Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania

StoneNYC · Nov 5, 2014

FILM Ferrania said:
The old Scotch Chrome 100 data sheet is here: Dead Link Removed

Once we make the actual film and test it properly in lab and real world situations, we will of course publish all relevant info in our own data sheets.
Until then, you can assume that the new film will be somewhat similar to what you see in the old data sheet.

Will there be any attempt at improvement? Those times are worse than FOMA, my long exposures are usually 10 minutes-1hour long before reciprocity is taken into account. That would mean a 1 hour long exposure could be sent to 5-6 hours which then pushes you into failure as the sun is coming up the next day.

Just something to consider, I know you have a lot on your plate.

Hatchetman · Nov 5, 2014

Those reciprocity times are similar to what Ektachrome was. That is at the bottom of my list of concerns regarding a slide film.

Xmas · Nov 5, 2014

StoneNYC said:
Will there be any attempt at improvement? Those times are worse than FOMA, my long exposures are usually 10 minutes-1hour long before reciprocity is taken into account. That would mean a 1 hour long exposure could be sent to 5-6 hours which then pushes you into failure as the sun is coming up the next day.

Just something to consider, I know you have a lot on your plate.

The last time I looked Forma did not do E6.
After Fuji and Kodak stop you may have Hobson's choice, eg - Ferranni or Agfa.
The faster films should be better?
Have Ferranni committed to 4x5, ... etc.,16x20 these normally needs a different base?
Ferranni may have to low a volume in E6 to rework emulsions, need a crystal ball until '16.

StoneNYC · Nov 5, 2014

Xmas said:
The last time I looked Forma did not do E6.
After Fuji and Kodak stop you may have Hobson's choice, eg - Ferranni or Agfa.
The faster films should be better?
Have Ferranni committed to 4x5, ... etc.,16x20 these normally needs a different base?
Ferranni may have to low a volume in E6 to rework emulsions, need a crystal ball until '16.

True, they said they have committed to the roll film formats and then that they will make sure to have the machinery and potentially pursue large-format once they are off the ground as far as I understand it. Let's wait to hear from the horse's mouth for clarification

flavio81 · Nov 5, 2014

FILM Ferrania said:
The old Scotch Chrome 100 data sheet is here: Dead Link Removed

Once we make the actual film and test it properly in lab and real world situations, we will of course publish all relevant info in our own data sheets.
Until then, you can assume that the new film will be somewhat similar to what you see in the old data sheet.

+1

The Ferrania people is heroically working hard to bring up their E6 film and we are already demanding all kind of stuff from them. LOL.

As long as the E6 ISO 100 film is cheaper than Provia 100F, and has nice colors, i'll be very happy.

I see Scotch Chrome 100 had nice colors. Random example:

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/dropletcafe/8133453445/

Prest_400 · Nov 5, 2014

Been lurking in this thread and still hadn't chimed in. In any case, I'm glad to see Dave and Ferrania around here.
The possible future high speed slide films seem great, but still, the ISO100 iteration is the first one that has to come.

flavio81 said:
+1

The Ferrania people is heroically working hard to bring up their E6 film and we are already demanding all kind of stuff from them. LOL.

As long as the E6 ISO 100 film is cheaper than Provia 100F, and has nice colors, i'll be very happy.

It's something that should be acknowledged even before the project started. Ferrania didn't have the R&D and tech that Kodak or Fuji have, having both put a huge amount of resources while fighting for the top. While not technically top, I think Ferrania will come up with a nice, classic Slide film.
But it is the effort that they are putting, together with the consolidation into the market and their classic products that should want us to support them.
That, or somehow bringing some ektachrome formulas, and quite some bucks for R&D over to Italy

Nzoomed · Nov 5, 2014

flavio81 said:
+1

The Ferrania people is heroically working hard to bring up their E6 film and we are already demanding all kind of stuff from them. LOL.

As long as the E6 ISO 100 film is cheaper than Provia 100F, and has nice colors, i'll be very happy.

I see Scotch Chrome 100 had nice colors. Random example:

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/dropletcafe/8133453445/

Completely agree, its probably the closest replacement for E100g, maybe a little warmer perhaps, but the colours look somewhat similar.

As long as we see a good film that replaces e100g, im happy, and if they introduce a "vibrant" colour film like E100vs, even better, but im after the vintage tones, so something that can give a warm feel like E100GX would be awesome. But we can worry about that down the road, they have enough to work on at present just getting production started let alone worry about what films to make next...

Of course its great to discuss what we would like to see, but we also have to be realistic on what is likely any time soon.

ME Super · Nov 5, 2014

I think the initial set of films they want to release, the 100 speed, the 400 speed, and the 800/3200 pushable film are what should come first. They've got good heads on their shoulders and are filling in the gaps in the market with this first set of plans. The 100 speed film obviously comes first, then work their way towards the higher speeds. If they decide the 800/3200 is not feasible, that's okay as long as they can bring back a 400 speed E-6 emulsion. All the rest of the talk in this thread about various things like a 640T film, or a color IR film, IMHO are nice-to-haves (I think I was one of the ones that brought up a 640T film, and for sure I mentioned color IR). First and foremost, we want Film Ferrania to be a healthy film company that can produce color (E-6/C-41) films, and it looks like they're well on their way.

FILM Ferrania · Nov 5, 2014

flavio81 said:
The Ferrania people is heroically working hard to bring up their E6 film and we are already demanding all kind of stuff from them. LOL.

Thanks Flavio.

As I've mentioned before, we must approach things one step at a time. We must first please most of the people most of the time, especially in these earliest stages. And the truth is that most people who shoot film these days don't care to know much about the technical aspects as long as the film is consistent and delivers beautiful results.

APUG users are obviously far more technically minded and you guys seem to want to know details that even we will not know until real film is produced, tested, subjected to many horrors in the lab, and put into (old) cameras and taken out into the world.

Suffice to say that quality of our film from both an aesthetic and technical perspective is of paramount importance to us and no one should think for a second that anything we release is the way it will always be forever. I would guess it took Kodak many iterations to arrive at the Tri-X we know today and the same will be true of us. In fact, a hallmark of our new factory will be a flexibility to iterate far more rapidly than almost any other film manufacturer in history.

FILM Ferrania · Nov 5, 2014

Prest_400 said:
Ferrania didn't have the R&D and tech that Kodak or Fuji have

While this is largely true, the 3M team that ran the show for 35 years did copious amounts of research on TONS of products that the top brass refused to put into the market. And I mean, hey, they worked for 3M - certainly no slouches when it comes to researching new things.

I have been given just a tiny taste of some of the items in our archives. These are all things that will need further research, of course, but the hard parts are largely done. There is some truly exciting stuff in the vaults...

flavio81 · Nov 5, 2014

FILM Ferrania said:
(...) the 3M team that ran the show for 35 years did copious amounts of research on TONS of products that the top brass refused to put into the market. (...) I have been given just a tiny taste of some of the items in our archives. (...)There is some truly exciting stuff in the vaults...

Tell us more and let us speculate and come up with all sort of demands and request... until the cows come home!!

Dead Link Removed

FILM Ferrania said:
And I mean, hey, they worked for 3M - certainly no slouches when it comes to researching new things.

This is very important: Let's remark that 3M was the company that provided the formulations for the first videotape at the end of the fifties -- an extremely important advancement in magnetic recording density, from recording about 20KHz of bandwidth to recording 2MHz (!); then in the late 70s they were the first company to offer a commercial digital multitrack recorder -- a significant breaktrough in audio.

In films they are supposed to have broken the speed barriers of E6 films with ScotchChrome 640T and ScotchChrome 1000, which (surprise surprise) was pushable to ISO 4000 according to PopPhoto Magazine (1990).

So they were not small contenders, i'd say.

I'll post some past reviews of Scotch products here.

Ricardo Miranda · Nov 5, 2014

Yeap, Ferrania has plenty of patents of their own. In fact, I'm sure some of the last patents were worked by the same people working today at Film Ferrania.

Nzoomed · Nov 5, 2014

FILM Ferrania said:
Thanks Flavio.

As I've mentioned before, we must approach things one step at a time. We must first please most of the people most of the time, especially in these earliest stages. And the truth is that most people who shoot film these days don't care to know much about the technical aspects as long as the film is consistent and delivers beautiful results.

Completely agree, you have alot of work cut out just getting E6 off the ground.

I think you will achieve pleasing most of the people most of the time with your E6 film as a start, this is the biggest gap in the colour film market that i can see, and alot of disappointed Kodak photographers are out there looking for another E6 solution to replace what was one of the best E6 films on the market.
Not to mention that no more high speed E6 films are currently produced anymore.

FILM Ferrania said:
I have been given just a tiny taste of some of the items in our archives. These are all things that will need further research, of course, but the hard parts are largely done. There is some truly exciting stuff in the vaults...

No doubt there is, im sure there are lots of experimental films and/or other products that never hit the market for whatever reason in your archives.
Im pretty excited to see whats around the corner with Film Ferrania, and im sure you guys will deliver. But we all need to be patient, these things are not going to come overnight.

trythis · Nov 5, 2014

I am personally most excited about the vault of unknown emulsions. I can see part of films future lying in these unique formulas as digital becomes more and more "Perfect"

Nzoomed · Nov 5, 2014

trythis said:
I am personally most excited about the vault of unknown emulsions. I can see part of films future lying in these unique formulas as digital becomes more and more "Perfect"

+1

flavio81 · Nov 5, 2014

Here are some reviews of Scotch materials in 1990 by PopPhoto. Click to expand the pictures.

ScotchChrome 400: They find it the most saturated of the 400 E6 films.

Color stability test -- best ISO 100 print film regarding color Stability was from 3M, better than Kodak or Fuji's offerings.

ScotchChrome 640T was well received as well and compared favorably to Kodak 160T (pushed). They liked the colors, the pushability, and the fact that detail was still mantained. But i can't find the magazine pages. Of course, later Kodak counterattacked with 320T and at ISO 640 the latter was a better film overall.

Now, i'm holding in my hand some contact prints i just picked from the lab. The subject are some family portraits made last saturday and sunday. I used a RB67 and a Mamiya C330, films were Portra 400 and Lomography CN100 respectively, both 120 format. I'm looking at the contact prints, judging just color and tonality, not grain nor sharpness, because i don't have the loupe at hand. Prints are done on the same type of paper by the same lab.

Kodak Portra 400, as we all know, is perhaps the best ISO 400 color negative film, ever. The results are just great, excellent skin tones, contrast, saturation, everything.

But the Lomography CN100, which you should know is no other film than Ferrania Solaris ISO 100, shows excellent skin tones, color saturation and contrast as well. It looks just as good as Portra, in these criteria. Side to side with the Portra contact sheet, the only difference i can see is that the Ferrania film looks more natural (less "pop" or extra saturation and contrast) compared to Portra, which looks just a little bit more contrasty and saturated. Both "looks" are great. In fact, i'd prefer the Solaris result more for portraits. It has just the "right" amount of contrast and saturation.

My Solaris rolls include a indoor portrait -using available light- of my girlfriend, with a sunlit window on her back. The results are great. Same for outdoor pictures -- her skin tones are just fine. The roll also includes two shots done at night at a friend's house, artificial (warm white fluorescent) lighting, which i underexposed on purpose due to the conditions, and i see the latitude of the film is good enough as well, with good shadow detail, no doubt helped by the "normal contrast" response.

All in all, it's a film i could use anytime with confidence whenever i want an ISO 100 color negative film. Even more if Ferrania manufactures it again at a good price. I'm off to the lab to order some enlargements today.

Prest_400 · Nov 5, 2014

FILM Ferrania said:
While this is largely true, the 3M team that ran the show for 35 years did copious amounts of research on TONS of products that the top brass refused to put into the market. And I mean, hey, they worked for 3M - certainly no slouches when it comes to researching new things.

I have been given just a tiny taste of some of the items in our archives. These are all things that will need further research, of course, but the hard parts are largely done. There is some truly exciting stuff in the vaults...

Have to second that, I was thinking in terms of the 2000 decade when sadly the old Ferrania drifted into darkness. And how the full potential of Ferrania's R&D wasn't seen when lots of this didn't reach the public.
On the other hand, it's amazing how everything was well kept thanks to the protection by the government. All of that could have been lost and forgotten.

Still, the ISO100 chrome has to come and best wishes with the effort on the meantime. But must confess that an ISO400 E6 product is very exciting for the midterm horizon.

EDIT:

flavio81 said:
Here are some reviews of Scotch materials in 1990 by PopPhoto. Click to expand the pictures.
ScotchChrome 400: They find it the most saturated of the 400 E6 films
Color stability test -- best ISO 100 print film regarding color Stability was from 3M, better than Kodak or Fuji's offerings.

Nice! I am quite young and didn't get to try their film, and it was rather obscure, not mentioned around. Lomo 100CN is still Ferrania? Thought they switched over to another manufacturer after they closed shop a few years ago.

TheToadMen · Nov 5, 2014

FILM Ferrania said:
Well said, Ken. We must approach this thing one step at a time and we already have a steep hill to climb just to begin regular small-batch production - along with establishing logistics, marketing, sales, distribution, fulfillment, customer service, etc.

We are wide-eyed with ambition, and yet very aware of the hard facts of reality.

With that said, I do not mind all the requests and speculations and commentary (although I hope you'll forgive me for not answering every single post). In fact, we need this kind of granular input for the long term. A market of one today could be a market in the thousands in a few years - especially if we are able to reverse the negativity and hopelessness in the analog world and attract some new blood. Or at least get some fence-sitters to play on our side of the yard.

As the great Bruce Dickenson said: "and the only prescription is more cowbell"

(BTW: you can rent one here @ borrowlenses to improve your creativity)

Nzoomed · Nov 5, 2014

flavio81 said:
Here are some reviews of Scotch materials in 1990 by PopPhoto. Click to expand the pictures.

ScotchChrome 400: They find it the most saturated of the 400 E6 films.

View attachment 97309

View attachment 97310

Color stability test -- best ISO 100 print film regarding color Stability was from 3M, better than Kodak or Fuji's offerings.

View attachment 97311

ScotchChrome 640T was well received as well and compared favorably to Kodak 160T (pushed). They liked the colors, the pushability, and the fact that detail was still mantained. But i can't find the magazine pages. Of course, later Kodak counterattacked with 320T and at ISO 640 the latter was a better film overall.

Now, i'm holding in my hand some contact prints i just picked from the lab. The subject are some family portraits made last saturday and sunday. I used a RB67 and a Mamiya C330, films were Portra 400 and Lomography CN100 respectively, both 120 format. I'm looking at the contact prints, judging just color and tonality, not grain nor sharpness, because i don't have the loupe at hand. Prints are done on the same type of paper by the same lab.

Kodak Portra 400, as we all know, is perhaps the best ISO 400 color negative film, ever. The results are just great, excellent skin tones, contrast, saturation, everything.

But the Lomography CN100, which you should know is no other film than Ferrania Solaris ISO 100, shows excellent skin tones, color saturation and contrast as well. It looks just as good as Portra, in these criteria. Side to side with the Portra contact sheet, the only difference i can see is that the Ferrania film looks more natural (less "pop" or extra saturation and contrast) compared to Portra, which looks just a little bit more contrasty and saturated. Both "looks" are great. In fact, i'd prefer the Solaris result more for portraits. It has just the "right" amount of contrast and saturation.

My Solaris rolls include a indoor portrait -using available light- of my girlfriend, with a sunlit window on her back. The results are great. Same for outdoor pictures -- her skin tones are just fine. The roll also includes two shots done at night at a friend's house, artificial (warm white fluorescent) lighting, which i underexposed on purpose due to the conditions, and i see the latitude of the film is good enough as well, with good shadow detail, no doubt helped by the "normal contrast" response.

All in all, it's a film i could use anytime with confidence whenever i want an ISO 100 color negative film. Even more if Ferrania manufactures it again at a good price. I'm off to the lab to order some enlargements today.

That is well worth a read for anyone who has not shot this film.
Im confident that the engineers at Ferrania will address the grain issue in the future with the 400 ISO film, just shows you how underrated this film was at the time. Since 3M no longer makes the company decisions, we may very well see the films that achieve this.
Solaris looks a great film indeed, im sure this will be the next film to hit the market again once Ferrania have E6 underway.

StoneNYC · Nov 5, 2014

FILM Ferrania said:
While this is largely true, the 3M team that ran the show for 35 years did copious amounts of research on TONS of products that the top brass refused to put into the market. And I mean, hey, they worked for 3M - certainly no slouches when it comes to researching new things.

I have been given just a tiny taste of some of the items in our archives. These are all things that will need further research, of course, but the hard parts are largely done. There is some truly exciting stuff in the vaults...

Since you guys will have a very flexible production line, is it possible to contract with other film producers? The reason I ask is, obviously at some point the large scale of someone like Fuji will make it almost impossible for them to continue their line of E-6, but would it benefit you guys to also have contracts from someone like them to produce smaller batches of their film? Similar to how Ilford produce batches of other manufactures black-and-white films? And the bigger question, does your machine have the capabilities to do that if you were to approach fuji about such a proposal? (Or the other way around).

Thanks.

ME Super · Nov 5, 2014

StoneNYC said:
Since you guys will have a very flexible production line, is it possible to contract with other film producers? The reason I ask is, obviously at some point the large scale of someone like Fuji will make it almost impossible for them to continue their line of E-6, but would it benefit you guys to also have contracts from someone like them to produce smaller batches of their film? Similar to how Ilford produce batches of other manufactures black-and-white films? And the bigger question, does your machine have the capabilities to do that if you were to approach fuji about such a proposal? (Or the other way around).

Thanks.

That's a great question, Stone. Bear in mind, however, that emulsions coated on different machines will not be exactly the same, even though the recipe for the emulsion itself is the same. When you're dealing with multiple layers all being coated with a total thickness less than that of a human hair, a seemingly small difference in thickness of one layer can cause a detectable difference in film characteristics. For example, Ektachrome coated at the plant in Harrow, UK was different from Ektachrome coated at the plant in Rochester, NY USA. Not a lot different, but the difference was detectable if you knew what to look for.

Would love to hear what the Ferrania guys have for an answer to this question.

cmacd123 · Nov 5, 2014

ME Super said:
Would love to hear what the Ferrania guys have for an answer to this question.

Not sure that would be one that Dave would be able to answer clearly. While the folks here at APUG are great at pulling clues to see where products really come from, and we are great at sharing that knowledge, the norm in the industry is to have non-disclosure from day one.

WE know that OLD ferrania was a major supplier of both film and services. Besides all the private label film ADOX.de mentioned in a post that one of the coatings was "all slit to 35mm as we thought that ferrania was closing down for good" which implies that OLD ferrania did the slitting for them.

Last few batches of EDU.Ultra have come in cassettes that are identical to the last few batches of Ferrania colour negative, but that may have been OLD ferrania trying to maximize the value of what had become dead stock. The fact that EDU.ultra is now advertised as NOT having DX coding May be the proff of that theory as the stock of those cassettes has not gone. FOMA does not even acknowledge that they make EDU.Ultra. (other than the FOMApa data sheet that says the edge print may say FOMAPAN or ULTRA)

While it does not take rocket science to see for example that the NEW APX comes in the same cans, and boxes cut to teh same shape as Harmon films, thus implying that Harman are the folks that packaged them, We will never hear that from Simon Galley. AND their is only hints to figure out where that film was coated. It may have just as well been coated at one of the three known coating lines in Germany for example. (not sure if the smallest of those is actually running yet)

Dr Croubie · Nov 5, 2014

I just developed my first few 120 rolls of the new RPX 25 the other day. The backing paper on that, the font for the frame numbers and the circles around them, they all looked decidedly familiar...

Meanwhile, as I was the one who brought up reciprocity:
I know that there's always going to be a tradeoff between a lot of things, speed, grain, colour accuracy, saturation, reciprocity, longevity, cost, etc etc.
If there could somehow be made an E6 film, of whatever speed (ei25 even?), of whatever grain (less than golf-ball sized), as long as the colours were accurate and saturated within reason, but if the main thing being that you could use it for at least minutes on end with no CC filters and barely any extra time, that would be a great addition to the toolkit of anyone who wants to blur waterfalls, clouds, take people out of street scenes, star trails, etc.
It's already been said that it's not high on the list of some people, that's fine, but I'm sure it'd be on the list of a fair few others.

I know this kind of thing would need reengineering from something if not even start from scratch, so I'm not holding my breath. But if it's possible in a few years after the 100/400/800 are up and shipping, I'd be keen on it.

pbromaghin · Nov 5, 2014

flavio81 said:
Here are some reviews of Scotch materials in 1990 by PopPhoto. Click to expand the pictures.

ScotchChrome 400: They find it the most saturated of the 400 E6 films.

View attachment 97309

View attachment 97310

Color stability test -- best ISO 100 print film regarding color Stability was from 3M, better than Kodak or Fuji's offerings.

View attachment 97311

ScotchChrome 640T was well received as well and compared favorably to Kodak 160T (pushed). They liked the colors, the pushability, and the fact that detail was still mantained. But i can't find the magazine pages. Of course, later Kodak counterattacked with 320T and at ISO 640 the latter was a better film overall.

Now, i'm holding in my hand some contact prints i just picked from the lab. The subject are some family portraits made last saturday and sunday. I used a RB67 and a Mamiya C330, films were Portra 400 and Lomography CN100 respectively, both 120 format. I'm looking at the contact prints, judging just color and tonality, not grain nor sharpness, because i don't have the loupe at hand. Prints are done on the same type of paper by the same lab.

Kodak Portra 400, as we all know, is perhaps the best ISO 400 color negative film, ever. The results are just great, excellent skin tones, contrast, saturation, everything.

But the Lomography CN100, which you should know is no other film than Ferrania Solaris ISO 100, shows excellent skin tones, color saturation and contrast as well. It looks just as good as Portra, in these criteria. Side to side with the Portra contact sheet, the only difference i can see is that the Ferrania film looks more natural (less "pop" or extra saturation and contrast) compared to Portra, which looks just a little bit more contrasty and saturated. Both "looks" are great. In fact, i'd prefer the Solaris result more for portraits. It has just the "right" amount of contrast and saturation.

My Solaris rolls include a indoor portrait -using available light- of my girlfriend, with a sunlit window on her back. The results are great. Same for outdoor pictures -- her skin tones are just fine. The roll also includes two shots done at night at a friend's house, artificial (warm white fluorescent) lighting, which i underexposed on purpose due to the conditions, and i see the latitude of the film is good enough as well, with good shadow detail, no doubt helped by the "normal contrast" response.

All in all, it's a film i could use anytime with confidence whenever i want an ISO 100 color negative film. Even more if Ferrania manufactures it again at a good price. I'm off to the lab to order some enlargements today.

I might wet my pants.

AgX · Nov 5, 2014

cmacd123 said:
It may have just as well been coated at one of the three known coating lines in Germany for example. (not sure if the smallest of those is actually running yet)

There only is one coating line in Germany.

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