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Ilford colour film...??

Harry Stevens

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Did Ilford ever make their own colour film/slide or have they always been a B&W only manufacture and if they did was it any good......

Actually anybody know of any British film manufacture that made colour film/slide other than Kodak would be interested to read about that. I emphasize the difference between companies selling other brands under their name and manufacturing their own film.
 
A



A scan of a Dufaycolor 6x6 transparency shot in 1956 when we visited my grandparents in Bristol, England.
 
Ilford made a variety of colour film over the years....there's lots of info if you Google around.

OTTOMH. there was Ilford Colour Slide (later Ilfochrome?), a very similar system to Kodachrome (I have some slides taken by my late Father in the 1950's and early 60's, still unfaded and rather like the original Kodachrome). Arguably the only Ilford colour film which was up to the standards of the other makes at the same time.

There was a later colour slide film in the mid-late 60's, possibly based on ICI research, not great, even though it was marketed with gimmicks like free slide pages and binders, competitions and a free magazine; it seemed rather dull and "muddy" certainly not up to the equivalent Kodak and Agfa products of the time.

There were various colour negative films, again not really up to the "big makes" of the same era, and I believe that their last 35mm negative film, before they withdrew to all B&W, was an "own label" from Konica. Apart from this last product, I believe that all the films had their unique processes, at a time when standardisation to E4 and C22 (and subsequently E6 and C41) was becoming the norm., so probably not popular with photo labs.

Oddly enough, there were some illustrated "Ilford" books of garden and house plants published in the late 1960's, with all the pictures taken on Ilford colour film.....I have a couple of these, and, TBH, the pictures are not really much of a recommendation for the film !
 
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A very good book is "Colour Photography: The First Hundred Years, 1840 to 1940", by Brian Coe. Published 1978, but still available s/h (try Amazon?).

I have a copy (somewhere!) and, IIRC, there were certainly quite a few UK firms making colour products over the years.
 

Oh well, since you asked, time to dig out the Ilford Colour Advert. Once seen, never forgotten!!!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW4gENCInso
 
Dufaycolor was only a toll-coating product of Ilford, not their own product.
Dufaycolor is a regular-grid, additive colour film.

Substractive colour films from Ilford are reversal films, based on the Kodachrome-system, with varying process exposures.
But also negative films based on the Agfacolor-system
 
ICI made subtractive colour films based on the Agfacolor-system.
 
I got curious about this, and a quick search on the 'net showed me lots "Ilfochrome" E6 from the late '80s. I wonder if it is original or rebranded.
 
twelvetone12 said:
I got curious about this, and a quick search on the 'net showed me lots "Ilfochrome" E6 from the late '80s. I wonder if it is original or rebranded.
Click to expand...
According to an Ilford representative I spoke to some years ago, that film was rebranded Agfachrome.
 
Wow, that Ilford advert was quite something. Did anybody spot Simon Galley? You have to be sharp-eyed and remember he was slimmer all those years ago.

pentaxuser
 
I vaguely remember Ilfocolour but didn't use any. I was too absorbed with B&W. I do remember in the weekly magazine Amateur Photographer that there was a bit of an outcry when it was discontinued. So it may have been a bit better than average, but at that time Kodachrome was still king since the introduction Kodachome 2 with the speed of 25 ISO. When that was when it was discontinued it is pure guesswork but I would think it was in the middle 60's
 
I have a roll of exposed but unprocessed Ilfochrome somewhere rebranded SAkura E6 film.

Last time I was in Istanbul, I'd guess 2010, I visited the Ilford distributor for Turkey they are also a large retail outlet and they had Ilford C41 colour film on their shelves, I should have bought some - I've no idea who made it.

Ilford's own colour films were killed off by a Monopolies Commission who didn't like the fact that only Ilford could process them and wanted that changed which wasn't economic, Kodak had a similar issue with Kodachrome in the US.

Ilford planned to get back into the colour market, the Mobberley site had an area that was ear marked to build a colour coating facility, so they re-entered the market with re-branded films hoping to build up sufficient sales but Sakura was not the best choice as their films were never as good as Fuji & Kodak.

Before WWII Ilford were getting close to producing modern colour films (as opposed to Dufacolour) but they were under Government control during the war and had to find a new partner which was ICI, I can't remember offhand their previous partner (for the dye couplers etc) but they also had close links with Dupont who supplied their film base. Renwick who was head of Research and came up with Multigrade had been seconded to Dupont for a few years and Dupont's VArigram paper used Ilford technology, it came out first as the government here held back Multigrade production.

Ian
 
The Ilford C41 colour films were made at various times by Agfa-Geveart, Konica and lastly by 3M (Ferrania). I still have some of the latter sitting in my freezer.

In the 1950's there were a number of short lived colour films on the UK market as well as Ilford's. At least one of these was made in the UK, namely Pakolor. This was intended for both home processing and by approved labs. The process used was that of Agfa. This film had nothing whatsoever to do with Ilford, unlike the Dufay films. I can remembering using at least one Pakolor film but can't recall what the results were like. There is a link here which gives a lot of information on this quite interesting venture:-

http://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/Colour_Darkroom/Pakolor.html
 
New to me and a very interesting read and some nice links to some old Pakolor advertisements, a 20 minute bleach time!! The picture of the child as a Kodak Portra look to it.

Nice link.
 
FWIW, I've had good results from Ilford Delta 100 & 400 and a Nimslo with RGB filters:

 

I made my first colour prints on using a Paterson Pavelle colour printing kit, essentially the same as Pakolor, The Pavelle's had bought into Curt Jacobson's companies and the paper was now coated in a new US factory rather than being sub-contracted to Kentmere.

Like many of the colour processes of that era it was finicky, I don't have any prints left. I tried Ferrania reversal processing not long after that was no easier

Ian
 
From Practical Photography April 1964, Ilfocolor ASA 32 one pound two shillings for a 20 exposure cassette including processing together with a contact strip (only Ilfocolor gives you this).
Enprints 3 1/2 x 5 one shilling and sixpence, also available in 5x7 size.
 
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