major Film makers fuji, kodak, Ilford...how many rolls are they making a year?

What a mess!

There is one company not mentioned: Filmotec in Germany, better known for it's old brand name ORWO. These guys produce b/w motion picture films like the ORWO UN 54, a viable 100 ASA film in fact, without rem-jet and at least as good as Kodak's b/w motion picture films. Some people buy big rolls from dealers like Wephota or Wittner Kinotechnik and roll their own 135/36, probably one of the cheapest ways to feed a rangefinder or SLR.

http://www.filmotec.com/English_Site/Products/products.html

For the motion picture knowledgeable: why doesn't black and white neg stock (double-x, plus-x) have the rem-jet backing?

erikg said:

For the motion picture knowledgeable: why doesn't black and white neg stock (double-x, plus-x) have the rem-jet backing?

Click to expand...

Probably because the process for B&W is as old as the hills, when the ECN process came out it was brand new and they could add what is a potentially tricky step. ECN2 followed along.

Part of this is due to the antistatic properties of rem-jet. At high speeds during printing or filming, static electricity can discharge and fog film. Rem-jet is conductive and dissipates any charge. B&W films are now coated on a conductive stock that contains a small amount of conductive material.

In addition, rem-jet is very neutral, a must for color film.

Those are my takes on this.

PE

The electrostatic "load" should be the same for colour and b&w films.
And when REM-Jet was introduced there was no other good antistatic agent to be employed, to my knowledge.

So this whole REM-Jet thing is still enigmatic to me. (Remember some time ago there was a thread discussing the origin of that name? We could only guess then.)

In the early days of coating, B&W film made one pass through the coating machine, but color films made up to 7 passes. The statistical chance of increasing the static discharge problems was probably large. IDK. Color was also coated at higher speed due to the number of passes. And, as I said, rem-jet is very neutral in color, thus being ideal for color.

It may be that some early B&W films had a rem-jet back. Again IDK. I have no idea of the history of this backing. I would have to talk to a process historian at GEH.

PE