Ilford and 220, for film resurgence?

So it's more easier with sheet film or a roll film adapter (if I do find one for that camera).

Probably the closest you can come to the convenience of pack film is a Grafmatic. Holds six sheets, cycle time from one to the next is a couple seconds (maybe less with practice). Fits under most ground glass backs and has a dark slide. I've seen them recently in 2x3 and 4x5; I'm pretty sure they were also made and sold in 3x4 and 5x7. At least in 4x5, a complicating factor is that there was a version for Graflex backs, and another for Graflock and spring backs, and they don't interchange, so you have to be careful to get the right kind.

Get a Speed or Crown, mount a lens you like, calibrate the Kalart rangefinder (or get/make a cam for a top RF to match your lens), and put a couple Grafmatics in your messenger bag, and you can bang away faster than almost anything with roll film, and your film sheets will be standard size that fit modern developing equipment.

Well, I'm more intrested in German prewar folinding cameras

I've seen pre-War plate cameras with Kalart rangefinders, and there are adapters for them to accept modern 4x5 accessories, which would include a Grafmatic. These have the advantage of (even with the 4x5 adapter) being lighter and more compact than a Speed Graphic or Burke & James (similar to a Speed but never had a focal plane shutter) press camera.

nokia2010 said:

Well, I'm more intrested in German prewar folinding cameras

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Donald Qualls said:

I've seen pre-War plate cameras with Kalart rangefinders, and there are adapters for them to accept modern 4x5 accessories, which would include a Grafmatic. These have the advantage of (even with the 4x5 adapter) being lighter and more compact than a Speed Graphic or Burke & James (similar to a Speed but never had a focal plane shutter) press camera.

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Grafmatics are the way to go. You choose your film to load. I have used them for years.

But what about 2 x 3"? And rollfilm. 4 x 5" is pretty expensive.

There are "45" Grafmatics (4x5) and "23" Grafmatics (2x3). Be sure they say "Graphic" on them, as that fits Graflok, and you want the "Graflex" version for a Graphic back. Confused yet?

Honestly, a 2x3 graphic with a graflok back is an incredibly versatile medium format camera-- I've got ground glass for close focusing, or to use the (limited) movements, I've got the rangefinder for focusing on distant objects, I've got the sports finder / scale for zone focusing, and I can use 2x3 sheet film, or 120 roll film up to 6x9 (depending on back). If I want multiple sheets, I can use the grafmatic, or I can use standard double-sided holders.

Down side is you've got rise only on the front-- No tilt/swing/shift, at least on the Miniature Speed Graphic (which is just barely post-war).

Am I the only one that notices that the issue isnt the paper backing but the machinery needing repairs? Ilford makes sheet film correct? They make a big master roll of film that gets trimmed down into multiple sizes. There is no actually difference between 120 and 220 film, just the length of the film on the spool.........

And if you get really really bored at home, the backing paper is quite similar to what is used on femine hygeine pads

Sheet film is on a different substrate than 120 (and 220) film, which is on a different substrate than 135 film (usually).
And backing paper is quite complex for a whole bunch of reasons, not least of which that it has to be thinner at the edges than in the centre. It also has to be opaque and it and the ink on it has to be extremely non-reactive because at least part of the 220 paper is pressed against the emulsion of the film.
The cost of repairing Ilford's machinery for 220 was estimated at over 300,000 pounds several years ago, and their business projections were that, when combined with the extremely high minimum order requirements of the backing paper manufacturer (and high per unit cost) there was no way that projected sales could come close to paying for the re-introduction of 220.

Yes, this keeps comming up. the 20 paper is actually TWO different products, and so would need TWO minimum orders. The 220 Machine is of the same vintage as the OLD 120 machine that they are do longer using. the 120 machine that they use now can be used in the light. (the backing paper protects the film as it is being wound) and so the 220 machine would need to be installed in a darkroom.

and if they were to go for the efort, Photographers would only buy the 220 is it was substantially cheaper than 2 rolls of 120. (with a few exceptions)

cmacd123 said:

Yes, this keeps comming up. the 20 paper is actually TWO different products, and so would need TWO minimum orders. The 220 Machine is of the same vintage as the OLD 120 machine that they are do longer using. the 120 machine that they use now can be used in the light. (the backing paper protects the film as it is being wound) and so the 220 machine would need to be installed in a darkroom.

and if they were to go for the efort, Photographers would only buy the 220 is it was substantially cheaper than 2 rolls of 120. (with a few exceptions)

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Ive seen video footage of a tour of their factory, the machines that slit the master rolls and create our 35mm film are/is inside a dark room. Employees get kickass nightvision goggles to use.

tballphoto said:

Ive seen video footage of a tour of their factory, the machines that slit the master rolls and create our 35mm film are/is inside a dark room. Employees get kickass nightvision goggles to use.

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They are, but operating in the dark adds operating costs compared to a machine that can be loaded with a cassette and then operate in a lit room. Daylight operation also reduces the error rate (even those kick-ass night vision goggles aren't the same as good light). And the 220 roller that operates in the dark is the one that's broken down/worn out and would cost around $300,000 to restore to operation.

tballphoto said:

Ive seen video footage of a tour of their factory, the machines that slit the master rolls and create our 35mm film are/is inside a dark room. Employees get kickass nightvision goggles to use.

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yes, there are MANY stages. for 120 (or 220) the film is slit in the dark, and loaded into light tight magazines. this magazines can feed the 120 spooling machine. That machine can run in the light, and the backing paper protects the film as it is wound. their is NO backing paper in the middle of a 220 roll, so that approach will not work.

these sorts of machines are custom built, and I understand that both the current machines (which came from the closed agfa plant) and the previous generation of machines were built by Agfa. the 220 machine being part of the previous generation would be over 20 years old, and so the computers that run it would also be that old. so beside repair, the software and computer hardware would have to be rebuilt likly from scratch, when the original designers are no longer accessible due to the demise of the Agfa Plant where the machines come from.

the 35mm film is also loaded into large magazines in the dark and again the packaging machine can place it into cassettes in the light.

But didn't the plant kept the archives of the machines?

nokia2010 said:

But didn't the plant kept the archives of the machines?

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but imagine that the machine uses a computer of the same vintage as an original IBM PC, (but less common) and custom interface cards. you are talking about a re-engineer rather than Just a repair. which is the reason that the estimate to get it running is almost as high as what they paid to bring the capability to make empty cassettes in house.

Why re-engenieering?

nokia2010 said:

Why re-engenieering?

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Because punch card readers are hard to find now?
The existing machine was completely worn out. Harman sought out what was needed to either repair it or build a new one, and the prices were similar - 300,000 pounds. They projected what their sales of 220 might be if they continued to offer it, and the combination of the minimum order quantities for the leader and trailer paper and the 300,000 pounds meant that they would never come close to recouping their investment.
And they posted that information here, because the removal of 220 product from their product line was their first breach of their promise to continue to offer all the products that had been available before Ilford went into receivership.

Many years ago, banks used a highly specialized electro-optical mechanical systems for sorting checks (which is why the font is so distinctive for the accounting / routing numbers on your checks). Tallahassee had one of the last ones still in operation, occupying a low, one story building that occupied about 1/4 of a city block. This bank had been running it since the 1960's or so, and continued running it, partly because it worked well, partly because it would have been expensive to replace, right up until about 1995. The reason they eventually shut down the system was that the last technician at IBM who knew how to fix it retired.

A friend of mine told me about a Boeing factory tour he was on, and in the corner of the building was this glassed-off enclosure with a massive pile of electronics and hardware filling the room-- about 6 by 6 feet. He asked about it, and was told that was the hard drive that ran one of the major assembly systems in the factory-- and that it was something like 100 kilobytes of storage, and that it had been running continuously since it was installed, three decades earlier. When the hard drive was eventually shut down, they had to retool most of that building-- because modern technology was completely and totally incompatible with everything connected to that hard drive.

Computer technology goes through major changes about every 3-5 years-- consider hard drive communication technology that in my career has gone from RLL to IDE to ATA to SATA to SAS and now NVMe (solid state). The technology for reading/writing to those hard drives means we've gone from 20 megabyte disks to 18 terabyte disks.

For a much simpler example, go on eBay, buy a Zip disk, and take it to Best Buy and ask them to get your data off of it. Bonus points if you get a Jaz disk.

grat said:

For a much simpler example, go on eBay, buy a Zip disk, and take it to Best Buy and ask them to get your data off of it. Bonus points if you get a Jaz disk.

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Or try recovering data from a standard hard disk that was written with a Stacker hardware card (I owned one of those, once). I've got files on my computer that I created when an 8088 was a common machine; I can only read some of them without exceptional effort (remember GeoWorks Ensemble with its proprietary document formats?), and only read them at all because they've been transferred from MFM to RLL to IDE to PATA to SATA drives -- from a 30 MB HDD to a 1 TB platter drive (my main drive is a 250 GB SSD).

Oh, yeah, what about the 720k 5 1/4" floppy drives from a DEC Rainbow PC? Try reading one of those disks these days...

Donald Qualls said:

Or try recovering data from a standard hard disk that was written with a Stacker hardware card (I owned one of those, once). I've got files on my computer that I created when an 8088 was a common machine; I can only read some of them without exceptional effort (remember GeoWorks Ensemble with its proprietary document formats?), and only read them at all because they've been transferred from MFM to RLL to IDE to PATA to SATA drives -- from a 30 MB HDD to a 1 TB platter drive (my main drive is a 250 GB SSD).

Oh, yeah, what about the 720k 5 1/4" floppy drives from a DEC Rainbow PC? Try reading one of those disks these days...

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So glad to see the transition away from any and all mechanical drive(s). There hasn't been one in our house for quite a while now. Goodbye to SATA too.

Auer said:

So glad to see the transition away from any and all mechanical drive(s). There hasn't been one in our house for quite a while now. Goodbye to SATA too.

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I'd hate to try to build my 20TB NAS with SSD.

As for the rest, I've been pretty diligent about migrating data from one generation of HDD to the next, and simply avoiding any type of external storage medium.

grat said:

I'd hate to try to build my 20TB NAS with SSD.

As for the rest, I've been pretty diligent about migrating data from one generation of HDD to the next, and simply avoiding any type of external storage medium.

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I'd hate to have a need for a 20TB NAS.

I just use a few NVME's and rent a few TB's of cloud space. All I'm concerned about are my Images.

Auer said:

All I'm concerned about are my Images.

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This is a little off topic for the analog section, but since my upgrade of a couple weeks ago, I can scan about 4.8 GB (6400 ppi, 48 bit color) from a 4x5 negative, close to half that from 6x9 on 120 (I don't, usually, but I can). If I had reason to scan at maximum resolution on a routine basis, I'd fill up 20 TB in a year or two -- someone who shoots more than I do would, of course, go through that faster.

Donald Qualls said:

This is a little off topic for the analog section, but since my upgrade of a couple weeks ago, I can scan about 4.8 GB (6400 ppi, 48 bit color) from a 4x5 negative, close to half that from 6x9 on 120 (I don't, usually, but I can). If I had reason to scan at maximum resolution on a routine basis, I'd fill up 20 TB in a year or two -- someone who shoots more than I do would, of course, go through that faster.

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I can see that, especially if you were to scan all images taken on a regular basis.
I scan nowhere near all my negatives, simply because theyre not all worth scanning.

Auer said:

I scan nowhere near all my negatives, simply because theyre not all worth scanning.

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I scan all of mine (albeit only the 35mm and smaller at maximum resolution) because it's much easier to go back through computer files than contact sheets to see which ones are worth printing. Plus, I have them already scanned if I want/need to post an example of a bad one, as well as having the good ones for the gallery.