Kodak Brownie no2 what am I doing wrong ?

[Sirius Glass]

I had a MF folder that used 120 film. I had no problem with the numbers when I used it for 6x6. Both Kodak and Ilford worked. However when I wanted to use 645 I found no one provided the numbers in the location that I needed.

 

[BADGER.BRAD]

I have to think is my photography economical (which is why I use digital a lot) I went out today and shot 160+ photos at a 40's Weekend and at the local airport which would have cost me over £100 the Digi bridge camera I have just brought only cost £100 ironically a Kodak ,O.k if using film I would most likely have shot less but it's still a lot of cash. Like everything in life it's all about the money. I love using the film cameras there seems to be something that beats digital in the use of them.

 

[BADGER.BRAD]

As a point of interest what is so special about the film backing and what is it made of ?

 

[MattKing]

As a point of interest what is so special about the film backing and what is it made of ?

It has to be able to totally block light
It is tapered - thicker in the middle and thinner towards the edges. And that thickness needs to stay consistent as temperatures and humidity change, because that shape is what stops light from getting into the film from near the ends of the spool.
The paper's dimensions - width and length - need be very stable and consistent as temperatures and humidity change.
And where the recent problems arise - it needs to be able to accept inks for the numbers that will not migrate, and will not react chemically with the complex film emulsions that are pressed against it (from the next layer of film) for as long as the film and backing paper are wound on the spool. That may be for years, and includes both unexposed and exposed film. The same film that is designed to be as sensitive as possible to the light that we use to photograph.
The problem isn't specifically with the paper, but rather with the combination of paper, inks, methods of applying the inks and the film emulsions themselves. All of which change from time to time, and which are manufactured or supplied by more than one source.
Kodak used to control everything in their process. Now they have to outsource everything but the film.

 

[Photo Engineer]

As a point of interest what is so special about the film backing and what is it made of ?

OMG, there are a few threads here on that. You might try looking them up, but Matt has summarized it well. Kodak is presently having a problem with some films and paper combinations and are working to solve the problem.

PE

 

[MattKing]

Oh, and by the way, in amongst those earlier referred to posts from Simon Galley (formerly a director of Harman, the manufacturers of Ilford) he confirmed that it cost more for Harman to buy the backing paper for each film than it cost them to make the film itself.

 

[BADGER.BRAD]

Thanks for the info Matt very much appreciated and very interesting now I understand why it is so important.

 

[pentaxuser]

OMG, there are a few threads here on that. You might try looking them up, but Matt has summarized it well. Kodak is presently having a problem with some films and paper combinations and are working to solve the problem.

PE

I wonder, can we take it, that amongst the problems, Kodak is working on the problem that BADGERBRAD is experiencing?

Some seem to believe that Ilford 120 films will exhibit the same issue. Be sure to let us know,BADGERBRAD, what Ilford's response is. As I said in another thread and in response to MattKing's explanation of why the Kodak Behemoth was just too big to have the flexibility to be able to manoeuvre as the likes of Ilford can and thus it isn't /wasn't Kodak's fault so it isn't to blame, then unless it can work out how to respond to the new, reduced marketplace the end will be the same. Nobody may want Kodak to go under but short of consumers being prepared to cut it a lot of slack by forgiving its faults and paying a lot more for its analogue products then it seems we the consumers and Kodak the manufacturer are both powerless to do anything to change what appears to be the inevitable end.

pentaxuser

 

[MattKing]

in response to MattKing's explanation of why the Kodak Behemoth was just too big to have the flexibility to be able to manoeuvre as the likes of Ilford can and thus it isn't /wasn't Kodak's fault so it isn't to blame,

I think you misunderstand what I am responding to and saying.
I don't disagree that the two Kodaks are the ones who are responsible for solving the current wrapper offset problem.
What irritates me is the impression I get from so many people posting on this issue that seem to believe that the problem should have easily been predicted and easily prevented by the Kodaks, and that they would have solved it easily if they weren't:
1) stupid;
2) lazy;
3) cheap; or
4) secretly trying to get out of the film business (or at least the 120 film business).
Eastman Kodak has a really big machine, operated and supported by a relatively tiny group of people.
Harman Imaging has a much smaller machine, operated and supported by an even tinier group of people.
Neither are well positioned to deal with a problem like the current wrapper offset problem with Kodak's 120 film.

 

[Jim Jones]

Matt, even a one-man operation should recognize such a problem. Failure to do so is often a bigger problem than correcting the original difficulty. Kodak, like Polaroid and too many other companies, got so big that they either didn't have or totally ignored the one person who was more interested in products than profits.

 

[pentaxuser]

No Matt, I understand what you are saying and had thought that I had made it clear in my post that it has nothing to do with Kodak being stupid, lazy or cheap but I stand by my prediction that there is a sad end point for Kodak unless it does something. In my opinion it has to compete against other film manufacturers to survive.

pentaxuser

 

[removed account4]

hi matt

i have never thought kodak was trying to hari kari
or they were lazy or stupid ... i hadn't heard anyone else who used
box cameras and other manufacturers' film complaining the numbers vanished..
faint yes, bleed through yes, #'s gone, naaah? the internet is big, people post all sorts of
links, on this website ( and others ) to help people solve camera problems. maybe i am thinking wrongly
that if the problem existed before and with fuji or forte or foma or lucky or shanghai or adox or ilford or slavic or?
people would have been lamenting about the problem someplace
and even in this thread we would have seen a link to this problem somewhere.
when the bleed-out happened maybe the 2nd or 3rd post was a link to others with the same or similar problem.
un/fortunately we are living in a time period where people from 2017 are grooving on cameras made in the 20s and 30s and before and after that
and until recently some of these cameras were able to use pretty much any roll of 120 film that the user could find ..
and now it isn't as easy. its like using 620 or 122 roll film or 2x3 or 7x11 sheet film, it seems that now
using certain cameras that can be found for a dime will take a little more work to use. i am sure that for some
people this is a real drag, time is money, or they would rather do something else, and they will find an easy slow moving target to blame
( like kodak, or fuji or forte or foma or lucky or shanghai or adox or ilford or slavic ) and their
cameras will become a "shelf queens" while others will take this obstacle in stride ..
realize it is 2017 and pretty much no one uses these cameras anymore, pretty much no one knows you can even
buy film anymore &c ...
re-rolling fim, slitting film down to minox / submini, cutting bigger sheets down to unserviced formats or rolling
spools of paper on 4" film rolls is just a fact of life ... its just one of those things, and kodak ATM is a slow moving target ..
what was disappointing about kodak ( for me at least ) is that they took too long to do anything about their russian constructavist film,
( big company? film division istn't at the top of the list ? took too long to figure out what was going on ? the 1 person who cared was told to get coffee every time the subject came up ? )
me, personally? i wake up every day happy because if i want to shoot film, i can, and if i can't shoot film, i can shoot paper, and if i can't
shoot paper i can make my own and if i can't do that ... i can buy classic cyanotype chemistry from art craft ( or premade paper from sun prints.org )
and turn anything i want into a paper negative via xerox machine and print that or just make photograms ...
there really isn't much to complain about.

 

[BrianShaw]

I believe that you will find that the ANSI standard for numbering paper backing for film changed not long ago. Perhaps this change is part of the culprit.

PE

http://standards.globalspec.com/std/1712772/ansi-ph1-21

https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/fr/#iso:std:iso:732:ed-4:v1:en

"Not long ago" was 1991 or 2000. Are you sure that the standard really changed? That was a routine 5-year review of the standard. My recollection is that it was reaffirmed with no changes. But I don't have a copy to verify...

 

[Photo Engineer]

Brian, note in the latter reference that the numbering for older style cameras and test conditions are both specified. Therefore, Kodak orders according to this standard and tests the same way as specified. There is something outside of both of these that is affecting the results we are seeing in 120 backing paper. Kodak is working on the problem of keeping from what I hear, and their tests (meeting the ISO standard) seem to work, so something else is going on here it seems. As for the numbering, that is new.

PE

 

[Sirius Glass]

Kodak is not stupid. No one can possibly figure out which 120 film formats and frame number locations are still active. Some of the complainers really need to get over themselves and stop posting conspiracy theories.

 

[Bud Hamblen]

I have some newish (film would have expired in 2018 if I remember rightly) Ilford 120 backing paper that has three numbers in a row spaced at 9cm. It looks like paper with only two numbers at that spacing won't work on a No. 2 Brownie.

 

[Nodda Duma]

I seem to recall a very recent thread (within the past few months) about Kodak eliminating some of the numbers on the 120 paper backing which aligned with the windows on the original Brownies.

I believe someone had contacted Kodak Alaris, and the response (working off memory here) was something along the lines of "we didn't realize people were still using those cameras, and will look into adding those number positions back on."

Here is the thread:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)