Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania

[ME Super]

Thanks for the recap, Francesco. Much appreciated.

 

[Francesco_from_Rome]

I am pointing out that they are doing research on real film coatings both processed and unprocessed, and that they are making film, albeit in small quantities relative to what they might end up producing. I am pointing out interesting (to me - and probably to you) points in the film.

PE

PE, thanks for pointing out what we were shown. I had noticed them but without your explanation I would have had to resort to guessing.

I don't know if I'm strange, but I am keeping an eye if they will allow factory tours... and in that case I will have to explain to my wife why exactly we should go in Liguria for our vacations

Francesco

 

[Francesco_from_Rome]

Thanks for the recap, Francesco. Much appreciated.

You're welcome!

Francesco

 

[Francesco_from_Rome]

Another post on the repubblica.it site, this time in a blog devoted to photograpy:
http://smargiassi-michele.blogautor...rania-gloria-dellitalia-dargento/?ref=HROBA-1

The final line says that a version of the post was printed and distributed in the newsstands: "Una versione di questo articolo è apparsa su Il Venerdì di Repubblica il 23 gennaio 2015"

Francesco

 

[Nzoomed]

Hi Dave,
If your reading this, i thought i would point out that in the Fuji Factory auction in Europe, after looking through the photos it appears they have a spectrum analyser similar to what is in the LRF, i understand such equipment is valuable and virtually irreplaceable.

I know that you mentioned that they were going to look through and see what may be of use to you, but i expect there is probably not much equipment there that you dont already have, unless if some of their equipment is more technologically advanced perhaps.

But that analyser and other test equipment may be of some use, by now i expect your team know whats available over there, but i thought i would point it out to you anyway

 

[cmacd123]

https://translate.google.ca/transla...alia-dargento/?ref=HROBA-1&edit-text=&act=url

is a link for a rough translation of the article from the itallian paper. (if the link will work.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

Not too surprising, in that they did say the first batch was going to be made on the "research Coater" - and that they don't consider it as a economically viable production method. Previosu photos of this unit saw it coating somewhere between 5 and 8 inches wide.

The long term plan seems to be if you read between mr. Daves posts is to somehow install the coating head of the main coatter in what if currently unused office or utility space in the research building, and make a smaller version of the dryer using salvaged parts. This will give them more width, but they will probably have to redesign the web speed somewhat slower than in it's hayday so they can allow the web enough time to dry with a smaller amount of travel area . This will be an engineering challenge as other folks have pointed out that the faster the web runs the easier it is to get a uniform coating. They say they have lots of space as the building used to have 600 workers and they are planning to keep it below 100 workers.

I guess that the various converting and packing machines will end up in what looks like multiple small darkrooms, as with fewer projects they will only need a few test darkrooms. Presumably the finishing machines may become less automated to reduce the size and complexity and sidestep the need to keep up ten to twenty year old computers. perhaps the salvagers may have even grabbed the previous generation of machinery to keep computer problems down to a dull roar.

I also have a bit of scepticism that they can pull off such a major bit of re-engineering but at this point I am quite willing to give them my best wishes and a great deal of benefit of the doubt.

Hi,

It is 100% true that we have a "major bit of re-engineering" still to do, and those of you on this forum who know a thing or two about film production have every right to any skepticism you may have.

It should be noted, however, that the plan we are following was originally created and detailed by Ferrania Technologies themselves in 2010, and these plans have undergone two years worth of analysis and revision since our founders and factory team came on board.

There is still much to do, yes. Many questions yet to answer. But everything is moving forward and we are on course to deliver our Kickstarter batch in April as originally promised...

Concerning the coating head - it's just over 20cm wide (if memory serves) which is too small (and thus too expensive) for our long-term viability. We will not, however, install the head from the Big Boy coater - it is simply too large. Instead, we will commission a new, wider head at some point in the future. We have a fabricator at the ready.

Before we buy and install "Goldilocks" (I couldn't resist), we will increase our capacity by beefing up our drying tunnel using parts salvaged from the old Big Boy coating facility. Basically, you can only make as much film in a day as you can dry in the same day. That's an oversimplification, but a good-enough rule of thumb. Bigger drying tunnel = higher capacity, even using the Little Boy coater. We have dedicated most of an entire floor of our building specifically for the drying tunnel.

The converting and finishing machines will come online "as needed" - highly dependent on a complex set of variables that will only be resolved once we actually start making film. It is likely that we will mix third-party and in-house services in order to get our early batches out the door and into yours (and my) cameras.

I'll see what I can do about making a bit of a floorplan that we can share...

 

[FILM Ferrania]

Hi Dave,
If your reading this, i thought i would point out that in the Fuji Factory auction in Europe, after looking through the photos it appears they have a spectrum analyser similar to what is in the LRF, i understand such equipment is valuable and virtually irreplaceable.

I know that you mentioned that they were going to look through and see what may be of use to you, but i expect there is probably not much equipment there that you dont already have, unless if some of their equipment is more technologically advanced perhaps.

But that analyser and other test equipment may be of some use, by now i expect your team know whats available over there, but i thought i would point it out to you anyway

Always reading... Pinned tab in my browser.

Marco made a brief trip to the Netherlands to check out the machinery himself. I'm pretty sure he didn't find anything that we really needed, but I'm going to double-check.

 

[LJH]

20cm wide. Wide enough for some 7x17" orders sometime down the track?

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Instead, we will commission a new, wider head at some point in the future. We have a fabricator at the ready.

Those two lines just subtly jumped out at me...

When one is standing ankle-deep in the ocean surf with the waves crashing all around, twice each day there comes a very tiny moment when the larger flow of water imperceptibly changes direction.

Standing there with cold and wet feet it's virtually impossible to notice the precise moment that change in direction takes place. Even if one knows the exact time it takes place and is holding a timepiece.

But it does happen. And it only becomes apparent that it has happened further down the road, when one looks back at the water with the greater perspective of additional time passed.

Yesterday I was out with my Mamiya TLR, standing at the head of a large mudflat on Puget Sound. During the heyday of Pacific Northwest timber logging it's where the mills would store raw logs floated down the Snohomish River. Small drainages had cut beautiful serpentine features across the glittering surface.

I didn't notice the young lady with the DSLR who had walked up and was quietly looking at me looking down at the ground glass.

"Is that a camera?"

Looking up, just a bit startled,

"It is, yes. It's called a twin lens reflex. It's a film camera. You look down and out at the scene through the top lens, but the picture is made* through the bottom lens."

"So that's a film camera? They still make film for those?"

I resisted as she was very sincere, replying instead,

"Actually, they do. There's a company in England that still makes a full range of black-and-white film in almost every size imaginable. That's what I'm using right now in this camera."

"Do they still make color film too?"

"They do, but the choices are getting pretty thin these days. However there's a new company in Italy right now that is in the process of building a new, smaller factory just for making color film. They sound pretty serious and seem to know what they are doing. So all might not be lost."

She looked to be perhaps in her late 20s or so. Her parting comment?

"I wish I had a camera like that."

As we smiled and went our separate ways I noticed that during our conversation the water had now begun to cover those serpentine drainages.

True story.

Go Ferrania. Go Italia...



Ken

* Always "made", never "taken", or horror of horrors... "shot". We are not savages.

 

[cmacd123]

OK Dave, so it is exactly opposite to what I had pictured, the same copater with a bigger drying area, so you would be able to run the machine faster and still get the web to dry by the time it reaches the wind-up machine at the far end. with the whole thing being designed for a wider (but not too wide) coating head. say 2 or three feet. (and carefully figured so that you can slit what the Film base machine spits out efficiently before it is sent to the coating department.)

Sorry for all the speculation, in the last couple of years, with all the changes in the industry a lot of use have been peppering the Kodak Retirees in our midst (and the long suffering Mr. Galley) with questions intended to understand the process by which little cartridges and paper rolls mysteriously appear containing plastic with magical properties.

many of us also have little items taht we miss, like one B&W film company has apparently become unable to obtain DX coded empty cartridges, while another factory has spent about what you raised in the kickstarter just to set themselves up to make that item. SO there is a bit of "back of Mind" studying what you are up to in the hopes that your small agile factory will be able to fill that sort of gap.

Heck some days we even dream that you will be offering us a chance once a year to order 127 or 126 or 116/616 fomapan or FP4 or N74 or porta {OR even Ferraniacolor E6!}made by the firms in question, but spooled and packaged on a pre-order basis under a marketing agreement licence by FILMferania taking advantage of your unique ability to grab the very obsolete antique machinery that would make it possible for the metal value.

 

[Ektagraphic]

Hi,
The converting and finishing machines will come online "as needed" - highly dependent on a complex set of variables that will only be resolved once we actually start making film. It is likely that we will mix third-party and in-house services in order to get our early batches out the door and into yours (and my) cameras.

So the third party work would only potentially be the finishing aspect?

 

[Nzoomed]

So the third party work would only potentially be the finishing aspect?

Yes i would expect so, i actually put this idea forward here as i thought it would take alot of load off the Film Ferrania staff while they were busy getting everything up and running smoothly.

 

[Nzoomed]

Always reading... Pinned tab in my browser.

Marco made a brief trip to the Netherlands to check out the machinery himself. I'm pretty sure he didn't find anything that we really needed, but I'm going to double-check.

This was a photo of the machine in question.
I thought it looked similar to the machine in the LRF
https://www.troostwijkauctions.com/uk/fujifilm-manufacturing/01-20033/01/?p=1339

I have another question regarding coating the film, does each layer have to be applied and dried on the coater requiring a separate run for each layer, or do all the layers (including the anti-halation backing) all get applied in one go? I expect more than one coating head is used if this was the case.

 

[Ricardo Miranda]

I have another question regarding coating the film, does each layer have to be applied and dried on the coater requiring a separate run for each layer, or do all the layers (including the anti-halation backing) all get applied in one go? I expect more than one coating head is used if this was the case.

See this from 1 min:
[video=youtube;Vw4rttFGHiM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw4rttFGHiM[/video]

It is the InoViscoat machines, but they should be pretty similar.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I have another question regarding coating the film, does each layer have to be applied and dried on the coater requiring a separate run for each layer, or do all the layers (including the anti-halation backing) all get applied in one go? I expect more than one coating head is used if this was the case.

The film above shows a slide coater in operation. This question has been answered over and over so many times that I am surprised that it is still being asked, but Ferrania has stated that they have such a coater in 2 widths.

However, all options are possible including one layer at a time, making costs become sky high!

PE

 

[pbromaghin]

Those two lines just subtly jumped out at me...

When one is standing ankle-deep in the ocean surf with the waves crashing all around, twice each day there comes a very tiny moment when the larger flow of water imperceptibly changes direction.

Standing there with cold and wet feet it's virtually impossible to notice the precise moment that change in direction takes place. Even if one knows the exact time it takes place and is holding a timepiece.

But it does happen. And it only becomes apparent that it has happened further down the road, when one looks back at the water with the greater perspective of additional time passed.

Yesterday I was out with my Mamiya TLR, standing at the head of a large mudflat on Puget Sound. During the heyday of Pacific Northwest timber logging it's where the mills would store raw logs floated down the Snohomish River. Small drainages had cut beautiful serpentine features across the glittering surface.

I didn't notice the young lady with the DSLR who had walked up and was quietly looking at me looking down at the ground glass.

"Is that a camera?"

Looking up, just a bit startled,

"It is, yes. It's called a twin lens reflex. It's a film camera. You look down and out at the scene through the top lens, but the picture is made* through the bottom lens."

"So that's a film camera? They still make film for those?"

I resisted as she was very sincere, replying instead,

"Actually, they do. There's a company in England that still makes a full range of black-and-white film in almost every size imaginable. That's what I'm using right now in this camera."

"Do they still make color film too?"

"They do, but the choices are getting pretty thin these days. However there's a new company in Italy right now that is in the process of building a new, smaller factory just for making color film. They sound pretty serious and seem to know what they are doing. So all might not be lost."

She looked to be perhaps in her late 20s or so. Her parting comment?

"I wish I had a camera like that."

As we smiled and went our separate ways I noticed that during our conversation the water had now begun to cover those serpentine drainages.

True story.

Go Ferrania. Go Italia...



Ken

* Always "made", never "taken", or horror of horrors... "shot". We are not savages.

Ken, you almost brought a tear to my eye. One of the best posts I've read in 17 years of internet discussions.

 

[Ashfaque]

... and that could be a wonderful 1-2 minutes long tv/net advert for FILM Ferrania. I'm not joking. Thanks for sharing, Ken.

 

[Sirius Glass]

The film above shows a slide coater in operation. This question has been answered over and over so many times that I am surprised that it is still being asked, but Ferrania has stated that they have such a coater in 2 widths.

[snark] One wonders if the posters ever read your posts and if they did read the posts if do they do access their memory before typing? [/snark]

 

[Nzoomed]

The film above shows a slide coater in operation. This question has been answered over and over so many times that I am surprised that it is still being asked, but Ferrania has stated that they have such a coater in 2 widths.

However, all options are possible including one layer at a time, making costs become sky high!

PE

Actually i do remember reading a post from you here about the number of coating heads required for multipule layers and when reading that Ferrania had one coating head, i thought that they may have been coating it differently. I also didnt think that all the layers could be coated in one go as i thought they would mix into each other while still in the liquid state, but clearly that doesnt happen.

Also interesting to learn that the width of the LRF coater is only about 20cm wide, that explains why the volume of film production is so low.
In the photos inside the LFR, the machine looks alot larger than that, but perhaps it can accommodate wider rolls, if the coating head is made bigger?
Since the rest of the coater would also have to be widened too if this was the case, as there is multiple rollers etc that would have to be made wider.

PE, what is the standard roll width of a master roll? Does this vary between film manufacturer?
I know that the big boy coater made a roll about 1.3m wide from memory, and i understand that this coating head is too big to go into the LRF coater, which must mean if they expand the size of the coating head in the LRF that it must be somewhere in between in size.

 

[Photo Engineer]

If you make the front end head (Hopper at EK) wider, you must widen then entire machine. This is no small job. Every cabinet and roller must be made wider.

Kodak's standard widths were 42" and 72" x about 5000 ft and coating speeds were very high with up to 14 or more layers at one time. And just as a side note, quality seems to go up with # of layers and coating speed - at least within reason.

PE

 

[cmacd123]

And just as a side note, quality seems to go up with # of layers and coating speed - at least within reason.

PE

Conceptually that makes a lot of sense - if the web is running faster, any variation will be spread over a much larger area of the finished film, so the effect of the variation will be harder to detect and much less intense.

 

[Nzoomed]

If you make the front end head (Hopper at EK) wider, you must widen then entire machine. This is no small job. Every cabinet and roller must be made wider.

Kodak's standard widths were 42" and 72" x about 5000 ft and coating speeds were very high with up to 14 or more layers at one time. And just as a side note, quality seems to go up with # of layers and coating speed - at least within reason.

PE

Yes i would have assumed so too, which im wondering how Ferrania will work around this, perhaps Dave can shed some light on this, but perhaps im overlooking the point that this is what will be achieved with the wider drying tunnel taken out of big boy?
This would essentially mean that most of the old LRF coater will be eventually replaced if this is the case, unless the LRF coater already has wider cabinets and rollers, which the photos do seem to suggest are alot wider than 20cm.

If quality improves with speed then, the upgraded LRF coater should do a better job too.

Obviously Ferrania Technologies must have been looking at this idea at some point well before closure, which means its obviously a viable plan and entirely possible. I found that information quite re-assuring Dave, so thanks for the update

If kodaks Standard widths were 42" then that cant be far off the roll size being made at Ferrania, as i know alot of film was wasted on each side of the roll due to the nature of the coater (i can only expect this was because the coating head didnt fully cover to each side of the roll?)

 

[pbromaghin]

... and that could be a wonderful 1-2 minutes long tv/net advert for FILM Ferrania. I'm not joking. Thanks for sharing, Ken.

You mean like this?

The scene: Puget Sound Mudflats in autumn. A handsome, middle aged man, nattily attired for the outdoors
in Orvis jacket and L.L. Bean boots, sets up a tripod and attaches a Mamiya C330 camera. Time lapse
images show the receding tide. The last image is of small drainages that have cut beautiful serpentine
rivulets across the glittering surface.

Narrator (Hal Riney): "When one is standing ankle-deep in the ocean surf with the waves crashing all
around, twice each day there comes a very tiny moment when the larger flow of water imperceptibly
changes direction. Standing there with cold and wet feet it's virtually impossible to notice the precise
moment that change in direction takes place. Even if one knows the exact time it takes place and is
holding a timepiece. But it does happen. And it only becomes apparent that it has happened further
down the road, when one looks back at the water with the greater perspective of additional time
passed."

As the voice ends, the man looks down into his waist-level focuser. Intent on what he is doing, he
turns a knob on the front of the camera. The ground glass is shown as the scene comes into focus.
The scene is backward.

A woman's voice: "Is that a camera? "

Startled, the handsome, nattily dressed middle-aged man looks up to see a woman in her late 20's.
Around her neck is a Nikon D750 with an AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens.

Handsome Middle-aged Man: "It is, yes. It's called a twin lens reflex. It's a film camera. You look down
and out at the scene through the top lens, but the picture is made through the bottom lens."

Young Woman: "So that's a film camera? They still make film for those?"

The Handsome Middle-aged Man opens his mouth as if to speak, but hesitates, then replies.

Handsome Middle-aged Man: "Actually, they do. There's a company in England that still makes a full
range of black-and-white film in almost every size imaginable. That's what I'm using right now in this
camera."

Young Woman: "Do they still make color film too?"

Handsome Middle-aged Man: "They do, but the choices are getting pretty thin these days. However
there's a new company in Italy right now, named Film Ferrania, that is in the process of building a new,
smaller factory just for making color film. They sound pretty serious and seem to know what they are
doing. So all might not be lost."

Young Woman: "I wish I had a camera like that."

They both smile. The Young Woman turns to leave. The Handsome Middle-aged Man's gaze lingers.

He turns back to his camera. The ground glass scene is shown again. The rivulets are gone, replaced
by solid water.

Narrator (Hal Riney): "You may not have seen it, but the tide has turned in film photography. In a
small town in Italy, not far from the Ligurian Sea, men and women have returned to work at a factory that had
been closed for 5 years and was slated for the wrecking ball. Instead, they are building a new kind of
film factory and a new kind of film company, intended to assure the continuance of film for the next 100 years.

Long live film. Long live Film Ferrania."

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

You mean like this?