Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania

[TheToadMen]

Kodachrome green of summers and makes the world like a sunny day, oh yeah!....

Seriously though, I am glad to have been able to say I used it. I just wish I could find a processor to process it as a BW film. I have a roll my late father in law had stashed away in a drawer and it's important enough I don't want to practice on it.

Just my luck: Some years back I bought me a roll of Kodachrome (with a voucher) to see what it is all about. But moving and I didn't use it immediately. When I was ready to shoot it, the labs had ceased to develop this film ... so the roll still sits in my freezer.
(And no: I won't develop it as a B&W film).

 

[ME Super]

As I'm sure everyone is aware, Kodachrome is a formula and brand name that belongs exclusively to Kodak... Requests for its resurrection should probably be directed to Alaris.

While true that Kodachrome belongs to Kodak, they abandoned the patent on the K-14 process almost immediately upon getting it. I assume this was to promote other companies to switch over from the K-12 process to the K-14 process. Unfortunately, nobody did. Or own resident photo and chemical engineer, Photo Engineer, can probably she'd more light on this, since his name appears on that patent.

PE has even described how to process Kodachrome using E6 couplers and chemicals, but it is not a process for the faint of heart as you have to do selective re-exposure and development, and get the correct couplers for the job!

 

[trythis]

Oh no...the official Ferrania Q&A thread is now a kodachrome thread...

Sigh.

[emoji12]

 

[ME Super]

Okay, back to E-6 - not Kodachrome. Any chance of an EIR style film? It doesn't necessarily have to be truly IR sensitive (though that would be nice), more along the lines of a Lomochrome purple, but in a reversal rather than negative film. If I recall correctly, EIR required the use of a yellow filter to filter out the blue, then recorded greens as blue, reds as green, and IR as red after reversal processing. So maybe swap the dye couplers in the red-sensitive and green-sensitive layers?

 

[kb3lms]

7 days in Kyoto.... I shudder to think how many rolls of film I'm going to blow through.

A lot. The sights in Kyoto are wonderful! I was there in about 1990 and would love to visit again some day. By the time I would get to should be able to take lots of Ferrania film!

 

[Roger Cole]

These are good problems to have, as I said in another answer. The truth is that we have plenty of competition, including two of the biggest brand names on the planet. We must win customers the "hard way" - by making products and selling them one at a time. And until we HAVE products to show, all bets are off. I will say that we may have to institute a limit on purchases - especially if we see folks buying film for the sole purpose of reselling it on eBay or the like... But such a limit will we temporary and only if absolutely necessary to ensure the largest number of people get some new film for their cameras.

-Dave

Make that 400 speed E6 film, and that 800/3200, and if it's of even reasonable quality you will have a captive market. There is NO competition in E6 faster than 200, and effectively very little in any speed faster than 100. I still have frozen Provia 400X but will probably exhaust it next year, hopefully just in time to start shooting Ferrania 400!

And to echo what many others have said, welcome to APUG!

 

[Nzoomed]

Another question regarding Ferrania E6 Dave,

Ive seen rolls of Ferrania Solaris chrome 100 on ebay and on the lomogrphay forums.
I expect its the same film stock as Scotchchrome 100, but are you able to confirm this?
This appears to be the last ferrania branded E6 film stock, so was wondering if there had been any changes since the 3M Scotchchrome product or if it was indeed the same product with the solaris brand. Looking on the web archive, Ferrania technologies last listed this product in 2001.
Regarding E6 labs, do you plan to list E6 labs on your website where people can process your film?
As an example, we only have a handful of labs processing E6 in New Zealand, i can only think of 3 labs, 4 maximum.

 

[removed-user-1]

800/3200 ASA color reversal (chrome)

I will buy any such film from you just as soon as it is possible to place an order! Thank you! Very glad I contributed to the Kickstarter.

 

[ME Super]

+1. Make this, and I won't need a Tungsten-balanced emulsion - the 2 stop loss of the 80A filter will be made up for by the pushability of the 800 speed emulsion.

 

[Roger Cole]

Better yet - an 800/3200 tungsten film since low light is often tungsten....

and then I woke up...


Sent from my iPhone via Tapatalk using 100% recycled electrons. Because I care.

 

[Oren Grad]

If we make an emulsion, we will produce it in all relevant formats. All film is made into "jumbos" and those are then cut into 35mm, 120, 8mm, 16mm, etc.

120 is usually coated on an acetate base that's thinner than the one used for 35mm; some medium format cameras have trouble with a thicker base. So ideally, 35 and 120 need to be coated on different master rolls. Will you be set up to do that?

 

[ME Super]

Better yet - an 800/3200 tungsten film since low light is often tungsten....

and then I woke up...


Sent from my iPhone via Tapatalk using 100% recycled electrons. Because I care.

That would be nice, but as I recall from something PE said, high speed tungsten film is hard to make because you have to make a really fast blue layer to make up for the lack of blue in tungsten. It would be easier to make a bright light source that's already got enough blue in it to make a good photo with daylight balanced film... Or filter a bright tungsten light source with a daylight filter... or filter the light as it comes into the lens. Which is why I said that the 800/3200D E-6 film would probably be fast enough to make up for the two-stop loss that you get with the 80A filter.

 

[Too Many Cameras]

Dave, do you see a gap in the marketplace for an ultra-slow E-6 film (e.g., 6, 12, or 25 ISO)? Fuji canceled their 25 ISO reversal film some time ago and I, personally, would love to shoot ultra-slow reversal 4X5 and 6X7 shots.

 

[Xmas]

Make that 400 speed E6 film, and that 800/3200, and if it's of even reasonable quality you will have a captive market. There is NO competition in E6 faster than 200, and effectively very little in any speed faster than 100. I still have frozen Provia 400X but will probably exhaust it next year, hopefully just in time to start shooting Ferrania 400!

And to echo what many others have said, welcome to APUG!

The few cassette I used in 2003-5 had no problems.

By April '14 there may be less competation.

And a welcome to Ferranni and all their staff.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

Okay, back to E-6 - not Kodachrome. Any chance of an EIR style film? It doesn't necessarily have to be truly IR sensitive (though that would be nice), more along the lines of a Lomochrome purple, but in a reversal rather than negative film. If I recall correctly, EIR required the use of a yellow filter to filter out the blue, then recorded greens as blue, reds as green, and IR as red after reversal processing. So maybe swap the dye couplers in the red-sensitive and green-sensitive layers?

Infrared chrome? I can't say that this product has come up in conversation, although Nicola and I are both big fans of color infrared films... Consider it punted down the field for addressing at a later date.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

Ive seen rolls of Ferrania Solaris chrome 100 on ebay and on the lomogrphay forums.
I expect its the same film stock as Scotchchrome 100, but are you able to confirm this?
This appears to be the last ferrania branded E6 film stock, so was wondering if there had been any changes since the 3M Scotchchrome product or if it was indeed the same product with the solaris brand. Looking on the web archive, Ferrania technologies last listed this product in 2001.

I assume that the formula was largely unchanged. Ferrania inherited all of the 3M formulae. And now we have inherited them as well.

I will confirm this in my next conversation with Italy.

Regarding E6 labs, do you plan to list E6 labs on your website where people can process your film?
As an example, we only have a handful of labs processing E6 in New Zealand, i can only think of 3 labs, 4 maximum.

We are currently working on a post for our website regarding E-6 and yes, we will be listing E-6 capable labs that we find, as well as reaching out to the community for more.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

120 is usually coated on an acetate base that's thinner than the one used for 35mm; some medium format cameras have trouble with a thicker base. So ideally, 35 and 120 need to be coated on different master rolls. Will you be set up to do that?

The great thing about the "Little Boy" coater is that it is highly flexible in terms of changing base or emulsion. That said, I will add this question to my list for the factory team.

 

[Ektagraphic]

+1 vote for infrared Chrome! I never got to try color infrared, but would LOVE to!

 

[FILM Ferrania]

Dave, do you see a gap in the marketplace for an ultra-slow E-6 film (e.g., 6, 12, or 25 ISO)? Fuji canceled their 25 ISO reversal film some time ago and I, personally, would love to shoot ultra-slow reversal 4X5 and 6X7 shots.

I think this is not so much a gap, but more of a niche... It's entirely unclear how deeply into niches we will be able to traverse.

In a best case scenario, we should be able to viably produce products that sell in the tens of thousands. If the market is only hundreds, this will prove difficult due to the opportunity cost that I have described previously.

 

[ME Super]

Infrared chrome? I can't say that this product has come up in conversation, although Nicola and I are both big fans of color infrared films... Consider it punted down the field for addressing at a later date.

Thanks, Dave. A very Ilford-like answer, which I'll take! At least it's not a "No" answer. I never got the chance to try color IR either, because when it was available in 35mm, I was either shooting digital, or couldn't find a lab to process it. Then when I returned to film, there was only one guy cutting it down to 120, and I didn't have a camera that was capable of 120 (okay technically I still don't, it uses 620, but I've rerolled a few rolls of 120 onto the 620 spools). There are a couple IR-capable B&W emulsions on the market (Ilford SFX, Rollei Retro 80S, and Rollei IR400S - I prefer the 400S.). I'd love to see an HIE or Efke Aura style film, but that can wait 'til we get that high speed E-6 film! For the moment, my B&W IR needs are met.

Dave, do you see a gap in the marketplace for an ultra-slow E-6 film (e.g., 6, 12, or 25 ISO)? Fuji canceled their 25 ISO reversal film some time ago and I, personally, would love to shoot ultra-slow reversal 4X5 and 6X7 shots.

So long as Fuji makes Velvia 50 in 35mm and 120, I'm good with slow reversal film. However, I can understand the desire for a slow reversal film in sheet film sizes.

 

[Oren Grad]

The great thing about the "Little Boy" coater is that it is highly flexible in terms of changing base or emulsion. That said, I will add this question to my list for the factory team.

I asked because the several comments, here and in the KS discussion, about needing to trade off cuts of different formats within a fixed production capacity make it sound as though there's only a single master roll being cut to all different formats. In practice there shouldn't be any tradeoff between 35 and 120 in a given coating run, because a master roll on a given base should be good for only one or the other. (For simplicity, I'm leaving out the cine formats.) Of course, you do need to make decisions about where to allocate your available working capital and available coating machine time, so in that sense there's a tradeoff between formats.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

In a best case scenario, we should be able to viably produce products that sell in the tens of thousands.

That's a really, really interesting observation.

Ken

 

[StoneNYC]

Thanks, Dave. A very Ilford-like answer, which I'll take! At least it's not a "No" answer. I never got the chance to try color IR either, because when it was available in 35mm, I was either shooting digital, or couldn't find a lab to process it. Then when I returned to film, there was only one guy cutting it down to 120, and I didn't have a camera that was capable of 120 (okay technically I still don't, it uses 620, but I've rerolled a few rolls of 120 onto the 620 spools). There are a couple IR-capable B&W emulsions on the market (Ilford SFX, Rollei Retro 80S, and Rollei IR400S - I prefer the 400S.). I'd love to see an HIE or Efke Aura style film, but that can wait 'til we get that high speed E-6 film! For the moment, my B&W IR needs are met.



So long as Fuji makes Velvia 50 in 35mm and 120, I'm good with slow reversal film. However, I can understand the desire for a slow reversal film in sheet film sizes.

Fuji still make Velvia50 in sheet, just only sell it in Japan. You can buy it direct from a Japanese retailer and have it shipped, it's honestly not that much more costly than buying any other sheet film. Just FYI.

That said I second ANY E-6 film made in 4x5 and 8x10 sheet sizes. Heck I would even take 11x14

 

[Roger Cole]

So long as Fuji makes Velvia 50 in 35mm and 120, I'm good with slow reversal film. However, I can understand the desire for a slow reversal film in sheet film sizes.

Neutral density filter.


Sent from my iPhone via Tapatalk using 100% recycled electrons. Because I care.

 

[ME Super]

Velvia 50 is something special. I never understood it until I shot a roll of it during a particularly colorful time of year (autumn, with the leaves changing colors). The inky blacks, and the saturation - perfect for that time of year. Those that clamored for Fuji to bring back Velvia (as Velvia 50 since they couldn't get all the ingredients for original Velvia, IIRC) because the 100 speed version of it was different were right.

That said, I like the Wittner Chrome version of Aviphot Chrome 200, Fuji's Provia 100F, and I'm sure I'll like Ferrania's 100 and 400 speed offerings. They'll have a captive market for sure with 400+ speed E-6 films.