Interview with Dave Bias of Film Ferrania (pdexposures Podcast)

[AgX]

This discussion wouldn't be complete without someone saying it, so I will.

Maybe they could talk to Kodak and get the formula for Kodachrome!

Many manufacturers made films of the Kodachrome principle.
Ferrania were amongst them who did not, but sticked to more modern films. Most probably they knew why...

 

[ME Super]

PE has said that if you can get the color couplers and proper filters, you can process Kodachrome in E6 chemistry with the color couplers added to the color developer. It makes sense to me that you could make a modern Kodachrome with better light fading characteristics by making it with E6 emulsions where the color couplers have been left out. I don't think making the Kodachrome type emulsions is the problem, the problem is the complexity of the processing. E6 film can be processed at home by anyone with a changing bag, a tank and reel, a water bath, a timer or stopwatch, and the proper chemistry. Kodachrome style processing is not so easy to do.

 

[Xmas]

PE has said that if you can get the color couplers and proper filters, you can process Kodachrome in E6 chemistry with the color couplers added to the color developer. It makes sense to me that you could make a modern Kodachrome with better light fading characteristics by making it with E6 emulsions where the color couplers have been left out. I don't think making the Kodachrome type emulsions is the problem, the problem is the complexity of the processing. E6 film can be processed at home by anyone with a changing bag, a tank and reel, a water bath, a timer or stopwatch, and the proper chemistry. Kodachrome style processing is not so easy to do.

And a thermometer too.
But the colour developer is difficult to get.
The E6 labs were difficult in '07 when I switched to c41, I can still do drop offs and pick ups but inconvenient.
There are more C41 labs (even if the colour developer is similarly difficult for home processing) they are still convient to drop off and pick up.
The labs are critical for noobs who lack confidence.
Cibachrome is history sadly.
If I wanted colour prints id need to use C41 and ...
One hopes that Ferranni can survive on cine initially, cause there will be lots of people (here) who have hoarded yellow and green boxes.
As well as the Agfa Vista dumped at manufacturing Yen
I still have a modern projector with short lens somewhere hidden.

 

[ME Super]

Around here you can still use drop-off at the local Wal-Mart. In the midwest, Fuji sends to Dwayne's, which has good processing. Apparently the only way you don't get negatives back from Wal-Mart is if you're shooting 35mm C-41 (which I hardly ever shoot any of). It takes a long time to get it back though (2 weeks 2 days).

I use a local camera store's send-out service. They send to their lab in St. Louis, and turn-around for E-6 is 3-4 days (add 2 days for push processing since they only pick up three times/week instead of Monday-Friday). Processing costs more than Wal-Mart but I can get decent scans through them, which I can't get through Wal-Mart/Fuji's send-out.

I have a harder time buying the film locally than I do getting the processing. No Velvia, no Wittner Chrome 200D locally. I can get Provia and Precisa at the camera store, other than that no local E-6 film is available. It all ends up being mail order.

I shoot primarily for projection, scans are good for sharing on the web. Prints are a hybrid process, light jet where possible. Not a fan of inkjet/giclee prints. Light jet RA-4 is good enough for me for prints from slides.

 

[Roger Cole]

PE has said that if you can get the color couplers and proper filters, you can process Kodachrome in E6 chemistry with the color couplers added to the color developer. It makes sense to me that you could make a modern Kodachrome with better light fading characteristics by making it with E6 emulsions where the color couplers have been left out. I don't think making the Kodachrome type emulsions is the problem, the problem is the complexity of the processing. E6 film can be processed at home by anyone with a changing bag, a tank and reel, a water bath, a timer or stopwatch, and the proper chemistry. Kodachrome style processing is not so easy to do.

Dingdingding - we have a winner. The real problem with bringing back a Kodachrome like film, aside from demand and how damned good modern E6 films are...er, were, is the processing. You'd need a whole infrastructure of support and we're losing a lot of that for E6 already never mind a new process.

And I don't understand the aversion to mailing it off (i.e. "the post" for those across the pond) considering, nine times out of ten, that's exactly what the department store or drugstore is going to do anyway. Either they send it or you do, either way it's subject to the quality, good or bad, of your local postal service. There are of course still some pro shops and such, but far fewer these days.

 

[Roger Cole]

And a thermometer too.
But the colour developer is difficult to get.
The E6 labs were difficult in '07 when I switched to c41, I can still do drop offs and pick ups but inconvenient.
There are more C41 labs (even if the colour developer is similarly difficult for home processing) they are still convient to drop off and pick up.
The labs are critical for noobs who lack confidence.
Cibachrome is history sadly.
If I wanted colour prints id need to use C41 and ...
One hopes that Ferranni can survive on cine initially, cause there will be lots of people (here) who have hoarded yellow and green boxes.
As well as the Agfa Vista dumped at manufacturing Yen
I still have a modern projector with short lens somewhere hidden.

Or you'd need to do things not mentionable here, which many many people do for prints from transparencies.

I haven't dropped a roll of color film off and picked it up in decades. I mail it out, and it gets dropped off at my door. With a darkroom and Jobo I could do it myself but it's worth it to me for now not to bother.

 

[Truzi]

And I don't understand the aversion to mailing it off (i.e. "the post" for those across the pond) considering, nine times out of ten, that's exactly what the department store or drugstore is going to do anyway. Either they send it or you do, either way it's subject to the quality, good or bad, of your local postal service. There are of course still some pro shops and such, but far fewer these days.

For me it's trusting something doesn't get lost in the mail. Also, perhaps I'm lucky, because where I live, I've not had to use a place that sends it's film out I was a child. (Well, I did use one place that hand-delivered it two cities away.)

 

[ME Super]

That's pretty much what Creve Coeur Camera in Springfield does. They send it 3 times a week to their main store in Creve Coeur, MO (a suburb of St. Louis). It's back in 2-3 business days (4 business days for push/pull processing). This is for E6, B&W, and C41. I've not had anything get lost in the mail when I did mail order, but this particular camera store turns it around quicker than mail order, and it's about the same price by the time you figure in shipping it both ways.

 

[MattKing]

My father managed the customer service department of a Kodak Processing laboratory for 20+ years.

Each year they would receive thousands and thousands of rolls of Kodachrome and Ektachrome still and movie film in the mail. And they would return those processed films to the customers using the mail.

Provided people actually put there names and return addresses on the mailing labels, they had very, very few problems re-uniting people with their film.

 

[AgX]

Kodak "lost" all my many Kodachrome films of my only trip to the USA, after they wanted me to charge twice for processing.

 

[Xmas]

I've never lost a kodachrome film hundreds of yellow envelopes...

But two out of forty to UK FUJI Lab, the lab had the serial numbers of all they received from me they were missing two! They said it was normal... so stopped.

Our postal service is horrible nowdays.

I had been hand delivering to box 14 Hemel hempstead... to reduce risk until they moved processing plants.

 

[madgardener]

Ok, for the record, what I said about Kodachrome was tongue in cheek, in other words a joke, because in past discussions about E-6, someone inevitably said something about bringing back Kodachrome. I do not expect Kodachrome to be manufactured, it was a good film but the proprietary process is basically what killed it off, and Kodak did not want to spend the R&D funds to bring it to E-6 style processing.

 

[ME Super]

I know you were joking about the Kodachrome coming back. I was just pointing out that it can be processed in E6 chemistry if the process is modified to a more Kodachrome-like process. Heck, you could probably do it in E6 first developer, and use C41 chemistry for the color developer steps if you added the C41 color couplers to the color developer. IIRC, one of the CD steps in K14 used CD4, same as is used for C41. The whole issue with Kodachrome is the processing complexity, otherwise it's a multilayered B&W film with a yellow filter layer under the blue layers.

 

[madgardener]

I 'm glad that some understood that. Some people though have PM'd me with some very nasty comments and I simply wanted to state it was a joke.

 

[cmacd123]

And I don't understand the aversion to mailing it off (i.e. "the post" for those across the pond) considering, nine times out of ten, that's exactly what the department store or drugstore is going to do anyway. .

for one thing Canada post considers any package more than 15mm thick a "Parcel" so to send a package with a roll of film (say 100gram, 8.00 in. X 5.00 in. X 1.50 in. in the same town costs $10.98 each way for three day service. (and yes since it is the same town they can deliver it the next day, THEY DON'T)

Interestling that I can send the same package to Kansas (home of a famous Mail order processing lab) as "Small packet USA Air" for only $8.03. (mostly because it does not then incur our HST, simalar to a VAT. that takes two weeks with no tracking. If I want it there in 30-4 days, it becomes "Exprespost USA "at 32 dollars and change.

needless to say their are few mail order labs left in Canada.

 

[MattKing]

for one thing Canada post considers any package more than 15mm thick a "Parcel" so to send a package with a roll of film (say 100gram, 8.00 in. X 5.00 in. X 1.50 in. in the same town costs $10.98 each way for three day service. (and yes since it is the same town they can deliver it the next day, THEY DON'T)

Interestling that I can send the same package to Kansas (home of a famous Mail order processing lab) as "Small packet USA Air" for only $8.03. (mostly because it does not then incur our HST, simalar to a VAT. that takes two weeks with no tracking. If I want it there in 30-4 days, it becomes "Exprespost USA "at 32 dollars and change.

needless to say their are few mail order labs left in Canada.

Charles:

This is probably one of the consequences of the disappearance of Kodak (and other high volume) processing.

When Kodak volumes were high, there were postal rates in place that made it economic to send film through the mail. There may have even been special rates for films (I don't know).

Two anecdotes about the high volumes going into and out of the North Vancouver processing lab:

1) every once in a while some brilliant individual would get the idea to send illicit drugs through the mail by putting those drugs into a 35mm cannister in the envelope that Kodak provided for slide film (not a mailer per se, because Kodachrome was sold as "processing paid" in Canada). They would then write the intended address on the envelope, rather than the address of the Kodak lab. Unfortunately, Canada Post processed such high volumes that they didn't even look at the address - they just put it in with all the rest of the film going to the Kodak lab; and
2) Kodak was mailing so many rolls back to their customers, that Canada Post agreed to the postage amounts being calculated by way of mailing the shipments in bulk, rather than counting each shipment.

And the biggest source of problems with re-uniting people with their films? Stick on mailing labels that didn't stick on.

 

[trythis]

So how about that interview?

 

[Roger Cole]

for one thing Canada post considers any package more than 15mm thick a "Parcel" so to send a package with a roll of film (say 100gram, 8.00 in. X 5.00 in. X 1.50 in. in the same town costs $10.98 each way for three day service. (and yes since it is the same town they can deliver it the next day, THEY DON'T)

Interestling that I can send the same package to Kansas (home of a famous Mail order processing lab) as "Small packet USA Air" for only $8.03. (mostly because it does not then incur our HST, simalar to a VAT. that takes two weeks with no tracking. If I want it there in 30-4 days, it becomes "Exprespost USA "at 32 dollars and change.

needless to say their are few mail order labs left in Canada.

Wow, that's rediculous! Can you send it UPS or FedEx or something cheaper?

I can send a padded envelope of rolls to Dwayne's first class (but no tracking etc.) for a few dollars. I think four rolls cost me about tree bucks or a bit less.

 

[cmacd123]

When Kodak volumes were high, there were postal rates in place that made it economic to send film through the mail. There may have even been special rates for films (I don't know).

I do recall for about a year after they started doing this, (it must have started 20 years ago or more) there was a "special Photographic rate" for up to two rolls of film for about 3 dollars within Canada. But I think the photo-finishers had to follow the (discounted) parcel rules. this was about the time that good minilabs were everywhere, and Kodak was running a very effective drop-off service for Kodachrome so you could drop off your slides/movies and get them back free in a few days. (Kodachrome was always sold Processing paid everywhere but the USA)