Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania (PART 2)

[Ken Nadvornick]

Both Do able and Desirable are to be considered.

But that admonition applies to all things in life. Not just commercial products. Or 126 plastic film cartridges.

If there is to be a future market for 126 film, then there will also be technology to make the required cartridges. Manufacturing new injection molded cartridges will be the least of the associated worries involved, because that industrial capability already exists in highly refined form.

That's how market-driven economies work. Product designers and manufacturing companies fill new market voids. SpaceX isn't building rockets and spacecraft for the fun of it.* They are building them because there is finally a market for them.

Ken

* Although I can't even imagine how much fun it must be for those few skilled in the art...

 

[Photo Engineer]

Ken, it applies to all things, but here that same admonition seems to have been abandoned by some.

PE

 

[1L6E6VHF]

I am not sure if the requirements for 126 backing paper is all that much different than for regualr roll film. So if they are running down a suplier so they can make 120, that suplier can also probably make 126 paper with only a few thousand dollars of additional tooling expense. Only thing I don’t remember is if 126 Paper had the perforations to match the film, if so the precision required goes up a couple of orders of magnitude.

The backing paper had oblong perforations significantly wider than those on the film itself. Provided the first perforation on the film were anywhere near the center of the wider perforation in the paper when the adhesive joined the two, the other 11, 19 or 23 perforations would line-up just fine. A non-issue.

@Sirius Glass: Coating a trichrome photo emulsion with any reasonable level of quality control is way beyond making a plastic cartridge. For what it's worth, while Kodachrome was the hardest film to process, it was the easiest three-color subtractive film to manufacture.

Having someone take would-be 35mm film out of the line before it goes to the usual both-edges perforator, and running it through a low-volume perforating jig would not be the biggest challenge.

I am afraid the loss of the cartridge dies could prove a death knell to any effort to make new Kodapaks. Perhaps 3D printing could be a knight in shining armor.

 

[madgardener]

Say that the molds for 126 can be made, the paper can be found, and the film can be made, would there be enough market to make it economically feasible? Just because you want it, that is not enough to make it happen. Go back and look at the dreaded Kodachrome will be deleted thread where the Kodachomanistas wanted to make Kodachrome in grandma's barn. Like that happened.

+I thought someone had moved PE into a barn to make it and it was was going to be produced in massive quantities at any moment? :munch:

 

[Photo Engineer]

No one would feed me and so I went on a hunger strike and got no sympathy as I faded away!

Yeah, I'm the wrong guy to even try to make it. I did type the real name here, but decided to delete it, as it would be a disservice to him!

PE

 

[Nzoomed]

I wish it was so simple. Just the cost of making a mold for the plastics is incredibly expensive

In china it may be a little cheaper, but it appears making a mould is straightforward, its more the costs involved that are the barrier.

Anyway, lomography is doing 110, so they must have had to reinvest in the equipment to package the stuff, as that format was almost dead at the time, and no one was producing colour film in that format, they would have had the issues with backing paper etc.

110 is very similar to 126, other than its 35mm, not 16mm. Lomography was obviously able to get the machinery to package the stuff in 110, and we know that ferrania have the equipment for converting 126 and many other formats.

Lomography obviously were able to buy the 110 cartridges from another supplier, but its possible someone else out there (maybe even kodak???) might still have some injection moulds.

Either way, this is the only real thing holding back ferrania from producing 126.

I think there would be good support for 126 film, and whats wrong if Ferrania needed to do another kickstarter to get the mould made for 126?

In the days of instagram, i think that 126 format would be an attractive format for those new to lomography and those new to analog photography in general.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

Why not start with the strongest two markets 135 and 120?

We are, of course, starting with these - 135 and 120 still. Super 8 and 16mm cine. These will be our first products, and quite likely, our only products for a while.

We talk all about it on our website and you could also go way back in this thread... The discussion of 126 is about our capability and future plans. Ideas we're kicking around, more or less.

 

[Sirius Glass]

If I were to go back over every post in this thread, I would have to build a map to figure out what is going on now as opposed to last week.

 

[Derek Lofgreen]

We are, of course, starting with these - 135 and 120 still. Super 8 and 16mm cine. These will be our first products, and quite likely, our only products for a while.

We talk all about it on our website and you could also go way back in this thread... The discussion of 126 is about our capability and future plans. Ideas we're kicking around, more or less.

135, 120 and Super 8, I can't wait. When? Is there a new estimated release date? Hmmmm......???????

D.

 

[Truzi]

I'd be fine with an unperforated bulk roll of 35mm for my 126 needs.
I'm excited about the Super8 too - after discovering my Grandfather's Super8 cameras more-or-less work.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

Kind of sad you have the 126 equipment but will keep it hidden away

We're just happy that we have the equipment, and that we paid by the pound rather than the "street price"

Trust that we are already feeling fairly steady pressure from many corners of the analog film world to get things started and to get up to full speed very quickly... (a drastic understatement)

The hard truth, however, is that we will have to move very slowly in our expansion efforts. Yes this will mean that 126 must wait its turn, but this slow growth is what will actually allow for us to make 126 eventually.

 

[Roger Cole]

I personally don't care about 126 or 110 (or cine for that matter) though I know many people do and I don't mean to dismiss them. But 35mm and 120 are the far and away most used formats today, and I'd like to see 4x5 sheets before those other things, which should also be easier.

But I AM very, very interested in a 400 or faster E6 film ASAP, with Provia 400X sadly gone.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

I just hope that you do 127 BEFORE you do 126 My Baby Rolleiflex 4x4 is hungry!!!!!!

As you might guess, 127 is actually quite a bit easier to make than 126. No perfs, no cartridges - just spools and backing paper...

127 is most certainly on "the list" as well, but like 126, it won't debut until we can spare the capacity that would be used to make our main formats.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

Should only be easier with todays technology.

Blueprints will contain all the measurements needed.
If someone was able to use those to make the old 126 canisters by hand, without the aid of CAD or cnc milling, then it will only be easier with today's CNC technology to produce an accurate canister.

Now several pages into this 126/127 "clump" in the thread, it's safe to say that APUG seems to really like 126 and 127.

FILM Ferrania also likes these formats very very much.

You're right - making small plastic items isn't all that difficult in general. Today, we have MUCH better tools to design and prototype these things than we did even 5 years ago. We think we might even have a CAD model already - buried somewhere in the ancient ones and zeros that we also inherited. If that's the case, we could order a sample from Shapeways or by a Makerbot and print up a few prototypes.

Creating the tooling, dies and molds for larger production will be an expensive cash outlay, and thus a challenge, but nothing that would stop us if we have pretty solid data about the sales potential.

You will find that we will make most prodigious use of user polls once production begins...

 

[FILM Ferrania]

No, it isn't. Sometimes as I read these comments it occurs to me that if we believed them, then all of us would still be living in caves, as everything in the world would be impossible.

I'm fairly certain that with the full expertise and might of the modern industrial world brought to bear on the task of replicating a plastic film cartridge (that had already been successfully done previously) such a task would likely not to be classified as a miracle undertaking.

Jeez... we have startup companies these days who are designing and building cargo and human-rated rockets and spacecraft from scratch. And all of those button and switch caps in those spacecraft weren't carved by hand from ivory, you know. But a 126 plastic film cartridge is now beyond us?

I think not...

Ken

Once again, Ken, you put it very eloquently...


Personally, I've always been a big fan these two quotes, which I try my best to live by:

"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
- Arthur C. Clarke (number two of Clarke's Three Laws)

"It's not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas."
- Edwin Land (and, in fact, nearly every other famous quote of his)​

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Regarding those called to do difficult things, and those who protest such things are impossible...

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

— Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States (1901-1909)
Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic", delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on April 23, 1910

 

[Sirius Glass]

Now several pages into this 126/127 "clump" in the thread, it's safe to say that APUG seems to really like 126 and 127.

No,only the crazies love 126 and 127. The rest of us are sane and are above average in intelligence. We just humor the others. <<wink>> <<wink>> <<nod>> <<nod>>

 

[FILM Ferrania]

I personally don't care about 126 or 110 (or cine for that matter) though I know many people do and I don't mean to dismiss them. But 35mm and 120 are the far and away most used formats today, and I'd like to see 4x5 sheets before those other things, which should also be easier.

But I AM very, very interested in a 400 or faster E6 film ASAP, with Provia 400X sadly gone.

I know this thread has become many-tentacled and I'm pretty sure I posted somewhere, at some point in time, our point of view about formats and our sense of priorities about their release.

But for the sake of putting it down in black and white again, here's what we're thinking at this point in time:

We're starting with 100 ASA color reversal 35mm and 120 still and Super 8 and 16mm cine. We have optimized cutting diagrams that maximize each mini-Jumbo, producing the right amounts of each.

Everything beyond that is pure speculation. Yes we have the machines and inherent capability to do more, and we will be able to produce single-batch runs feasibly.

But what formats and film speeds we make in the future will depend largely on You. We will be taking regular polls and trying our very best to enlist the analog community at large to help us decide what is next, and next after that...

 

[FILM Ferrania]

@Ken Nadvornick - You win again! How could I forget the Teddy quote that begat all the rest!

 

[Truzi]

No,only the crazies love 126 and 127. The rest of us are sane and are above average in intelligence. We just humor the others. <<wink>> <<wink>> <<nod>> <<nod>>

... but the negatives are square(ish)

 

[europanorama]

Negative film long roll for 220

How about offering 120 on long rolls? so we could use it as 220 and in rotapancams. yes, its working in noblex. but slidefilms and panorama is NOGO.

 

[wblynch]

I am ready to buy some Ferrania 100 reversal film in 35mm and 120!

 

[Nzoomed]

Now several pages into this 126/127 "clump" in the thread, it's safe to say that APUG seems to really like 126 and 127.

FILM Ferrania also likes these formats very very much.

You're right - making small plastic items isn't all that difficult in general. Today, we have MUCH better tools to design and prototype these things than we did even 5 years ago. We think we might even have a CAD model already - buried somewhere in the ancient ones and zeros that we also inherited. If that's the case, we could order a sample from Shapeways or by a Makerbot and print up a few prototypes.

Creating the tooling, dies and molds for larger production will be an expensive cash outlay, and thus a challenge, but nothing that would stop us if we have pretty solid data about the sales potential.

You will find that we will make most prodigious use of user polls once production begins...

I agree, and i cant wait to see what polls appear in the future!

Anyway, the main thing is you have photographers interests in mind by saving as much equipment and machinery as possible, whether or not it gets used or not in the near future, it doesnt matter.
Getting E6 up and running is the best possible decision you have made. Its the biggest hole in the market and needs to be saved.

Cant wait to shoot my first roll!

And i think there will be big support from 126 shooters out there, especially in the lomography community.

 

[TheToadMen]

interview Ferrania's David bias

An interview: "Q&A: FILM Ferrania’s David Bias Says Analog Film is Making Comeback"

http://www.techvoid.com/2015/11/23/qa-film-ferranias-david-bias-says-analog-film-is-making-comeback/

 

[georg16nik]

An interview: "Q&A: FILM Ferrania’s David Bias Says Analog Film is Making Comeback"

http://www.techvoid.com/2015/11/23/qa-film-ferranias-david-bias-says-analog-film-is-making-comeback/

Film never left,
Perhaps, David suggest Ferrania film is “Making Comeback”.?

Summer 2016?