ILFORD/HARMAN Interesting video....

[AERO]

 

[Ian Grant]

I was expecting a film about the camera, I have one a friend gave me after his father died.

It's and excellent video, misses a few real truths though. During WWII Ilford were told to halt all colour film research, and so were two generations behind technologically when the introduced Ilfocolour and Ilfochrome. Then the UK Government's Monopolies Commission killed the films, Ilford's colour films had to be sent back to Ilford for processing, that was the only way it could be profitable.

Kodak had lost a similar case in the US with Kodachrome processing, and had to open up processing to 3rd parties, although they kept a monopoly in other countries for a lot longer, only changing towards the end because people wanted same or next day processing.

But because Ilford were behind they could not afford losing all processing, so discontinued production.

The video misses out Ilford's colour films in the late 1970s, early 80s. I still have an exposed but unprocessed roll of E6 Ilfochrome. These were re-badged Konica/Sakura films. About halfway between the Orwo colour films and Fuji/Kodak, after the first I didn't bother processing the second.

I visited the Mobberley factory a few times for work in the early 1980s, and there was a plot designated for a new colour coating facility, the idea had been build up sales with re-badged colour films and then make their own. But they chose the wrong partner.

Ian

 

[loccdor]

@Ian Grant Thanks for that interesting information.

 

[Sharktooth]

I'm getting the distinct impression that this is likely an AI generated video. There seems to be a lot of them showing up on YouTube over the last couple of weeks. I've watched the history of Rubbermaid, and Singer, and now Ilford. They all have the obvious mispronounced names and words, that indicate they haven't been properly edited by anyone with actual knowledge. They do have a lot of interesting info, however, it's just hard to know how much of it is fact or fiction, or just misinterpreted.

 

[mshchem]

I'm getting the distinct impression that this is likely an AI generated video. There seems to be a lot of them showing up on YouTube over the last couple of weeks. I've watched the history of Rubbermaid, and Singer, and now Ilford. They all have the obvious mispronounced names and words, that indicate they haven't been properly edited by anyone with actual knowledge. They do have a lot of interesting info, however, it's just hard to know how much of it is fact or fiction, or just misinterpreted.

Yeah, there's a lot of this stuff showing up. Even the "old" box shown with the camera shows Harman Technology, which I don't think existed before the current company.

 

[John Salim]

What an awful video !
The obvious AI 'voice-over' from a poorly written script and misplaced images, made it a tedious half an hour for me I'm afraid.

John S

 

[thinkbrown]

What an awful video !
The obvious AI 'voice-over' from a poorly written script and misplaced images, made it a tedious half an hour for me I'm afraid.

John S

Yeah, I realized about 5 minutes in when some of it just didn't line up and the VO editing was super choppy.

 

[AERO]

I noticed these AI errors - damn annoying. Maybe..with luck it will destroy itself

 

[koraks]

What I find interesting about this thing is how apparently there's a large audience that prefers to absorb information through a sequential/synchronous medium like video. I've never understood this; why wouldn't someone prefer text (with optional illustrations)? It's much easier and more efficient to navigate, especially if it has an index. It's also something where AI really can help, by combining and summarizing content and indexing it.

I did not watch the video and I'd be buggered to spend half an hour doing so. A written history of Ilford with similar detail level would be only a few pages of text and would take approx. 10 minutes to work through.

 

[Don_ih]

I did not watch the video and I'd be buggered to spend half an hour doing so.

If you scroll through the video, you'll see the first few minutes look pretty good. The photos are in quicker succession and their placement makes sense. Then it transitions to a steady slow stream of creeping zoomed photos (not quite the Ken Burns effect) and the photos make less sense. It's almost like a trap - looks good at the start, turns into mind-numbing crap.

 

[thinkbrown]

What I find interesting about this thing is how apparently there's a large audience that prefers to absorb information through a sequential/synchronous medium like video. I've never understood this; why wouldn't someone prefer text (with optional illustrations)?

For me it's frequently the ability to multitask. I can listen to something in podcast or video form while I'm doing other things. It's rather hard to read text while loading the dishwasher

 

[oneeyedpainter]

What I find interesting about this thing is how apparently there's a large audience that prefers to absorb information through a sequential/synchronous medium like video.

The much more worrysome aspect of this matter is that the amount of information contained in YT videos is normally close to zero. I have learned this the hard way while getting back to film. The overwhelming majority of material you find on the topic is superficial at best, and always monetised (read: you get three minutes of ads for 9 minutes of video).

I still have many classical books on B/W film technique and chemistry, which are more meaningful and more informative than most of the videos out there.

Knowledge and learning require enough time, attention, and dedication. It is telling that these three elements are often absent when we watch a video...

OneEyedPainter

 

[thinkbrown]

The much more worrysome aspect of this matter is that the amount of information contained in YT videos is normally close to zero.

I think that's selling the platform and a lot of the folks on it short. There's such an enormous quantity of good resources and folks that have spent a lot of effort putting them together.

Couple examples that have been super useful to me are folks like Gregory Davis who's channel is called "the naked photographer". He's made and published curves and comparisons of virtually every b&w film currently available on the market: https://youtube.com/@TheNakedPhotographer

Another is Alex of "shaka1277" who has done a ton of educational material, including parsing out and explaining a ton of common chemistry SDS for folks that are new to things: https://youtube.com/@Shaka1277

 

[oneeyedpainter]

I think that's selling the platform and a lot of the folks on it short. There's such an enormous quantity of good resources and folks that have spent a lot of effort putting them together.

Couple examples that have been super useful to me are folks like Gregory Davis who's channel is called "the naked photographer". He's made and published curves and comparisons of virtually every b&w film currently available on the market: https://youtube.com/@TheNakedPhotographer

Another is Alex of "shaka1277" who has done a ton of educational material, including parsing out and explaining a ton of common chemistry SDS for folks that are new to things: https://youtube.com/@Shaka1277

Sorry, I did not mean to offend anyone, especially the few serious YT producers still around. When I said that the amount of information in YT videos is "normally close to zero", I really meant it, though. There are exceptions, and excellent ones, but they are few and very far apart.

The reality is that out of 100 videos on any kind of photography-related search I do on YT today, 95 contain no useful or deep information at all. It's just chit-chatting for 8 minutes and a half, plus 3 minutes of ads. I might be unlucky or possibly unable to use YT these days. Indeed, I have been using it since its inception, more than two decades ago, and I can say it was a very different platform back then. But 95 out of 100 is indeed an overwhelming majority in my book, with all the due respect to all the people who produce quality content for YT. The sheer number makes irrelevance the norm. The quality stuff is very hard to find, because the norm is that of publishing videos for the sake of it, with lots of chit-chatting and no content.

I also like watching the chit-chatting from time to time, but I do not classify it as informational or instructive.

OneEyedPainter

 

[Alan Townsend]

I thought this video was pretty good, and enjoyed watching the whole thing, even though obvious AI influence and errors were present. Seemed close to the Ilford version of photo history. One point, where they mention phenidone is so much better than metol, made me laugh. Metol is a much higher quality developer, phenidone had been expensive, but I believe it was Ilford that brought the cost down drastically through technology as they pushed it's use. Phenidone is a less expensive developer, and that's why they used it in England and I believe Europe in general while in the US metol under guise of Kodak continued to dominate.

 

[koraks]

It's rather hard to read text while loading the dishwasher

I can sort of see the multitasking argument, if not for the fact that this is video, not just audio. Then again, I imagine the video is pretty much filler in this case anyway, going by what @Don_ih points out.
Even so, for me, personally, it just doesn't work that way.
When I drive, I focus on traffic and/or take the time to reflect. I find it valuable. I do have music in the background, but would not want to listen to a podcast. I've no need to increase the information overload. It doesn't make me any happier. Many people are stressed out and the constant information overload we're exposed to, is a major factor in this I'm quite sure. Again, it's personally, but I'd rather not go look for it actively. My wife does listen to podcasts all the time, but for me...nope. Not in the least the AI-generated podcasts that seem to be catching on nowadays. Weird!
As to the concrete example of the dishwasher - loading it for us is a matter of putting in the stuff whenever it's been used, so it's not really a 'block activity' for me. My wife does do this after dinner and she does do the podcast thing as indicated. Unloading the dishwasher is something I do while cooking. Cooking is a multitasking thing for me anyway; there's always several things going on at the same time and they need to mesh together perfectly. I have literally zero time to stop & think about anything else.

I guess I just don't work that way. Mind you, I can understand the podcast thing. But the youtube stuff - that I don't get. It's really like sitting, doing nothing and being dragged through the story at someone else's pace. If that would have been a well thought out, functional pace (as in, say, a good movie) - okay, that's something else. But voluntarily sitting out the droning of someone (or even something) else who/which more often than not is not particularly qualified to produce a well-paced, genuinely instructive & functional video...I'd rather pass. This is also in acknowledgement to what @oneeyedpainter says above about information content! That leaves loads of videos that I do find useful, e.g. in how they effectively use video to demonstrate a skill or a process, etc. Those can be great, for sure.

It's all very personal, as said. I also never warmed up to audio books.

 

[Ian Grant]

I thought this video was pretty good, and enjoyed watching the whole thing, even though obvious AI influence and errors were present. Seemed close to the Ilford version of photo history. One point, where they mention phenidone is so much better than metol, made me laugh. Metol is a much higher quality developer, phenidone had been expensive, but I believe it was Ilford that brought the cost down drastically through technology as they pushed it's use. Phenidone is a less expensive developer, and that's why they used it in England and I believe Europe in general while in the US metol under guise of Kodak continued to dominate.

This isn't really the right thread to discuss the merits of Phenidone (or derivatives) compared to Metol. However, there are two huge benefits, first Phenidone's tolerance to very much higher levels of Bromide build up in replenished developers, this greatly increases capacity. And second you can compound reasonably high liquid concentrate PQ developers, MQ developers are always sold in powder form, or at one time two part solutions,

Kodak switched to Dimezone for all its liquid developers. For the same reason as Ilford they stopped using Metol in all their photofinishing developers, many years ago, around the early 1960s.

Ian

 

[Prest_400]

What I find interesting about this thing is how apparently there's a large audience that prefers to absorb information through a sequential/synchronous medium like video. I've never understood this; why wouldn't someone prefer text (with optional illustrations)? It's much easier and more efficient to navigate, especially if it has an index. It's also something where AI really can help, by combining and summarizing content and indexing it.

I did not watch the video and I'd be buggered to spend half an hour doing so. A written history of Ilford with similar detail level would be only a few pages of text and would take approx. 10 minutes to work through.

I know there was some strong opinions about YT creators in another thread, and contributions.
A few years ago I was puzzled how come the newer folks in film photography seemed to rely a lot in You tube. Of course there are good and bad visual queues with video, but sometimes the influencer side was mostly (and still is?) some guy rambling for 20+ minutes and taking some neighborhood minimalistic shots. For a while around 2023-24 I got into watching it more regularly, but have since dropped it.

Enshittification, oh the old times where a review was just some random bloke that quickly shows a camera, recorded in a webcam and as a bonus they had a blog or also membership here!

Sorry, I did not mean to offend anyone, especially the few serious YT producers still around. When I said that the amount of information in YT videos is "normally close to zero", I really meant it, though. There are exceptions, and excellent ones, but they are few and very far apart.

I'm with Koraks in that I am neither a podcast type listener of a person. At most, I had been watching/listening some story/tale channels during winter and I have a podcast that I only listen while flying around.

As of Ilford https://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/Ilford/Chronology - Intro.html is still the ultimate guide! And now got to appreciate its old website nature. I think as well, that, despite being quite young I still learned through reading resources and old forums.

 

[koraks]

As of Ilford https://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/Ilford/Chronology - Intro.html is still the ultimate guide!

Exactly!
The other day I found myself curious about Gevacolor after having watched l'Albero degli Zoccoli (which turned out to be the last feature ever photographed on Gevacolor). the PhotoMemorabilia website turned out to be the only comprehensive overview of Gevacolor (although it didn't mention cine applications) - and was a pleasure to digest. As is always the case with content on that website.

 

[abruzzi]

Google have gone out of their way to make sure I don't use Youtube by putting up a warning that I need to log in. Initially the message said to protect my privacy, which is kind of 2+2=5, now the error is more generic, but I still get the error on about 80% of videos. I only try to get through the Youtube wall when wanting to hear sound demos on musical gear, which text isn't very good for.

 

[runswithsizzers]

What I find interesting about this thing is how apparently there's a large audience that prefers to absorb information through a sequential/synchronous medium like video. I've never understood this; why wouldn't someone prefer text (with optional illustrations)? It's much easier and more efficient to navigate,

I totally agree!! A friend of mine keeps sending me links to YouTube videos on various subjects, and I cannot tolerate them. Many don't even begin to introduce the topic until well after one or two minutes. And the last few videos he recommended were obviouly AI created -- which might be OK for pure entertainment, but not to be trusted as a source of information.

When I read, I can quickly skim over the boring parts and slow down to absorb the good parts. If a sentence is not clear, I can read it a second time without having to try to rewind a video. And I love being able to select a word or phrase with my mouse which makes it easy look up a definition or do an online search without having to type anything or spell an unfamiliar word.

I will make an exception for certain kinds of how-to videos where seeing a process done is more efficient than reading instructions, but otherwise, for me, reading text is a more efficient and less annoying process.

I think the whole YouTube ecosystem/business model encourages the so-called content creators to have a schtick and be outrageous -- the Naked Photographer? seriously? (Yes, I have seen his content, and, after the stupid introduction, it is actually pretty good, but wouldn't it be even better if he would cut the silly "naked" schtick?)

I do not doubt that there is probably some good content on YouTube, but I am not going to waste my time trying to find it. And once found, for me, most of it is too irritating to watch.

One last consideration, if anyone wants to post a link to a YouTube video on this website or any other, I believe it would be a great courtesy to forum members to also provide a few sentences summarizing what the video is about. No way am I going to click on some random video without being provided any information about it beforehand.

 

[Alan Townsend]

This isn't really the right thread to discuss the merits of Phenidone (or derivatives) compared to Metol.

Since this Ilford propaganda was mentioned in this video, it does apply. Why are you discussing this topic if this isn't the right thread?

However, there are two huge benefits, first Phenidone's tolerance to very much higher levels of Bromide build up in replenished developers

This applies mostly to commercial labs.

" And second you can compound reasonably high liquid concentrate PQ developers, MQ developers are always sold in powder form, or at one time two part solutions,"

False. I recently developed the MC-glycerol liquid concentrate developer, similar to PC-glycol and it's derivatives. This could be sold to amateur photographers. Hydroquinone has been on the out list for decades and replaced by ascorbates. Many home brewers of developers on Photrio.

Kodak switched to Dimezone for all its liquid developers.

All? You mean tmax and hc110. Likely in xtol as well. For some time, it's been cheaper. Kodak hasn't been developing anything for quite a while.

For the same reason as Ilford they stopped using Metol in all their photofinishing developers, many years ago, around the early 1960s.

This forum is not specifically for photofinishers. Many here are home brewers of developers rather than commercial customers.

Ian

 

[Don_ih]

Seemed close to the Ilford version of photo history.

That would probably be where the AI gouged all the information from.

 

[Ian Grant]

Since this Ilford propaganda was mentioned in this video, it does apply. Why are you discussing this topic if this isn't the right thread?


This applies mostly to commercial labs.

" And second you can compound reasonably high liquid concentrate PQ developers, MQ developers are always sold in powder form, or at one time two part solutions,"

False. I recently developed the MC-glycerol liquid concentrate developer, similar to PC-glycol and it's derivatives. This could be sold to amateur photographers. Hydroquinone has been on the out list for decades and replaced by ascorbates. Many home brewers of developers on Photrio.

All? You mean tmax and hc110. Likely in xtol as well. For some time, it's been cheaper. Kodak hasn't been developing anything for quite a while.

This forum is not specifically for photofinishers. Many here are home brewers of developers rather than commercial customers.

Ian

 

[Ian Grant]

That would probably be where the AI gouged all the information from.

Well it was not Ilford's full version of history.

Someone sourced the visual materials then used AI to compile the audio, it's not far off correct. However there's missing elements. Ciba had bought the Swiss photo company Tellko. who had invented the dye bleach process that became Cibachrome. But they lacked certain technologies.

Ilford had Patented coating their heads, which both Kodak & Fuji used under licence, and probably other companies as well. So Ciba bought Ilfor. Then Ilford expanded research for improvements to Cibachrome, the last discussion I had with Steven Brierley, was a passing comment about his colour Patents, he was amazed I knew about them.

I'd need to spend time checking, but I think Ciba/Tellko bought Lumiere, first. I worked with a consultant, who's French mother was a Lumiere. Lumiere became part of Ilford, its French factory, later closing, but the company is still the Ilford distributor in France.

The video mentions Ilford#sonership by International Papers. My father was the MD (CEO) of a large carpet factory, employing about 4.500 people until he retired around 1976, it was part of a large UK based International group. It (as a Group) was bought by International Papers, well they had no idea how the Industry worked, didn't invest, they did exactly the same with Ilford.

Ian