Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania

Xmas · Nov 11, 2014

MattKing said:
Stone:

1) this would be a good subject for its own thread; and
2) you should probably experiment a bit with attempting to make duplicates using optical means.

If you do, you may start to get a feel for why this is actually quite challenging.

well cibachrome from kchrome was easy for me.
colour grid for grey card grey 15mins
step wedge for tone 15 mins
perfect 8x10 15 mins
toy FSU suitcase enlarger
duping slides more difficult even with dupe film

Nzoomed · Nov 11, 2014

Xmas said:
well cibachrome from kchrome was easy for me.
colour grid for grey card grey 15mins
step wedge for tone 15 mins
perfect 8x10 15 mins
toy FSU suitcase enlarger
duping slides more difficult even with dupe film

It looks like the easiest way to duplicate slides is digitally, i dont personally see any problem with this if you can get good quality scans at high res.

Ricardo Miranda · Nov 11, 2014

I dont have a darkroom, and for the limited amount of film i shoot

And that is your problem. I use a brick (10 rolls) almost every week.

Have you heard of Slide Copiers? You can do a duplicate negative from a slide. Very easy to do. Quality will not be the same as the original positive, but it is a cheaper way of getting prints.
Like many I shoot slide film thinking in projection.
You should get a nice projector. you'll be amazed by the results.
Use what is here now, before these things go away forever.
It is no consolation to dream about what was or what could be.
There is a reason why films and processes are being discontinued: no one was using them.

Now, lets go back to reality and to Ferrania.
Dave, can we expect to see in the near future Solaris FG Plus coming back? ISO 100 and 400, please!

Nzoomed · Nov 11, 2014

Ricardo Miranda said:
And that is your problem. I use a brick (10 rolls) almost every week.

Now, lets go back to reality and to Ferrania.
Dave, can we expect to see in the near future Solaris FG Plus coming back? ISO 100 and 400, please!

I think someone asked him this earlier.
Solaris looks like it was a good film indeed.
I think its safe to say they will move on to their C41 film once they have got everything sorted with their E6 and have their plant running at full capacity with the parts installed from the old plant.

Xmas · Nov 11, 2014

Nzoomed said:
It looks like the easiest way to duplicate slides is digitally, i dont personally see any problem with this if you can get good quality scans at high res.

Ok how do I get from a scan to a 2x2 slide?

Note the procedure I described was from '87.

pdeeh · Nov 11, 2014

As this now appears to be a scanning thread, perhaps it ought to be moved to DPUG :munch:

Xmas · Nov 11, 2014

StoneNYC said:
Regarding contrast issues, wouldn't shooting at say N-1/pulling whatever you want to call it, solve some of the contrast issues?

HiStone

The best way to get slides is to use ECN/ECP like your cine chums do. You need ECP under a loope.

Or go large eg 6x6 masked C41 neg printed on to a 6x6 unmasked C41 - peerless, you would need n-x processing to match ECN/ECP norms.

E6 was more convient for masses.

Lantern slides were contacted from negs when only mono was available.

Noel

Xmas · Nov 11, 2014

pdeeh said:
As this now appears to be a scanning thread, perhaps it ought to be moved to DPUG :munch:

hybrid... if you please?

pdeeh · Nov 11, 2014

Oh hang on it's a technical thread about the chemistry behind and processing of colour films both negative and reversal as well as obsolete colour printing processes.

So maybe it should be in the Color Film, Paper, Chemistry section?

Mr. Bias is going to have a lot of wading through mud to do when he comes back to catch up on the thread ...

StoneNYC · Nov 11, 2014

Xmas said:
HiStone

The best way to get slides is to use ECN/ECP like your cine chums do. You need ECP under a loope.

Or go large eg 6x6 masked C41 neg printed on to a 6x6 unmasked C41 - peerless, you would need n-x processing to match ECN/ECP norms.

E6 was more convient for masses.

Lantern slides were contacted from negs when only mono was available.

Noel

How many times do I have to say THEY DONT MAKE ECP in 8x10 sheets....

Xmas · Nov 11, 2014

StoneNYC said:
How many times do I have to say THEY DONT MAKE ECP in 8x10 sheets....

As often as you feel the need, but I suggested a non masked C41 for 6x6 slides - even that is not available BTW but 60-70mm ECP may be.

That point did not stop you trying for 5222 in 4x5.

It might appear ECN/ECP won't last too long in any size if you trouble to read EK accounts.

But you were considering ways of obtaining transparencys the neg - neg way is the simplest that is why it is used for cine.

It is also used for mono paper and was for Lantern slides in past.

flavio81 · Nov 11, 2014

Nzoomed said:
Ok, so scanning my E6 films is a waste of time because its digital?
It appears that digital printing is the only way to print my E6 now, so i dont know what you are getting at?
Im trying to come up with a way to optically print E6 onto RA4, and projecting it digitally as an inverted image would do just this.
(...)
The lab I contacted can print from a digital file, which is great as i dont have to send my filmstrips overseas for printing.
They say they can print from a digital interpositive.

The current state of the art in scanning can retrieve about 4000 dots per inch which is discarding quite a bit of information relative to what is really present on the film. Also, the resolution of the scanner being way less than the object to be scanned (film grains) means sometimes the horrible problem of grain aliasing will appear, where the resulting scanned image has an exxagerated amount of grain, grain which also does not have the character of actual film grain, being just an artifact of the process. This is especially evident when scanning ISO 400 (or faster) B&W film.

It was notorious, for example, when i had some pictures made on Superia 1600, which printed just fine optically on 8x11" paper with pretty acceptable (and beautiful) grain. When i tried to do exactly the same print digitally (by scanning and then exposing RA4 paper), the grain was just horrible, unacceptably big. Quite a difference.

You can search for Henning Serger's posts on the actual resolution of state-of-the-art films shot perfectly, compared to what a scanner can bring.

Of course, for small enlargements the digital system works just fine, but photographers who wish to sell their work (or hang their pictures nicely on the wall) deserve and demand better.

Moreover, the process of printing using an enlarger is (arguably) faster; high-resolution scanning of a negative can take quite a bit of time, 20 minutes for example.

Now back to Ferrania(with an A at the end and only one N...)

As far as we know, they have a film coater, not paper coater. So if there is any chance of a Reversal paper, it would have then to be coated by other company.

What I say is: Let the new Ferraniacolor reversal ISO 100 film enter the market, let Dave & friends market it effectively (a la Ilford, not a la Alaris), and should the use of E6 increase over the next two years, the reversal paper should appear as a consequence -- be it from Inoviscoat, for example.

Lachlan Young · Nov 11, 2014

I suspect that the overwhelming majority of Ferrania's customers will not be printing optically from their transparencies - not surprising given how tricky Ilfochrome was & how noxious the chemistry was. On the other hand, there are plenty of people printing optical RA4 - Fujiflex & Kodak Endura metallic are even on similar bases to Ilfochrome etc. If you're really desperate to make the ultimate analogue colour print, learn 4 colour pigment printing - then you can print on pretty much any substrate you like.

As regards E6 chemistry, Ferrania have pointed out that they can make it themselves if necessary - anyway Tetenal & a number of others make the stuff currently.

ME Super · Nov 11, 2014

You can print optically from a slide. At the present time there are two ways to do this, not including the now-discontinued Ilfochrome. Way #1 is to cross process RA-4 paper as a positive. PE has shown results from this, and in most cases the color isn't quite right. The second way is an internegative. PE has suggested using a negative like Portra 160 for this, since dedicated internegative films are no longer available. He has had good results with the internegative method using Portra 160.

Chazzy · Nov 11, 2014

I pity poor Dave Bias plowing through this concatenation of mostly irrelevant posts looking for questions directly related to Ferrania. If he gives up on this thread, it will be the fault of those who keep taking the thread off on tangents.

Ken Nadvornick · Nov 11, 2014

Charles nails it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that a link to this thread was posted in the comments section of the Film Ferrania Kickstarter project on October 29th shortly after the goal was funded. That means we all have significant exposure outside of APUG for the comments being made here, and the directions this discussion takes.

The audience is listening...

Ken

Truzi · Nov 11, 2014

I'm sure Ferrania's film will be fine. I have noticed comments on color palette, saturation, grain, and such. I am not a professional photographer, and I don't make art - so if the film is close to 1980s family photos we have, I can live with that. Anything better would just be a bonus for me.

Looking at photos on the web of the most recent offerings Ferrania had, I suspect the film will be much more modern.

For those of us who get creative to shoot 126, 828, etc., I think bulk rolls of unperforated 35mm might be a good alternative or first step to the "abandoned" formats.

Photo Engineer · Nov 11, 2014

StoneNYC said:
Regarding contrast issues, wouldn't shooting at say N-1/pulling whatever you want to call it, solve some of the contrast issues?

No. This is a matter of physics being against you. It cannot be solved, but can be reduced by contrast masking and color masking.

As for reds in detail, here is a normally exposed slide, scanned (to get things into APUG we have to scan them in you know), and the original is EPP with the subjects being 3 racial types, 3 hair types, and 3 levels of detail in reds. You see, I have done this over and over and over so I have objective tests for comparison. Included with this are type R and type C. Some of them included Ektaflex prints and Cibachrome prints.

And yes, scanning introduces aliasing which is also present in this scan. It also works to make some very fine grained images look worse than they are. (think Ektar) The originals of this slide (+1, N, -1) and the Agfachrome, Fujichrome, Kodachrome and corresponding negative films were all shot with Nikon cameras with the standard lenses under rigid studio conditions.

The faces are blocked as I do not own the copyright nor do I have releases. These are 3 previously undocumented Kodak Girls BTW.

PE

pentaxpete · Nov 11, 2014

I first saw 'Ferraniacolor' slides in about 1953 at East Ham Grammar School Photographic Society when a 'Rich' kid brought in some -- his Dad owned a Chemist shop and processed with May & Baker 'Genochrome' chemistry -- well , it was not long before I tried Ferraniacolor and made up the chemicals from the Formula -- I used to but 'Refills' ( no cassette) and reload my own as it was cheaper ! When I joined Barking Photographic Society in 1959 the Club used to send out members loaded with Ferraniacolor and photograph the annual Carnival, then rush back to the HQ process up, blow dry the films, mount and make a commentary on a tape recorder then rush to the Carnival ground and show it in a tent to the Mayor, Carnival Queen and Princesses and members of the public !!!
When I got a job as Scientific Photographer for the Geology Department, University College London at £12-00 a week, the Boss let me splash out for a Asahi Pentax S1a and I introduced COLOUR Photomicrographs to the amazed Professors and Lecturers who had never seen such things !! All on Ferraniacolor Tungsten balance film ! I still HAVE some Ferraniacolor slides ! When they changed to the CR50 emulsion I could never get such good results -- I got dark slides and a green colour cast -- never successful with CR50 -- I left in 1970. ( SORRY-- NO Scanned Ferraniacolor to show you )

Prest_400 · Nov 11, 2014

Truzi said:
I'm sure Ferrania's film will be fine. I have noticed comments on color palette, saturation, grain, and such. I am not a professional photographer, and I don't make art - so if the film is close to 1980s family photos we have, I can live with that. Anything better would just be a bonus for me.

Looking at photos on the web of the most recent offerings Ferrania had, I suspect the film will be much more modern.

For those of us who get creative to shoot 126, 828, etc., I think bulk rolls of unperforated 35mm might be a good alternative or first step to the "abandoned" formats.

Very much indeed. As of improvements, it is promising that their factory will have a high turnover rate, so they can keep putting small improvements over each successive coating run.
Given the RMS figure for grain on the Scotchcrome, I remembered T-Grain mentioned on some Ektachrome films, and EPP which was available until a few years ago still didn't have this feature. I assume Ferrania's upcoming film won't be T-Grain.

And found the review posted by flavio on Scotchcrome 400 very interesting.

Photo Engineer said:
As for reds in detail, here is a normally exposed slide, scanned (to get things into APUG we have to scan them in you know), and the original is EPP with the subjects being 3 racial types, 3 hair types, and 3 levels of detail in reds. You see, I have done this over and over and over so I have objective tests for comparison. Included with this are type R and type C. Some of them included Ektaflex prints and Cibachrome prints.

PE

Film's and particularly, reversal film reds pack quite a peculiar punch. Deep, rich reds. Might not be accurate, but it can be quite aesthetically pleasing. You did explain quite a few times that Kodachrome's was due to the particular Cyan layer. For E6 it is just the reversal process in itself?
I see and read around that digital's reds aren't that deep, something to have with wavelength absorption.

Nzoomed · Nov 11, 2014

pentaxpete said:
I first saw 'Ferraniacolor' slides in about 1953 at East Ham Grammar School Photographic Society when a 'Rich' kid brought in some -- his Dad owned a Chemist shop and processed with May & Baker 'Genochrome' chemistry -- well , it was not long before I tried Ferraniacolor and made up the chemicals from the Formula -- I used to but 'Refills' ( no cassette) and reload my own as it was cheaper ! When I joined Barking Photographic Society in 1959 the Club used to send out members loaded with Ferraniacolor and photograph the annual Carnival, then rush back to the HQ process up, blow dry the films, mount and make a commentary on a tape recorder then rush to the Carnival ground and show it in a tent to the Mayor, Carnival Queen and Princesses and members of the public !!!
When I got a job as Scientific Photographer for the Geology Department, University College London at £12-00 a week, the Boss let me splash out for a Asahi Pentax S1a and I introduced COLOUR Photomicrographs to the amazed Professors and Lecturers who had never seen such things !! All on Ferraniacolor Tungsten balance film ! I still HAVE some Ferraniacolor slides ! When they changed to the CR50 emulsion I could never get such good results -- I got dark slides and a green colour cast -- never successful with CR50 -- I left in 1970. ( SORRY-- NO Scanned Ferraniacolor to show you )

How have your slides stood up today?
Any signs of fading?

I take it this type of film was well before the days of E4, E6, etc?
I found an article here of interest. http://photovideooptics.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/ferraniacolor-slides-wrong-sort-of-water.html

Nzoomed · Nov 11, 2014

flavio81 said:
The current state of the art in scanning can retrieve about 4000 dots per inch which is discarding quite a bit of information relative to what is really present on the film. Also, the resolution of the scanner being way less than the object to be scanned (film grains) means sometimes the horrible problem of grain aliasing will appear, where the resulting scanned image has an exxagerated amount of grain, grain which also does not have the character of actual film grain, being just an artifact of the process. This is especially evident when scanning ISO 400 (or faster) B&W film.

Yes i probably do agree with this somewhat, i seem to have various results from the different labs who have processed my film, some scans show the grain real bad, yet were scanned at a very high resolution, other labs who gave me lower res scans had no visible grain, in saying that, one lab i used must have had a good scanner, as i got some high res prints and i didnt find the grain very noticeable at all.

I guess this will improve over time with higher resolution scanners coming on the market, 8000 dpi should be plenty for 35mm film.
In saying this, i would rather have optical prints made if possible, but for the most part, i dont i think i can complain about digital printing, especially since i would not be printing huge prints from 35mm film to start with.

flavio81 said:
Now back to Ferrania(with an A at the end and only one N...)

Yes I agree, however I do feel its a worthy question for Dave to ask if Ferrania still hold any equipment for producing photographic paper. IDK when Ferrania stopped production of paper, but im guessing it was made into the 90's?

flavio81 said:
As far as we know, they have a film coater, not paper coater. So if there is any chance of a Reversal paper, it would have then to be coated by other company.

I agree with this, i bought this up after someone here asked Dave about making paper.
I didnt think that it was possible to make paper with a regular film coater, Photo Engineer also has said about the amount of dust etc it produces.
However, someone else replied to me and claimed that Ilford produce paper and film on the same machine, but maybe their coater is of a different design?

flavio81 said:
What I say is: Let the new Ferraniacolor reversal ISO 100 film enter the market, let Dave & friends market it effectively (a la Ilford, not a la Alaris), and should the use of E6 increase over the next two years, the reversal paper should appear as a consequence -- be it from Inoviscoat, for example.

Yes i agree, im more than happy for them to start off with 100 ISO reversal film, and looking at the photos shot on scotchchrome, im expecting that the new Ferrania Film will be an excellent replacement for Kodak, probably closer to E100gx rather than E100g by the looks of it.

Photo Engineer · Nov 11, 2014

Paper and film can be coated on the same machine with the proper precautions.

Reds in all films are dependent on the dye(s) formed. Detail and hue of reds is determined by the cyan layer. This was a problem in Kodachrome which had a poorer dye (IMHO). In E6 films it is due to another problem associated with the process itself.

PE

Nzoomed · Nov 11, 2014

Photo Engineer said:
Paper and film can be coated on the same machine with the proper precautions.

Reds in all films are dependent on the dye(s) formed. Detail and hue of reds is determined by the cyan layer. This was a problem in Kodachrome which had a poorer dye (IMHO). In E6 films it is due to another problem associated with the process itself.

PE

Thats good to know about paper production.

As far as reds go, I feel that with E6, Kodak in particular, there is not a great deal of difference from Kodachrome.
The reds still give a good punch which i like, especially if taken out in bright sunlight on a fine day.
Anyway, if this is a "problem" with the film, that doesnt bother me. I expect the issue cannot be easily resolved with E6 either, as there is bound to be a payoff somewhere else if the process was modified.

XFer · Nov 11, 2014

Question to Dave:

is there a calendar of sort, for Ferrania Chrome production?
Like: "June 2015: regular production OK, start of online sales; Oct 2015: production increased, start of channel sales; Feb 2016: introduction of 400 iso film" and so on.
Or is too early for such plans?

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