House brands vs. Name brands

Nathan;

It may not be. Who knows? It depends on the contract between the manufacturer and the recipient what the properties of a given product will be. If they elect certain features and leave others out, then that is what they get. There is a menu of options available in any contract between companies that establishes specifications.

PE

JustDave said:

I guess TMAX developer is just a Hydroquinone developer and when shopping for a developer, I should just look for a Hydroquinone developer? The Hydroquinone is what really counts?

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Yes and no, but mostly no. First, there are several developing agents that are important/common. I tend to think of four as being associated, although only three are really in common use in commercial developers:

• metol (aka elon; abbreviated M)
• hydroquinone (abbreviated Q)
• phenidone (or variants, such as Dimezone S; abbreviated P)
• ascorbic acid (or variants, such as sodium ascorbate; abbreviated C)

Most common developers today use two of these four agents. The MQ combination is extremely common, with PQ accounting for most of the rest. PC developers are rarer but they do exist (for instance, Kodak XTOL film developer, Silvergrain Tektol print developer). I don't know of any commercial MC developers, although there are mix-it-yourself MC developers. I don't know of any MP or QC developers, period; AFAIK, those combinations aren't superadditive (see below). A few developers use just one of these agents (I believe metol is the most common in this regard). A very few developers use three or more agents.

Developing agents are combined for various reasons. One is superadditivity -- the two developers work more quickly together than they do separately, even adjusting for the quantities involved. Another is that each developing agent has its unique character, so by combining them, you can get better results than you can using them individually.

Metol and phenidone have roughly similar characteristics, and can often be substituted in a formula (but you use about 1/10 as much phenidone as the formula calls for metol, or vice-versa). Likewise for hydroquinone and sodium ascorbate (I don't recall the substitution ratio, though; and ascorbic acid is more acidic and so requires additional formula changes to bring the pH into balance). Note the word "roughly" earlier in this paragraph; I do not mean to imply that P and M or Q and C work identically! Changing a developer in this way will change its character a bit, but it will probably work.

Note that there are more than these four developing agents. Things like para-aminophenol (used in Rodinal) and catechol (used in many "pyro" developers) are also sometimes used, occasionally in combination with one or more of the others I've listed.

Now to the main point: I don't know the long names you've listed by heart, but I believe Kodak's TMAX developer is a PQ developer. As such, it's the combination of those two agents that contributes to the developer's character, not the hydroquinone alone. Other ingredients also have an effect; for instance, sodium sulfite is often cited as an ingredient that reduces the apparent size of grain. (This is a topic about which much more could be -- and has been -- written.)

Thus, the bottom line to my post is that finding an equivalent to Kodak's TMAX developer (or any other developer) is a lot more complex than just looking for one with hydroquinone in it. The hydroquinone interacts with any other developing agents, and with other components, in ways that are really rather complex. One further point: It's my understanding that phenidone is used in such small quantities that it's often omitted from ingredient lists. This can complicate analyses like this.

ntenny said:

Just to oversimplify, and to confine attention to the Freestyle house brands: Is it safe to conclude that the films are neither more nor less than relabelled "brand" films, but the chemistry may be separately formulated "work-alike" stuff? I guess we can almost know from the discussion above that KMAX is not just relabelled TMAX developer, for instance.

Or are you, PE, suggesting *also* that (as an example) Arista Premium 400 might not be exactly the same as TX400 after all?

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As others have said, it's conceivable that house-brand films aren't identical to current name-brand offerings. Ilford is known to make B&W products to other companies' specifications, for instance. Anything more than very minor tweaks can usually be spotted by experienced photographers, both by examining the results and by scrutinizing suggested developing times. Neither test is really 100% conclusive, but if nobody can tell the difference between, say, Tri-X and Freestyle's Arista Premium 400, does it really matter if there's some small difference in the emulsion, the base, or whatever?

For chemistry it's a bit more open, since the requirements to design and manufacture unique photochemistry are less difficult than the requirements to design and manufacture unique films and papers. I believe Freestyle's photochemistry supplier is known, but I've not paid a lot of attention to this, so I can't name a name. I don't believe it's Kodak or the company to whom Kodak sold their chemical manufacturing arm, though. Of course, developers have only a few ingredients, so another firm could supply an identical or near-identical product (legal issues aside; I don't know what patents, if any, apply to TMAX developer). Some developers, such as D-76, have published formulas that anybody can replicate -- although Kodak's D-76 is widely believed to have proprietary deviations from the published D-76 formulation.

The point being that the issues involved in identifying work-alike or identical products in films and papers are very different from those for photochemistry. Freestyle's suppliers for the two classes also happen to be different.

srs5694 said:

....

Thus, the bottom line to my post is that finding an equivalent to Kodak's TMAX developer (or any other developer) is a lot more complex than just looking for one with hydroquinone in it. The hydroquinone interacts with any other developing agents, and with other components, in ways that are really rather complex. One further point: It's my understanding that phenidone is used in such small quantities that it's often omitted from ingredient lists. This can complicate analyses like this.

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Thanks for the detailed reply.
I kind of got that impression also from PE.

I guess I caught up in the hype from the FreeStyle catalog I received last year. Save money with cheaper brands of your favorite chemicals!
And they showed: KMAX, Arista 76, etc...

You can save money with cheaper workalike products. You'll have to either take Freestyle's word that their Product A works like another company's Product X, though, or ask about them specifically here or somewhere else. Also, even if A isn't all that much like X, A may be a perfectly good product. There are dozens or hundreds of commercially-manufactured photographic developers available today. Each and every one of them sells enough to be manufactured, which means that somebody likes each and every one of them.

fotch said:

You buy Peace of Mind when you buy the name brand. The house brand can be a bit of a gamble. For me, the goal is the image, the price is the cost.

I am so fed up with the look alike products imported and prove to be crap in disguise. Walfart is the master of this sham, sadly, not the only ones doing it.

With some exception, you get what you pay for.

JMHO

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i agree to a certain extant fotch ...
but some house brands are the exact same
thing as the real deal ...

i mentioned handbags in my earlier post because there was a book written
about a year+ ago, about fashion / designer handbags.
if you look at most fashion ads, handbags are usually prominent in the ad.
they are the cheapest thing for someone interested in fashion-names to buy
.... AND they have the biggest mark up ( cash-cow ).
from what i remember ( heard the interview with the author )
it is something like 10 + times the cost.
she went to china and interviewed various people in the industry and she learned that the "knock-offs" are made
by the same people at the same time and are sold a fraction of the price.

it is the same thing in the photo industry, but not as drastic a markup.

for example - photo warehouse used to get master rolls of film -
it was named "made in england" film, and was ilford fp4 ...
it was sold for a fraction of what the name brand stuff would cost, and because
they (pw) didn't have to pay for the label, and they bought it in bulk
they passed the savings onto the consumer. unfortunately
selling private label film like this, is what got ilford
and some of the other manufacturers of photo supplies into
trouble and later put them deep- 6 or into receivership.

sometimes you get what you paid for, but sometimes there isn't much of a risk involved ...

jnanian said:

i agree to a certain extant fotch ...
but some house brands are the exact same
thing as the real deal ...

i mentioned handbags in my earlier post because there was a book written
about a year+ ago, about fashion / designer handbags.
if you look at most fashion ads, handbags are usually prominent in the ad.
they are the cheapest thing for someone interested in fashion-names to buy
.... AND they have the biggest mark up ( cash-cow ).
from what i remember ( heard the interview with the author )
it is something like 10 + times the cost.
she went to china and interviewed various people in the industry and she learned that the "knock-offs" are made
by the same people at the same time and are sold a fraction of the price.

it is the same thing in the photo industry, but not as drastic a markup.

for example - photo warehouse used to get master rolls of film -
it was named "made in england" film, and was ilford fp4 ...
it was sold for a fraction of what the name brand stuff would cost, and because
they (pw) didn't have to pay for the label, and they bought it in bulk
they passed the savings onto the consumer. unfortunately
selling private label film like this, is what got ilford
and some of the other manufacturers of photo supplies into
trouble and later put them deep- 6 or into receivership.

sometimes you get what you paid for, but sometimes there isn't much of a risk involved ...

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I'd to throw tapioca on the wall with that - I have no idea what that means, but someone once used that expression in this context with me and it sounded good.

Someone, way above us in this comment thread, said that Arista.EDU is Foma. Well, a couple of years ago, I bought Arista.EDU 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 sheet film. After processing, my TMAX developer was a purplish black stuff. The negative was clear (i.e. the base wasn't blue :like Foma). Yeah, all the Foma I've developed has that blue base and it never turned the developer into that purplish black gunk.

So, I'm thinking that either Arista.EDU sheet film in the size I mentioned was made by another manufacturer or Foma did in fact make it but with a different chemistry.

I don't have this guessing game with the named brands.

I see what you're saying. I prefer store brands, hence my starting this thread, but on occasion, rare occasions, there are reasons to stick to the named brands - until they start farming out the manufacturing to others.

(on whether a given Arista film actually *is* its "name-brand equivalent" or not)

Photo Engineer said:

Nathan;

It may not be. Who knows? It depends on the contract between the manufacturer and the recipient what the properties of a given product will be. If they elect certain features and leave others out, then that is what they get. There is a menu of options available in any contract between companies that establishes specifications.

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Well, sure, but perhaps I didn't ask the right question. It's obviously plausible for many different sources to concoct their own chemistry, so I don't have any trouble believing that "name brand" manufacturers are producing variants for various customers, or that house brands have their own contract manufacturers, &c. Basically, it's very easy to see ways for a "TMAX-ish-but-not-really-TMAX" developer to emerge.

But film is a much more restrictive manufacturing process, isn't it? Is it really plausible that a film manufacturer would be tweaking their process solely to produce something different for a retailer's house brand---considering the quantities in which they'd have to produce it and the complexities of switching over the production line? Your discussion in the past of film manufacturing has left me feeling that we're talking about such a large, delicately balanced process here that this sort of small-batch alteration would be not just unusual but outlandish. Have I got it wrong?

-NT

ntenny said:

(on whether a given Arista film actually *is* its "name-brand equivalent" or not)



Well, sure, but perhaps I didn't ask the right question. It's obviously plausible for many different sources to concoct their own chemistry, so I don't have any trouble believing that "name brand" manufacturers are producing variants for various customers, or that house brands have their own contract manufacturers, &c. Basically, it's very easy to see ways for a "TMAX-ish-but-not-really-TMAX" developer to emerge.

But film is a much more restrictive manufacturing process, isn't it? Is it really plausible that a film manufacturer would be tweaking their process solely to produce something different for a retailer's house brand---considering the quantities in which they'd have to produce it and the complexities of switching over the production line? Your discussion in the past of film manufacturing has left me feeling that we're talking about such a large, delicately balanced process here that this sort of small-batch alteration would be not just unusual but outlandish. Have I got it wrong?

-NT

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I can't argue that. And speaking as someone who's been in a situation like the manufacturer you've mentioned, I agree. That's all.

Speaking to Photo Engineer, I value your opinion - right or wrong. And speaking as someone who has made some mistakes, I'd like to add, even if, just if, you've spoken and made a mistake, I WOULD understand. This is a very complex World and we all can't keep tabs on everything - even the products in our own company.

That's all I have to say.

Nathan;

I know of at least 3 or 4 formulations of Kodak Gold 400 film myself that could be made and coated as a "house" brand for small companies. These would not be the same as the current Gold 400 and certainly not the same as Ektar 100. They can all be coated on the same machines and the emulsions can be made in the same equipment. The differences will be in added chemicals which control the imaging and keeping qualities of the final film and the raw stock.

So, a company can pick his flavor based on his budget and buy/sell film in his chosen price range. This is the same as in the food industry where the packer lets the customer choose the ratio of product to juice in a pack of vegetables, the coloring, the flavorings and preservatives and etc. So, our local store brand has a lot more water in it than the name brand, but they are both veggies and a can weighs the same, but varies in veggie content.

PE

PE,

I do not know how you can possibly make your point any clearer.

Thanks,

Steve

JustDave said:

Someone, way above us in this comment thread, said that Arista.EDU is Foma. Well, a couple of years ago, I bought Arista.EDU 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 sheet film. After processing, my TMAX developer was a purplish black stuff. The negative was clear (i.e. the base wasn't blue :like Foma). Yeah, all the Foma I've developed has that blue base and it never turned the developer into that purplish black gunk.

So, I'm thinking that either Arista.EDU sheet film in the size I mentioned was made by another manufacturer or Foma did in fact make it but with a different chemistry.

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It was Jim Appleyard, on the first page of this thread, who claimed that Arista.EDU was made by Foma. In the very next post, I offered a correction: Arista.EDU was made by Forte; Arista.EDU Ultra was (and is) made by Foma. Many people omit the "Ultra" from the name of the Foma-made product, and this fact could easily lead to confusion in the past, when both product lines were available. Even today, a person could get the wrong development time off a Web site or get confused if s/he had used the non-Ultra product in the past and went to buy more. My guess is that you had the Arista.EDU, made by Forte, but either you believed it was Arista.EDU Ultra or somebody who wasn't paying sufficient attention gave you the wrong information on who made it.

Anyhow, this is a very specific case of a company doing a poor job of naming their products. People tend to abbreviate long product names in their heads, so a word like "Ultra" will tend to get omitted. With two products so similar in name from one company, that's just plain bad naming, whether the company sources them from different manufacturers, sources both from one manufacturer, or makes them in-house.

I don't have this guessing game with the named brands.

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But you do. Whenever a manufacturer updates a product, you might have issues. A fer years ago, Ilford manufactured a chromogenic B&W film called XP2. That product is now long-gone, replaced by XP2 Super -- but people today often refer to it as "Ilford XP2." This particular case isn't likely to result in serious problems, since they're both C-41 films; however, they've got different characteristics, so somebody who's familiar with the old version might easily lead somebody astray about what the newer film is like. As another example, what about Kodak's recent change to T-Max 400 film? I don't shoot much of this, so I don't know if development times have changed. If they have, and if you don't pay sufficient attention to the changes, you could get burned. Such product changes are common in most fields -- photography, computers, cars, power tools, clothes, processed food, etc. Casual consumers don't usually pay a lot of attention to such changes, but as photographic hobbyists and professionals, we like to know all we can about our films. If you don't pay attention, sooner or later you'll run into a problem because a product changes.

That said, knowing the correspondence between name brand and rebranded products is more to know. Whether it's worth using those products depends on how much you know, how much you care, and how much money you've got to spend. If you're on a tight budget and either know the differences or don't care about the differences, buying a rebranded product makes sense. If you've got a bigger budget, care about the differences, and don't want to follow threads like this to keep up to date on what's what, then buying the name-brand product makes sense.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, con men use peoples greed against them. A common ploy is a higher rate of return than available anywhere. Example: Bernard Madoff

Sellers, while not doing anything illegal will use Puffery or exaggerate the benefits sometimes. Now, while that is not necessarily bad, human nature is that people want to believe they are getting a deal. The illusion is more important than the facts.

Freestyle is a reputable dealer and I think many of their offerings may be a great value. Obviously, many others do also. That said, I personally would only buy the Tri-X like film because its a good film with characteristics that I am after. I would not buy (just me, you don't have to agree) the film and think I am getting the same TRI-X.

I am amazed at the amount of products available now a days that look like the real thing but falls apart quickly or otherwise fail. The latest is drywall from overseas. Who would think that we need to import drywall.

I really miss the old USA where we made so many things, and they were of good quality.

JustDave said:

I've been poking around some online photo supply stores and I see that a couple of them have house brands. How do they measure up?

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Just my 2 cents worth.

I've been using Freestyle's house brand products since the early 1990's and I've never gotten a bad one.

In those days I was buying 400 speed B&W film 2000' at a time to bulk load for my photo students. I placed an order with Freestyle for 100' of Arista 400 - expecting to get the East German Orwo. To my surprise the edge print on film was Ilford HP5.

At half the price of HP5 or Tri-X from B&H or any other dealer it was a no -brainer to send in a big order.

At some point, through ten years of 2000' per semester, the edge print on the film changed to the Arista brand but there was never a deviation in the quality or performance.

They are still my go-to source for all my film and chemicals.

I'm convinced that regardless of who they are using for a manufacturer, the Freestyle folks pay attention to detail and deliver a quality product for the price point.

fotch said:

You buy Peace of Mind when you buy the name brand. The house brand can be a bit of a gamble. For me, the goal is the image, the price is the cost.

I am so fed up with the look alike products imported and prove to be crap in disguise. Walfart is the master of this sham, sadly, not the only ones doing it.

With some exception, you get what you pay for.

JMHO

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I think what sometimes happens, not always, but sometimes, Wang Che Fat makes product X for company X, it is required to meet certain specifications for company X. Any units that do not meet the specifications, are not accepted by Company X, WCF not wanting to lose money on it, sells it to someone else. If company X decides that instead of the 5,000,000 units made, they only want 3,000,000 then WCF sells off the remaining units to the highest bidder.

Then again, I have a cousin that had a Tomato farm and processing plant, they would store the cans in their warehouse, along with huge rolls of labels, depending on who ordered canned tomatoes the appropriate label would be applied, put in the appropriate boxes, skidded and wrapped for shipping. Even though a can from Brand X cost $1.49 and a no name can cost $0.49, they were grown, picked and canned the same way....

Different products are handled different ways.

sorry fotch
i don't think there is any puffery involved in
a lot of cases ... it is a well known fact that x=x

as for foma turning developer blue .. that is why i use
a water bath .. and most films leech out the anti halation layer ...
and most of the time i pour it off in my water bath ...

sorry to hear of your troubles dave ..

By the way, I don't think Fomapan in sheets is normally on a blue base even under its "native" label. I've only used Fomapan 100 in 9x12, but that certainly isn't the vivid blue of the rollfilm---maybe someone with direct experience of the 2x3 size can confirm or deny that it's on a clear(ish) base in that size as well.

On the other hand, the Arista version of Fomapan 100 and 400 in 120 is the infamous blue. (I assume the 200 is as well, but I've never used it to see for myself.)

-NT

srs5694 said:

Anyhow, this is a very specific case of a company doing a poor job of naming their products.

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It has gotten confusing but I think I would cut freestyle some slack on this one.

Way back when they sold "english Profesional" which uas made in england and presumably came from Ilford.

Freestyle started using "Arista" to name their private brand stuff.

Ilford got into financial trouble, and reorgaonized - droping the avilabity of the that private label product.

Freestyle went to a product from AGFAphoto - and since it was different they called it Arista II the next generation. we know what happened to agfa photo.

In an effort to have a value proce for the educational market, the brought in Arista.EDU (marked "Value" right on the cassette) from Hungary, where Forte was the only known supplier. Forte went our of business.

Now they have Arista EDU Ultra which is apperently FOMA.

{OFF Topic-- some that I got recently of both the EDU Ultra and the FOMA action were in ferania C-41! Cassettes, which I guess were surplus as I understand Ferania has left the film business. Freestyle is clearing the ARISTA COLOUR stock.}

having scrambled they also came out with the Arista Professional which for some reason is CHEAPer then the foma product. All signs are that it is actually made by Kodak.

Now the next brand is quite different - Legacy Pro which is made in Japan.

Three of the brands have been basicaly yanked out form under freestyle.

I would agree that, while the canned vegatables analogy certainly applies to chemistry, I doubt the bulk-purchase/rebranding game is sophisticated enough to include manufacturers tooling up for slightly different B&W emulsion runs when it comes to film. -You buy a BIG lot of Tri-x, you get to sell it as "Artistical Tripletex" or whatever.

It is!

PE

JustDave said:

Well, a couple of years ago, I bought Arista.EDU 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 sheet film. After processing, my TMAX developer was a purplish black stuff. The negative was clear (i.e. the base wasn't blue :like Foma). Yeah, all the Foma I've developed has that blue base and it never turned the developer into that purplish black gunk.

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Foma roll film has a blue base, Foma sheet film has a clear base. Foma sheet film has an antihaliation dye that come off in the developer...or a water presoak.
Arista.edu.ultra (note the "ultra") is Foma brand film. Arista.edu (note absence of Ultra) is NOT Foma...but has been sourced from Forte.

there used to be a thread on the lf info site
that was called j&c, forte, whats the difference ..
it explained who was who in the film-rename-game..
i haven't been able to locate it
but this is the closest i could find

cmacd123 said:

Three of the brands have been basicaly yanked out form under freestyle.

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Maybe Freestyle underselling them has put them out of business

cmacd123 said:

It has gotten confusing but I think I would cut freestyle some slack on this one.

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Yes, Freestyle has had to deal with changing suppliers. My criticism had to do with the names that Freestyle chose, though, and those choices were (presumably) their own, not their suppliers'.

ntenny said:

On the other hand, the Arista version of Fomapan 100 and 400 in 120 is the infamous blue. (I assume the 200 is as well, but I've never used it to see for myself.)-NT

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It is.