Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania (PART 2)

[mshchem]

No, I cannot say when.

I could say how we are planning to get there, but what purpose would that serve?

You and a few others have shown me the futility of such things - and the other 99.99% of people continue to be willing to take us on our word.

Well, not just "our word" but on the understanding, based on many things we've published in the past, that as a true manufacturer (not just another brand reboxing Agfa film), there is no option for us to simply produce B&W film and that we MUST produce color film products to be viable for the long-term.

I think Film Ferrania is making great progress, especially when you consider how few people are involved. Rescuing a film plant is a mighty deed! Best Regards Mike

 

[twelvetone12]

I could say how we are planning to get there, but what purpose would that serve?

At least for me, to feed my curiosity as engineer

 

[FILM Ferrania]

MY very early exposure (no pun) was to Ferrania P33, an ASA 160 film which I believe was the source of 3M Dynapan. I only ever got even fewer rolls under the ferrania name thna I have so far obtained as P30. Was that a more mainstream film as far as processing? (Supplied here mostly as a bonus film with 3M film processing, send in your film and get a replacement roll of Dyanapan free)

I'm fairly certain that the P33 and P36 variants were created as still products from the get-go.

Am I reading between the lines here that you have to move some more steps into the new factory that you were outsourcing to get the production up to speed? (changes that would also be needed to get colour production running)

I'm not sure I understand the question entirely, or what it's specifically referencing - but generally (and over-simplifying a good deal), the plan from the beginning was to make emulsions and coat ourselves, then send the coated rolls out for converting and finishing.

Getting color production running, at this point in time, is about surviving long enough to fix everything that was broken, and/or replace everything that was lost, during our very long downtime. This is a process that remains ongoing (and enormously frustrating, to be honest).

A major part of surviving to make color film soon is about making P30 film now - in sufficient quantity to create positive cash flow. And to do this properly, YES, we want to convert and finish by ourselves instead of outsourcing. We have the machines, of course, and we are already at work on this sub-project.

 

[Berri]

At least for me, to feed my curiosity as engineer

Well, I'm no engineer, but I'd be curios too.

 

[Harry Callahan]

Dear Dave Bias,

i know you´re short on time, but i think i´m having an important point here - it´s about sheet film, but don´t worry i won´t ask you anything which allready has been answered. As i´m taking some of your time anyway, i also want to give you the "emotional part":

I´m not a backer, but analog film and foto was and is very important to me, but during the last years a lot of things went down in my life - and seeing Fuji pull out of movie film, Kodak stopping Ektachrome ect. - i really lost a lot of hope. But when Ferrania came along and showed its passion and will to save a part of analog film production, that gave me some hope back. Though you had to struggle a lot and take obstacles which sometimes seemed insurmountable you worked on - and that really was good for me to see.
I don´t want to get too deep and i know that it can sound weird to outstanding persons who arn´t into analog film (and to persons who are into analog film), but seeing you guys holding up just helped me. As there seems to be an analogy between Ferrania and me, my life isn´t as down as it was several years ago, but just like Ferranias factory isn´t at full capability right now so am i - but its getting better.

Anyway i´m here to "talk business" and that´s my point:
Consider to put sheet film on ACETATE base, not PET (plastic, synthetic material; in movie film synthetic base is called PET).
As far as i know all sheet film nowadays is put on PET-base, which creates a huge problem as PET can pass and create static charge. As nowadays nearly every film holder is made of plastics, which also do create static charge, sheet film on PET base nearly inevitable gets static charge, attracts dust and gives you problems during printing. I researched the net and found some threads discussing this problem and sollutions, but i´ll give you a summary first:
To avoid dust on PET-sheet film some users do:
-clean the holders with antistatic means, like brushes, cloths ect. and lay the holders in their bathroom
-the bathroom has to be cleaned thorough before, including walls, floor and ceiling if possible
-then they run the shower with hot water for several minutes to create steam
-the steam is meant to clean the air by water molecules attaching to the dust in the air and sinking it to the ground
-and high humidity also is able to reduce static charge on plastic items, therefore the holders are placed in the bath
during the steam
-when the steam has set they darken the bath and put the sheet film into the holders, but they push each sheet slowly
only, to aviod buildup of static charge, same goes for dark slides, only move them slowly
-they put each loaded holder into an antisatic ziplog bag, so friction during transport won´t creat static charge
-two loaded holders allready in individual antistatic bags are put into a bigger antistatic ziplog bag and five pairs of
holders again are put into an even bigger antistatic ziplog bag
-then they clean the bellows of the camera with a vacuum cleaner, as dust in the bellows might be attracted by static
charge of the sheet film and get on the film before/during/after exposure
-these antistatic ziplog bags themselfes are made of plastic, which usually creates static charge by friction, but is
covered with a substance which at least stops static buildup; but i don´t know whether this antistatic bags are able to
reduce static charge of a film holder. Anyway the antistatic characteristic of those bags only last for about 6 months -
whether you use them or not - so you can´t buy bulk or use them for years; no you have to buy new ones every 6 month
and discard all old ones
-when the LF-camera is set up one has to be careful not to let dust inside the bellows while changing a lens or
attaching the film holder
-the dark slides need to be pulled out and pushed in slowly only to reduce buildup of static charge
-for transport home the holders need to go back into the antistatic bags as still dust can be attracted to the sheet film
which may be problematic during developement - especially on stand developement as the dust just not might go off
the emulsion side and produce "holes" in developement
-they use an antistatic-gun to zip the holders before loading, before attaching them to the camera, before putting them
back into the ziplock bags ect.

All this methods don´t guarantee dust-free negatives so still dust has to be spotted during printing. If the neg is scanned it can be done digital, which is easier, but if you want to print analog you´re again having some problems:
-dust being on the film during exposure/developement will print black
-as there is no white paint for prints you need to take a rasor blade and scrape off the black dust-shapes on the print
-you need to mix the correct paint (black to grey on B&W) and paint the scraped area
-but because the emulsion is scraped off the printing paper on that spot, the paint will blead into the paper making it
hard to paint the scraped spot correct
-to avoid the scraping of the print you need to take a special red paint and put it on the negativ itself, where the dust
was during exposure/developement
-now the dust will print white and then you can paint the white spot on the print without needing to scrape

Here some links on the topic:
https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/4x5-dusty-film.420760/
https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/dust.55609/
https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/dust-marks-on-4x5.30089/
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/archive/index.php/t-27897.html
https://davidhoulder.com/photography/dust-on-4x5
...............................................................

As you can see dust can be a hell of a problem and a hell of work to REDUCE, not to avoid it completely - and the key is the film base. I have bought some old holders with some really old sheet film inside. They´re thicker than the modern sheet films and they don´t pass or buildup static charge. I put a PET-sheet inside the holder, opened and closed the dark slide several times to built up static charge and strewed a bit dust on the emulsion side of the sheet. The dust was held by static charge so bad that i had to place my mouth an inch away from the dust and blow my lungs out to blow some of the dust off - but not all!!!
While the old sheet film having acetate base didn´t attract the dust and a little breeze was enough to remove ALL of the dust from the emulsion - though i again moved the dark slide several times to get static charge on the holder.

One also can compare modern sheet film to 135 or 120, as 135 or 120 usually have acetate base. There will be no dust attraction with acetate-base film even if its held by a plastic-part which has static charge.
Off course the film holders still should be clean, but without dust-attraction by static charge due to PET-base its waaaaaaaaaay easier to get rid of dust on sheet film.
.............................................................

I assume that there are technical reasons why every (other) manufacturer today puts sheet film on PET-base and that´s why i´m not sending you an email but posting it here - as some other users on this forum might have some insight on this topic.
But if you were able to put P30 (and later chrome) onto acetate-base, if it makes sense technically and in production, this sheet film would be an enormous relief for LF-shooters. It would fill a biiiiiiig gap in the market - and move some into LF-shooting at all, as i`m not eager to go through all of this hassle just for some LF-negs. I was thinking about it, but i´ll only do LF when there is a sheet film on acetate-base out there - and i guess a lot of others think alike.

I know there still is some time till you just can start to think about producing sheet film, but that´s why i´m telling you now about this topic; maybe you´ll find a free minute to ask your experts at Film Ferrania to consider sheet film on acetate-base. If it should be possible don´t forgett to print it on the box, in capitals like: ACETATE BASE - NO DUST ATTRACTION.

Thank you very much for your time and keeping my fingers crossed for Film Ferrania,

H. Callahan

 

[jonasfj]

...Kodak stopping Ektachrome ect. - i really lost a lot of hope...

Well, while you are waiting for the Film Ferrania color slide film, you can shoot some Ektachrome...

https://petapixel.com/2017/11/15/kodaks-ektachrome-reboot-track-despite-46m-loss-425-layoffs/

I'm was trying to estimate the capacity of Kodak to make Ektachrome 35mm film.

It says that the rolls are 6000" x 4" so one of those would contain around 40,000 rolls.

I do not have a clue at what speed a coating machine runs, but let us just assume something, like 4" / min. Then it would take about one day to finish a roll. A assume they have one machine per layer. Say the machines are running 220 days per year. Then the capacity would be 8.8 million rolls per year.

That should create around $100 million in revenue.I suppose they can have a pretty decent margin too.

Obviously, they are going to split that capacity between 35mm film, 16mm film and probably Super-8.

Kodak already has the distributions channels setup so they will get quickly to market at low cost.

This sounds like it has potential to succeed!

Cheers!

 

[SilverShutter]

That should create around $100 million in revenue.I suppose they can have a pretty decent margin too.

Obviously, they are going to split that capacity between 35mm film, 16mm film and probably Super-8.

Kodak already has the distributions channels setup so they will get quickly to market at low cost.

This sounds like it has potential to succeed!

Cheers!

Well not to be dissapointing, but its not like Kodak doesnt sell any other film at the moment. I mean, how many rolls of Portra do they sell every year? It must be on the millions too, but still the film division creates losses. And Portra is just one of the proffesional ones, but what about all the ColorPlus, Gold, Ektar, Tri-X, T-max, etc? I dont see why these films dont make a 100 million revenue too.

 

[twelvetone12]

I think the coater does various hundred feet per minute. In "making Kodak film" there is the exact figure but I don't have the book at hand.

 

[fdonadio]

I do not have a clue at what speed a coating machine runs, but let us just assume something, like 4" / min. Then it would take about one day to finish a roll. A assume they have one machine per layer. Say the machines are running 220 days per year. Then the capacity would be 8.8 million rolls per year.

Depending on the coater design, it can coat several layers “at once”. I don’t know how many, but I am sure @Photo Engineer will chime in and enlighten us once again.

Now, a 4” wide coater looks like research equipment to me. I also believe it’s much faster than that, maybe something like 4” per second. So, your math is very conservative.

 

[bvy]

Depending on the coater design, it can coat several layers “at once”. I don’t know how many, but I am sure @Photo Engineer will chime in and enlighten us once again.

Now, a 4” wide coater looks like research equipment to me. I also believe it’s much faster than that, maybe something like 4” per second. So, your math is very conservative.

There's a typo above. " should be '. The coater described processes rolls 6000 feet long by 4 feet wide. They did talk about a research coater that handles smaller 5 inch wide rolls, but that's not what's being discussed here.

 

[fdonadio]

There's a typo above. " should be '. The coater described processes rolls 6000 feet long by 4 feet wide. They did talk about a research coater that handles smaller 5 inch wide rolls, but that's not what's being discussed here.

4 feet wide is more like production equipment. It’s capable of producing way more than current demand, I believe.

 

[twelvetone12]

B38 has 2 coating rooms and two drying tunnels, each can coat up to 9 layers for a total of 18 layers in one pass. If I recall correctly it could do up to 10+10. It is all in the book

 

[trendland]

I'm fairly certain that the P33 and P36 variants were created as still products from the get-go.



I'm not sure I understand the question entirely, or what it's specifically referencing - but generally (and over-simplifying a good deal), the plan from the beginning was to make emulsions and coat ourselves, then send the coated rolls out for converting and finishing.

Getting color production running, at this point in time, is about surviving long enough to fix everything that was broken, and/or replace everything that was lost, during our very long downtime. This is a process that remains ongoing (and enormously frustrating, to be honest).

A major part of surviving to make color film soon is about making P30 film now - in sufficient quantity to create positive cash flow. And to do this properly, YES, we want to convert and finish by ourselves instead of outsourcing. We have the machines, of course, and we are already at work on this sub-project.

That is realy quite logical as you refer in regard to cash flow.And of cause I understand this issue.
With a high ammound of P30 films just in time from selling the stuff you obviously refinance further advance in concern of color film.
I realy saw this and understand the problem just some seconds after I noticed first : Ferrania bring out P30 a bw emulsion.
It seams to be a very hard business today
in addition you had a couple of times real bad luck.
With lokal officials in Italy, with technical
issues no one had expect a.s.o.
As a result of this all - you obviously may have real great luck by going foreward with your ambitioned plans.
Because you have worked hard, you are smart in fulfilling progress and you spent all you private money you have into this
great idea.
Seriously I also have some doubts if this can go right at least.
But if you absolute not willig to give up
with your plan you obviously will be successessful.
Because the market is prepared to want new films to a period a big manufacturer in asia isn't willing to care about film in any way .
with compliments

 

[trendland]

Well not to be dissapointing, but its not like Kodak doesnt sell any other film at the moment. I mean, how many rolls of Portra do they sell every year? It must be on the millions too, but still the film division creates losses. And Portra is just one of the proffesional ones, but what about all the ColorPlus, Gold, Ektar, Tri-X, T-max, etc? I dont see why these films dont make a 100 million revenue too.

Weĺl - some simple speculations in regard of the scale and the dimensions of color film today. (Just to have an idea of the dimentions).
In 2000 the max. from sales in film was
estimated : 3 - 4 billion films worldwide.
As equivalent of 135-36.
Kodak has more than 50% from this all just estimated without official sources.
Please don't beat me for this if I am not 100% correct.To me it is not of a great interesst to faile in regard of some 100 million or some 10 million films a year.
As I want to cover out just the dimension.
The remaining demand to film today is in the near of 1% some say 1,5% some are optimistic and want to see 2,5% again.
So lets have just 1% and lets hope this is a stable basis.
As a result of this we may talk about 35 - 40 million films in color AND bw today.
As equivalent of 135-36.
But lets say the demand to color (including E6) is a very little higher as 1% from the alltime top in 2000-2001 !
So we may have around 40 million films in total (a year).
And now it is becoming very unclear !
Lets have more as the absolute half of this to Fuji !
The best selling films of Kodak today (so as in the past ) are amateuric c41 we all know its names as Gold 200,ColorPlus,
Gold400/Ultramax400.
If you have a short look to some dealers you will find this emulsions everywere.
Otherwise a dealer is not selling and film again.
Wouln't you agree with : these simple color emulsions are more than a half of all Kodak selling films (so it was in the past)
So you have a potential of todays demand to all other Kodak Color Films including New Ektachrome100 of the remaining rest to just :
LESS THAN 10 MILLION (135-36) equivalent.
The problem to this demand in color is -
it is not "safe".
The oplosite we noticed with bw films since nearly 2 years. There you see a "stabile" demand to films on an all time lowest level and it becomes a little more from quarter to quarter.
These extreme risc (to calculate the further demand to color /E6 emulsions just in aproach of a simple year)
is on the other hand the greatest chance
to manufacturers today - "if they speculate the demand can't become less now."
And they also have potential to push this
low level demand with massive advertising very effective.
So at least : "Everything is possible - future will tell".
So Kodak's plan is to sell 10million New
Ektachrome Films/year !
May be my calculation from above is total wrong. ........
Never mind - so it seams to be with each
calculation with some variables SilverShutter ....!

with regards

 

[Peter Schrager]

Harry doesn't Kodak use an estar base??
I've used LF films from foma china and Germany and have never experienced any dust problems,whatsoever ...wondering what your problem is..do you live in a very humid country??...im in California where it's dry so that might make a difference

 

[cmacd123]

AS far as Base, Most sheet film is on a PET (poly) base the these days, it can be stiffer, and more dimensionally stable. 120 is also often on PET.

PET can be hard to control the static buildup, and in 35mm is is very prone to light pipe effects. In movie film Camera original is often on Acetate, while release prints (remember those) are on Poly.

Sheet film does generally require a thicker base. beofre Poly was common, it was made on Acetate, (heck at one time it was made on Nitrate)

 

[cmacd123]

Many Times we have discussed Kodak's main coater. one master roll on that sucker is 6000 ft. by 48 inches (or more) wide. that takes Much less than a hour to run according to all the sources. if the film was perfect you would get 35 rolls of 35mm each 6000ft long out of one master. (or 77rolls of 16mm, if you were making 16mm or super 8)

one roll would result in about 38,000 rolls of 135-36 if the coating was perfect.

Any defects are spotted by a number of sensors and that area of the roll is scrapped.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Umm 72 inches? But sheep film has too much lanolin in it Charles.

PE

 

[cmacd123]

Umm 72 inches? But sheep film has too much lanolin in it Charles.

PE

Typo on the sheet (sheep) film corrected. the Podcast talked about a test roll done on the main coater at 48 inches wide. the test roll they said was for internal use. I had heard wider talks about before, thus my "48 or wider" comment.

of course perhaps lanolin is the secret ingredient to get Ektachrome to run steady when used in current production Super8 Cartridges. I have hear complaints from various forums about privately packed Super 8 being unsteady, even when the firm doing the packing was buying fresh cartridges direct from the yellow Box folks in Rochester.

 

[mshchem]

Umm 72 inches? But sheep film has too much lanolin in it Charles.

PE

Free Range Sheep film! ! A marketing COUP!

 

[jonasfj]

Well not to be dissapointing, but its not like Kodak doesnt sell any other film at the moment. I mean, how many rolls of Portra do they sell every year? It must be on the millions too, but still the film division creates losses. And Portra is just one of the proffesional ones, but what about all the ColorPlus, Gold, Ektar, Tri-X, T-max, etc? I dont see why these films dont make a 100 million revenue too.

It is not necessarily the film business that create losses. Remember that Kodak has several business lines that are less well known than film. I just have this feeling that their smartphone is not the cash cow they would wish for. Ever heard of the Printomatic? At least a few years ago their film business, which is mainly for the movie industry, was healthy enought.

 

[Harry Callahan]

Harry doesn't Kodak use an estar base??
I've used LF films from foma china and Germany and have never experienced any dust problems,whatsoever ...wondering what your problem is..do you live in a very humid country??...im in California where it's dry so that might make a difference

You´re right, Kodak has estar-base, but i think only on color sheets. B&W, like T-Max for example, is on PE (polyester).
No, low humidity only worsens buildup of static charge, so in a humid area it shouldn´t be that bad. If your holders are made of metal, like the grafmatic backs, you could be lucky and avoid static charge on the sheets.
As i said i testet acetate base vs. polyester base in my holders, which are made of plastic, and the dustattration was that bad i decided not to do sheet film (unless there is sheet film on acetate base).
As Ferrania is one of the manufacturers you can talk to easily, i just wanted to point them to the problems of PE-base - and maybe they can do something about it. As i described some users suffer heavy problems and make an odyssey to avoid dust (see the links in my first post) and Lf-fotography really would benefit from sheet film on acetate-base, i think.

 

[Harry Callahan]

AS far as Base, Most sheet film is on a PET (poly) base the these days, it can be stiffer, and more dimensionally stable.

This is one of my assumptions why they use PE today for sheet, probably film flatness just is better. But maybe acetate-base also can work, if the holder is good enough at holding the film flat - some holders are said to be better than others... i mean they managed to take good pictures before PE-base took over... (and they weren´t using glass-plates)

 

[Roger Cole]

I just about gave up on sheet film because of dust. Nothing I do - wipe down the darkroom, run a HEPA grade aircleaner for an hour, clean holders and slides with anti-static brush, tried blowing compressed air over the film just before inserting the slide (made no difference either way) - a dust free exposure is just about IMPOSSIBLE. And I've got better things to do than try to spot a negative to print white (which gives one ginormous white spot on your print if you aren't VERY careful) then spot it back, when my 6x7 negs exposures are dust free. Pity, as I like working with the view camera. I do have a 6x7 back but that just doesn't seem the same. If my RZ67 had movements...

 

[Harry Callahan]

....tried blowing compressed air over the film just before inserting the slide (made no difference either way)...

Now that you´re saying that, reminds me i also once tried to use compressed air on the emulsion before closing the dark slide, but had the same result - dust still there. I even once tried, years ago, to wipe the emulsion side with a brush... and got streakes on the neg... but that was with other holders; i back then tried to revive a camera from about 1910 and didn´t knew about the cause, the PE-base, and gave up.