, every day Beppe takes care that all our custom factory equipment is in perfect working order."

It's good to know they have a resident/permanent person for this, since they have a lot of machines to go through a CLACT (clean, lube, adjust, calibrate, test)
I guess Giuseppe is busy full time right now!

Dave, i wonder if anyone from The Team would like to participate here in this thread...

I'm very glad that someone noticed the updates to the team. As we explained in one of our posts, the "Team of Six" in the factory has been a stable number, but the members of the team have changed several times over the two years due to hard choices made by Nicola about optimizing these six to EXACTLY the tasks on hand at a given moment in time. Some of the folks on the original team page will return - some full-time, and others simply as consultants - and of course we have tapped a wide variety of other former Ferrania staff over time to come in for a few days to help us with specific tasks.

We do hope to publish stories similar to the one about Ivano in the coming months, however some of the team are more shy than others...

By the way, Corrado also holds some patents, as you'll find if you search...

And regarding Beppe - he joined the team most recently but has already proven himself indispensable in fixing many issues that remained in the wake of the government's work on the building. Second only to Marco, he has a full understanding of the building-as-machine AND the experience and skills to fix issues quickly and without the need to go back to the government to have these issues corrected.

Regarding your last question about participating on APUG, I can't speak directly to each individual, but in general, I'm afraid the answer will be no. First and foremost, they are laser focused on making sure they have jobs for the long term by producing film as soon as possible and this takes priority over everything. Second, they are counting on me to convey much of what is happening so they don't have to take the time to do it themselves.

With that said, and with their full cooperation of course, I would like to organize something like Reddit's "Ask Me Anything" feature at some point in the future when they have time...

 

[FILM Ferrania]

The idea of a combo brick of film + dev kit sized for that quantity of film is quite nice, I would surely buy it!

Just today, Nicola and I discussed the potential to release processing chemistry along with film products. As he explained to me, this is not difficult for us at all and assuming we can hire at least one more person in the next few months, it can be done without interfering with production at all. (As it stands today, we would have to take one of the Team of Six off of a critical project in order to produce processing chemistry, which is something we simply cannot do.)

We really hope to push customers to labs as a first priority, because as many have pointed out, the lab situation is growing more desperate by the day - but we also want to encourage and support DIY processing by offering dev kits (with the caveat that some chemistry is difficult to ship globally to direct customers and so we'll perhaps need to use licensed distributors or other partners to make these kits available globally).

 

[FILM Ferrania]

And many other would do the same. Now think, how an independent lab would see the same situation:

• if Ferrania publicly announced an affordable service for super 8, any other lab would immediately stop any investments
• after all investments have ground to a stop, machinery would continue to break
• one lab after another would stop processing this film
• by the time Kodak & Ferrania appear with their product, the medium would be more or less extinct except for a few dedicated home processors, and both companies would face a steep uphill battle to get it running again.

Ferrania would be crazy to offer such a process, and crazy beyond redemption if they made any public statement even if they had plans to do so.

As I have noted many times before, we aim to keep our staff small and to extend our abilities through partnerships. There is no film without an entire film industry.

And so I can clearly state, publicly, that our plans are 100% focused on pushing business to existing labs that meet our standards and who are committed to the long-term viability of film capture. In light of Kodak's CES announcement about Ektachrome, we now feel like we won't be the only ones trying to push this agenda, and thus when they finally release new Ektachrome, we will wholeheartedly welcome them back to the E6 business! Their marketing muscle is obviously much better funded than our own and so we hope they can do much of the "heavy lifting" necessary to stabilize the E6 processing market.

Our internal lab will primarily be only for us, so that we can test different development techniques and produce accurate data sheets, as well as tips for consumers and labs about obtaining the best results from our products. Doing anything more than this is quite frankly out of the scope of our business plans as they exist today.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

You seem to have a funny idea of free market.
It's the same kind of idea that make somebody think that the new Ektachrome is a menace for Ferrania.
It isn't. It's a blessing.

If Ferrania publicly announced an affordable service for Super8, IMHO any other lab would immediately plan new investments, because they would trust in the future of the technology!

Firms don't easily prosper in isolation. Slide film would end up like Betamax. They need a "cottage industry", a "culture" behind their products. A "culture" means, in this case, projectors, screens, scanners, cameras, laboratories, archival papers, etc.
A firm cannot provide the entire "culture", cannot nourish the entire industry.
What Ferrania or Kodak can do is to "anchor expectations" about the future of slide film.
By guaranteeing developing to people in places where developing at the moment is problematic they make certain that slide film remains alive, and so they give reasons for investments to all the cottage industry. That's IMHO.

You said it better than me!!

 

[FILM Ferrania]

Haha, I hadn't spotted that one Glad people are having fun!

Yes, as long as folks understand that it's all in good fun, and little more, no problem...

 

[flavio81]

We really hope to push customers to labs as a first priority, because as many have pointed out, the lab situation is growing more desperate by the day - but we also want to encourage and support DIY processing by offering dev kits (with the caveat that some chemistry is difficult to ship globally to direct customers and so we'll perhaps need to use licensed distributors or other partners to make these kits available globally).

Hi Dave,

This intersects, because due to E6 processing being now a low demand service, what the labs need now is small scale E6 developing kits. Bigger than a home DIY kit, of course, but way smaller than what a lab used to purchase back in the good old days.

When i consulted the owner of my local lab on why he is about to discontinue E6 processing in the short term, he told me it wasn't because of lack of chemistry; but that because the volume of orders was so small, this chemistry will soon expire long before being used fully. So either a really long lasting set of chemicals (can't see if this is possible) or a rightly-sized kit would be beneficial.

As always, thanks for your replies.

Greetings,
Flavio.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

Hi Dave,

This intersects, because due to E6 processing being now a low demand service, what the labs need now is small scale E6 developing kits. Bigger than a home DIY kit, of course, but way smaller than what a lab used to purchase back in the good old days.

When i consulted the owner of my local lab on why he is about to discontinue E6 processing in the short term, he told me it wasn't because of lack of chemistry; but that because the volume of orders was so small, this chemistry will soon expire long before being used fully. So either a really long lasting set of chemicals (can't see if this is possible) or a rightly-sized kit would be beneficial.

As always, thanks for your replies.

Greetings,
Flavio.

Yes, expiring chemistry is of course a big problem with low-volume labs. For obvious reasons, we hope to first connect with high-volume labs and direct business to them as much as possible. Eventually, when we can produce processing chemistry ourselves (sooner than later, I've been told!), we can work with lower-volume labs to make sure that we sell in realistic volumes and reasonable prices.

 

[pbromaghin]

Yes, expiring chemistry is of course a big problem with low-volume labs. For obvious reasons, we hope to first connect with high-volume labs and direct business to them as much as possible. Eventually, when we can produce processing chemistry ourselves (sooner than later, I've been told!), we can work with lower-volume labs to make sure that we sell in realistic volumes and reasonable prices.

Oh, this is great to read. There are a couple low-volume labs that I like to use, but they are really on the edge of quitting e6.

 

[Diapositivo]

[double post due to some glitch]

 

[Diapositivo]

[same as above]

 

[Diapositivo]

As a side note of how the slide market is not dead yet, I would like to point you to this product, which appears to be new:

http://93163.mailings.netinventors....ampaign=EN_KW_03&utm_content=Mailing_11000179

It's a new, slimmer light box!

What is interesting in this is that there is people which is working at making a new product that can basically be used only for slide film. Gives me optimism.

PS I am not connected with the product or the seller. I received this ad with their newsletter, to which I subscribed.

 

[Nzoomed]

Hi Dave,
So either a really long lasting set of chemicals (can't see if this is possible) or a rightly-sized kit would be beneficial.

Greetings,
Flavio.

Thankfully, long lasting chemicals seem to be a speciality for Ferrania!

 

[FILM Ferrania]

Thankfully, long lasting chemicals seem to be a speciality for Ferrania!

Sure - but to be clear, the long-lasting stuff was in the form of intermediate compounds and not final products... Once the product is final, the clock begins ticking.

Hopefully by simply producing in reasonable and realistic volumes for labs and consumers, we will reduce the danger of a bottle going bad.

 

[Photo Engineer]

As a side note of how the slide market is not dead yet, I would like to point you to this product, which appears to be new:

http://93163.mailings.netinventors....ampaign=EN_KW_03&utm_content=Mailing_11000179

It's a new, slimmer light box!

What is interesting in this is that there is people which is working at making a new product that can basically be used only for slide film. Gives me optimism.

PS I am not connected with the product or the seller. I received this ad with their newsletter, to which I subscribed.

Slim light boxes were available in the US years ago. I have had one for about 20 years. Very handy gadgets.

PE

 

[AgX]

Light boxes have become gradually smaller: first incandescant lamps, then fluorescent lamps, smaller fluorescent lamps, fluorescent lamps with light pipes, cold-cathode fluorescent with light pipes and now LED's with light pipes. And colour rendition degrading over time...

Such light box can serve several purposes. One should not deduce from the appearance of such new model at a greater interest in slide photography.

 

[Photo Engineer]

This is true. I examine negatives on mine!

 

[MattKing]

I've recently acquired one of those inexpensive new LED light panels.
It is great. It is light in weight, gives me enough space to view an 8.5" x 11" negative or slide holder sheet in one go, and it is thin enough to put into the smallest of briefcases.
It will run off the power of a USB port on a laptop, or a small wall plug. It may run off of one of those backup cell phone batteries, if you have a big enough one.
The light colour isn't bad. The fact that it is dimmable is very handy.
It is a great way of showing off slides.

 

[cmacd123]

Hopefully by simply producing in reasonable and realistic volumes for labs and consumers, we will reduce the danger of a bottle going bad.

One item that has affected my local lab is that apparently the "PAKO" style plastic mounts that their mounting machine was set up to use have disappeared. they sent my slides back in sleeves and I had to mount them myself. Fortunately cardboard mounts are still available. I would be afraid that many labs might junk their mounting machine if they run out of mounts, and so just getting a supplier to make similar mounts may not be sufficient to get the mounting service back....

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I've recently acquired one of those inexpensive new LED light panels.
It is great. It is light in weight, gives me enough space to view an 8.5" x 11" negative or slide holder sheet in one go, and it is thin enough to put into the smallest of briefcases.
It will run off the power of a USB port on a laptop, or a small wall plug. It may run off of one of those backup cell phone batteries, if you have a big enough one.
The light colour isn't bad. The fact that it is dimmable is very handy.
It is a great way of showing off slides.

Hi Matte, may I ask where acquired your light panel from?