Is Lomography Potsdam UN54?

foc · Mar 24, 2021

My understanding of "film noir" is that classic cinema look of films like Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon like this.

Film noir is really about the lighting and not the film used. The lighting ratio was usually 16:1 or 8:1 which gives stark, bright highlights and lots of shadows.

I presume when someone talks about a noir look to a film, they mean it has high contrast.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Mar 25, 2021

relistan said:
UN54 and UN54+ have quite nice tonality in my experience.

UN54 is my favourite film for reversal processing. Does the new UN54+ also have "a very dark grey anti-halation layer" like N75?

relistan · Mar 25, 2021

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
UN54 is my favourite film for reversal processing. Does the new UN54+ also have "a very dark grey anti-halation layer" like N75?

Not the two rolls I shot. I don't know about the newest stock. I assume from what @Henning Serger said, that all the UN54+ stock is still from Harman, since they would have had to likely redo the emulsion to move it to InovisCoat.

Ernst-Jan · Mar 25, 2021

Henning Serger said:
Yes, of course. It was a typo by me.
Me culpa, sorry.
InovisCoat is now FilmoTec's partner for coating (at first it was Forte, after Forte's exit it was Harman technology).

Best regards,
Henning

I didn't knew that Harman is not doing it anymore. For how long is it being done now at Innoviscoat?

And as you said, they can't do any convectioning, who is doing this for Lomo? Do they have some own machinery for this? I never used their films but to me it looks different than Kodak/Fuji/Ilford/Foma. Other companies can't do 120 as far as I know.
Could Filmotec make 70mm motion picture film by the way?

AgX · Mar 25, 2021

As I stated yesterday Filmotec can slit, sign and perforate. Though they are limited for the latter two to 35mm.

Anyway, even if they had the respective means for camera and release films, so far 70mm movies were all in colour, thus I do not quite understand your question.

Ernst-Jan · Mar 25, 2021

AgX said:
As I stated yesterday Filmotec can slit, sign and perforate. Though they are limited for the latter two to 35mm.

Anyway, even if they had the respective means for camera and release films, so far 70mm movies were all in colour, thus I do not quite understand your question.

Well, yeah, slitting, signing and perforating is what I consider "making" the film in the case of Filmotec. If they could go bigger than 35mm with this steps was my question. I don't know what is not understandable about it, just a closed question that can be answered with yes and no

That there might no be a demand for it is another question. Actually I was surprised that there was a bussiness model for a company making only b/w motion picture, when I first heard of Filmotec

AgX · Mar 25, 2021

The same question marks could be made concerning the business model of IlfordPhoto and Adox serving a few amateur photographers.

Ernst-Jan · Mar 25, 2021

AgX said:
The same question marks could be made concerning the business model of IlfordPhoto and Adox serving a few amateur photographers.

True. I'm not into motion picture so I might be blind for how big the market is. Are there still a lot b/w productions being shot on film? I can't even think of a 'recent' b/w movie, other than Schindlers List (but I must say that I hardly watch movies)

TheGreatGasMaskMan · Mar 25, 2021

Ernst-Jan said:
True. I'm not into motion picture so I might be blind for how big the market is. Are there still a lot b/w productions being shot on film? I can't even think of a 'recent' b/w movie, other than Schindlers List (but I must say that I hardly watch movies)

"Lighthouse" and "Bait," (which was shot on a Bolex) to name a few

Besides, if Foma still makes standard 8, at least we know someone's shooting it.

markjwyatt · Mar 4, 2022

Henning Serger said:
Correct.
...
The change from FilmoTec N74+ to N75 was mainly due to the change from the Harman coating machine in Mobberley to the former Agfa coating machine in Monheim.
As I have often explained here, you cannot simply change the coating machine: An emulsion is always designed for one specific coating machine on which the film will be produced. For a change of the coating machine the emulsion must be modified and adopted to the new coating machine. That is in general not so easy, and sometimes even impossible.
And quite often it results in an end product with different characteristics. And that is the case here.

Best regards,
Henning

This could be due to the coating die manifold design ("coat-hangar"), which is usually designed using computational fluid dynamics incorporating shear and temperature dependent viscosity models (Carreau, Cross, etc.) to have the correct taper(s) and ball-mill pull-out(s) plus correct length(s) and height(s) of the gap(s) to result in a uniform film thickness over the entire coated width (starting from the rear of the die, usually with a single round pipe), as well accounting for non-uniform structural deformations due to internal pressure (usually using finite element modeling and coupled to the computational fluid dynamics)- not to mention thermal issues if the dies are heated. Even with "adjustable" dies, it is best to start with a manifold design optimized for the shear -rate dependent viscosity characteristics of the specific fluid(s) and expected feeds/speeds to be coated. Multi-layer coatings add additional complexities (related to layer incompatibilities, avoiding inversions, mixing/diffusion, etc.). I am presuming die coating of some form. If it is roll coating or something else than there are different considerations.

There can be other factors in the coating machines of course including the characteristics of the fluid delivery system(s), oven designs, etc.

markjwyatt · Mar 5, 2022

Here is an article that addresses some of the questions about Potsdam 100: http://www.alexluyckx.com/blog/index.php/2019/10/07/film-review-blog-no-49-lomography-potsdam-100/

AgX · Mar 5, 2022

markjwyatt said:
This could be due to the coating die manifold design ("coat-hangar"), which is usually designed using computational fluid dynamics incorporating shear and temperature dependent viscosity models (Carreau, Cross, etc.) to have the correct taper(s) and ball-mill pull-out(s) plus correct length(s) and height(s) of the gap(s) to result in a uniform film thickness over the entire coated width (starting from the rear of the die, usually with a single round pipe), as well accounting for non-uniform structural deformations due to internal pressure (usually using finite element modeling and coupled to the computational fluid dynamics)- not to mention thermal issues if the dies are heated. Even with "adjustable" dies, it is best to start with a manifold design optimized for the shear -rate dependent viscosity characteristics of the specific fluid(s) and expected feeds/speeds to be coated. Multi-layer coatings add additional complexities (related to layer incompatibilities, avoiding inversions, mixing/diffusion, etc.). I am presuming die coating of some form. If it is roll coating or something else than there are different considerations.

There can be other factors in the coating machines of course including the characteristics of the fluid delivery system(s), oven designs, etc.

What do you mean by "coat-hangar"? Maybe you mean "hanger", though this still does not make sense to me in this context.

markjwyatt · Mar 5, 2022

AgX said:
What do you mean by "coat-hangar"? Maybe you mean "hanger", though this still does not make sense to me in this context.

It is the shape of the manifold cut into a coating die:

AgX · Mar 5, 2022

Now I realize what you are referring to. Yes, basically an emulsion has to be apt for the coating method as such, the coating speed, the manifold design. However manifold design is still undergoing development. Interesting development for our emulsion issues too. Maybe something for off the thread.

markjwyatt · Mar 6, 2022

AgX said:
Now I realize what you are referring to. Yes, basically an emulsion has to be apt for the coating method as such, the coating speed, the manifold design. However manifold design is still undergoing development. Interesting development for our emulsion issues too. Maybe something for off the thread.

Basically, there are at least two common die "Styles". "Coat Hangar" (as shown- this is a continuous taper, many for emulsions, etc. are segmented linear) and "T" die ("infinite cavity"). The problem with "T" dies is they have very long residence times in the ends of the manifold, and this is not good.

Is Lomography Potsdam UN54?

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