Opinion? Agfa, Ferrania, Fuji, Kodak, Konica

[nworth]

Kodak, simply because I'm used to it. Being used to a set of products is actually pretty important in picture making. I've used a fair amount of Fuji film, and it is good material. But there are unpredictables, simply because I'm not used to it. I also used a fair amount of Agfa color negative sheet film several years ago. It worked well enough, but it was very different from Kodak - mostly softer.

 

[wogster]

True, but that can be said of any manufacturer. The Kodak film of today may or may not bear a resemblance to the film the company made in the 1960s, but that does not mean it's not Kodak film. I believe what the poster was trying to say is that AgfaPhoto is simply a licensed name, with really no ties or connection to the original company. However, Agfa-Gevaert is the original company and they still make film, even if it is sold under other brand names.

The real issue though, as we keep fooling around to keep old dead films and companies around, we are losing new films. As I said before, Agfa is dead, Ferrania is dead, Konica is dead, Kodachrome is dead. If you really want to use colour film, there are some nice modern films, that are current products of Kodak and Fuji, so use them, be happy using them, because if we don't we end up losing those too. So buy your film fresh, use it fresh, and be thankful you still can.

 

[AgX]

Well, I turn my head 180° and look ahead. There is the future. You are right. You are right in appealling to stop beating dead horses and buy films instead. The only problem is that Apug with its 60,000 members is too small to make a significant impact.

The main issue at the industry now is productivity.

 

[wogster]

Well, I turn my head 180° and look ahead. There is the future. You are right. You are right in appealling to stop beating dead horses and buy films instead. The only problem is that Apug with its 60,000 members is too small to make a significant impact.

The main issue at the industry now is productivity.

The problem with film, is that for about 50 years, they couldn't make it fast enough, so they developed larger and larger scale production facilities, when the market started to shrink, there was no way to shrink supply to meet the new levels of demand. For a while now, the only way to shrink supply has been to reduce the number of products and facilities. The largest user of film is still Hollywood, and print films are the ones most commonly used. This is changing though, and I would not be surprised to see at least one company close their coating facility in the next 3-4 years, if I were to guess, it will probably be the Kodak facility in Rochester. Because Ilford, A-G and Fuji will be enough to sustain the smaller market. Doesn't mean that Kodak will disappear, they would simply hire out film and paper coating to others. Ilford has already said they will coat for hire and they have the machinery in place to do colour emulsions at their UK facility. It would be simple, Ilford coats the masters and ships them to Rochester where they cut them into portions, and freeze them. As they need finished film they thaw a portion and finish it. When they thaw the last portion, they ring up Moberly and get another master roll shipped over.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Paul;

Film in master rolls is not frozen and does not keep forever! This just cannot be done. It is kept cold, for a limited time and then must be discarded.

PE

 

[railwayman3]

Doesn't mean that Kodak will disappear, they would simply hire out film and paper coating to others. Ilford has already said they will coat for hire and they have the machinery in place to do colour emulsions at their UK facility. It would be simple, Ilford coats the masters and ships them to Rochester where they cut them into portions, and freeze them. As they need finished film they thaw a portion and finish it. When they thaw the last portion, they ring up Moberly and get another master roll shipped over.

Apart from PE's comments that master rolls are not frozen, I believe that Simon Galley has said on here that Ilford/Harman were not interested in coating colour emulsions.....not sure if that was for profitability or technical reasons?

Perhaps they would be interested in coating, cutting and finishing B&W films to other specs (as they do with their Kentmere films). But PE has said that a film product coated in one plant cannot be instantly or simply duplicated in another coating facility...I think I can recall that he once mentioned such issues with the "same" Kodak film coated in different Kodak factories?

 

[AgX]

Master rolls are frozen in Europe, in exceptional cases.

 

[railwayman3]

Master rolls are frozen in Europe, in exceptional cases.

Presumably specialist films with reduced demands, or maybe infra-red type emulsions? And I believe the large stocks of master rolls made by the original Agfa company just before its closure were frozen and cut and packed much later?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Acually a freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw cycle hurts film more than it helps. However, AgX is correct. If you plan on using all of a roll at one time, you can freeze it for long term keeping and then use all of it in one cycle. So, I generalized, but special conditions always apply.

PE

 

[wogster]

Apart from PE's comments that master rolls are not frozen, I believe that Simon Galley has said on here that Ilford/Harman were not interested in coating colour emulsions.....not sure if that was for profitability or technical reasons?

Perhaps they would be interested in coating, cutting and finishing B&W films to other specs (as they do with their Kentmere films). But PE has said that a film product coated in one plant cannot be instantly or simply duplicated in another coating facility...I think I can recall that he once mentioned such issues with the "same" Kodak film coated in different Kodak factories?

Ilford may not be interested in coating colour at this point, whether that will always be the case or not, is debatable. There are at least 5 coating plants, currently operating, Kodak, Ilford, Agfa-Gaevert, Fuji and somewhere in China. The biggest produced runs are not still film, it's colour movie print film, used to convert MP negatives to positives for projection. Film Distributors are moving from analog to digital. That would mean at least one of those plants will become surplus. Kodak seems to be in the biggest financial mess, so that one is most likely to close.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Paul, even though analog MP is in a decline, the analog photo division at EK is not in a financial mess. In fact, they are still more or less, supporting the rest of EK for the time being. If they are spun off as a result of the bankruptcy then they would probably be on a par with Ilford or better.

As for Ilford coating color film or apper? They do not have the trained staff nor do they have any suitable equipment at their plant at this time (AFAIK). I do know that Simon Galley has been emphatic about the fact that Ilford will NOT do color.

PE

 

[wogster]

Paul, even though analog MP is in a decline, the analog photo division at EK is not in a financial mess. In fact, they are still more or less, supporting the rest of EK for the time being. If they are spun off as a result of the bankruptcy then they would probably be on a par with Ilford or better.

As for Ilford coating color film or apper? They do not have the trained staff nor do they have any suitable equipment at their plant at this time (AFAIK). I do know that Simon Galley has been emphatic about the fact that Ilford will NOT do color.

PE

I realise that analog is what is keeping Kodak afloat, much of what is keeping that afloat is the fact Hollywood has up until now, used most of the massive amounts of production capacity, to make analog prints. Many productions now are shot on film, scanned, a lot of the editing and special effects are added digitally, it's then printed onto negative film, processed and that is used to produce the prints. Film distributors spend a lot of money producing those prints and shipping them around. not only can they be fairly heavy, but they need secure shipping, which is also expensive. With digital, you can dump the entire feature onto a DVD size disc, drop it into a padded envelop pop that into a flat rate FedEx mailer, and ring up FedEx to pick it up and deliver it. Especially if it's in an encrypted format, with a key-ring type encryption, where you use one key to encrypt, another to decrypt.

I think Kodak should have gone down the same road Ilford did, concentrate on it's core business of analog photography. They got into consumer digital after other companies already owned the market, and like many other computer products, if your not the latest and greatest your dead meat. Kodak has or at least had enough smart people at the R&D level that they could have produced a lower volume film production process, especially after a decade of shrinking market.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Paul;

You have missed one tiny point.

All of these analog negatives are now being printed onto the new Kodak archival print film for storage, or they are being printed as separation B&W negatives or positives for storage. Hollywood is realizing that digital copies deteriorate much faster than analog originals and the duplication and storage costs of digital are almost 10X higher than for analog.

PE

 

[Ian Grant]

It's not so many years ago that Ilford were selling colour films in the UK, the films were made for them by Sakura/Konica, I have a roll of E6 Ilfochrome that never got processed.

They'd hoped to build up sales to a point where it was worth their while re-entering the market with their own films, there's a space on the Mobberley site that was earmarked for a possible colour coating facility.

Last time I was in Istanbul which was just under 3 years ago I saw Ilford colour films (C41) on the shelf of the Turkish Ilford importer/distributor, I should have bought a roll but was in a hurry and on my way to the nearby stockist of Ilford LF film (which was just out of date - but OK).

Ilford have some chemists with Colour experience, you only need to look at Patents held by directors, and despite the Swiss arm now being seperate there's still links at some levels. So while they might not want to make colour materials they have the capability.

Ian

 

[wogster]

Paul;

You have missed one tiny point.

All of these analog negatives are now being printed onto the new Kodak archival print film for storage, or they are being printed as separation B&W negatives or positives for storage. Hollywood is realizing that digital copies deteriorate much faster than analog originals and the duplication and storage costs of digital are almost 10X higher than for analog.

PE

But, even if your do print everything onto archival film, heck I would like to print MY digital images onto archival film for storage, that's one copy, versus the 300 copies needed for analog MP projection.

I wonder if a good business for Kodak, you burn a CD of digital images, ship it off to Kodak, they put them onto the archival print film, and send you back a set of slides. Even at $1 per image, it would be reasonable. Especially if you have images you don't want to lose. I think for still images, positives that are mounted are safest, in that a stack of images would not touch each other.

 

[Diapositivo]

The problem with film, is that for about 50 years, they couldn't make it fast enough, so they developed larger and larger scale production facilities, when the market started to shrink, there was no way to shrink supply to meet the new levels of demand. For a while now, the only way to shrink supply has been to reduce the number of products and facilities. The largest user of film is still Hollywood, and print films are the ones most commonly used. This is changing though, and I would not be surprised to see at least one company close their coating facility in the next 3-4 years, if I were to guess, it will probably be the Kodak facility in Rochester. Because Ilford, A-G and Fuji will be enough to sustain the smaller market.

In another thread the good news was pointed out that the possible end of motion picture film does not necessarily signify the probable end of still photography film, Kodak case aside.

The reason for this is that Fujifilm (maybe also Agfa-Gevaert and the Chinese, I don't know) use the same coating machine(s) to coat motion picture film, still photography film, paper and maybe other materials. The demise of motion picture film would not in itself make the rest of the production economically unviable.

The Kodak case is different. As explained by PE Kodak has its coating spread among several (two or three? I don't remember) coating facilities. One is devoted to paper (and is located in the UK going by memory), one to film. The coating facility in Rochester coats IIRC only MP film and photography film. For that coating facility the demise of MP film would pose, is my understanding, an industrial problem.

What is interesting to note is that for Fujifilm and possibly other producers production of slide film and negative film will be economically viable even in case of MP film not being produced any more because photographic paper and other products will go on being produced on the same facilities.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Slide film is very marginal right now, there being virtually no market at all. This point is missed by almost everyone.

Kodak once made (may still for all I know) the most archival DVD/CD ever made, but it sold poorly due to cost. Everyone things that the penny CDs and DVDs are ok, even Hollywood I guess. So, the market keeps moving in that direction.

IIRC, Kodak has a machine or two here in Rochester still in reserve that they could crank up to scale up or down in production, but for Ilford to move to color on an economical basis would require slide or curtain coating knowledge, it would need dryer capacity, it would need a line of dispersators, and it would need a lot of other ancillary equipment to move into modern color. There has to be a market to sustain the initial development costs and it just is not there. Go ahead and spin pipe dreams but you have to have a few million $$ to start up a color line.

PE

 

[ME Super]

Go ahead and spin pipe dreams but you have to have a few million $$ to start up a color line.

PE

Darn! I woulda had this if I'd won the Powerball Lottery LOL. Any investors wanna see if Simon would do this?

 

[StoneNYC]

Sorry, Paul, that is not correct. Agfa-Gevaert in Antwerp, Belgium, is the third biggest film manufacturer worldwide, only Kodak and Fujifilm are bigger.
And as a normal consumer / photographer you can buy fresh film manufactured by them without problems. Several different BW and color film types are offered by Maco/Rollei-Film, and one film is also offered by Adox (CMS 20 II = Agfa HDP microfilm).



Their last production runs were at the end of 2009 (at least one of their biggest long term customers told me that).

Best regards,
Henning

You're saying I can get Agfa APX film still??


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[StoneNYC]

Paul;

Film in master rolls is not frozen and does not keep forever! This just cannot be done. It is kept cold, for a limited time and then must be discarded.

PE

Except Techpan...


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[StoneNYC]

Paul;

You have missed one tiny point.

All of these analog negatives are now being printed onto the new Kodak archival print film for storage, or they are being printed as separation B&W negatives or positives for storage. Hollywood is realizing that digital copies deteriorate much faster than analog originals and the duplication and storage costs of digital are almost 10X higher than for analog.

PE

Being that I work in the movie industry I can vouch this is true, I can also affirm that DP's and Camera Op/Cam Assist's all know the value of film, they all laugh when people talk about shooting on digital and know they film's quality even I'm "megapixels" is way higher than current digital movie cameras. Yes the small budget movies ($1,000,000-$20,000,000) are using digital because its more effective for their proposes but film is still king on any large budget movie that needs that quality, and yes they are archiving it on film, and yes they are projection it on digital as a final post process step.

And Kodak has too much B&W competition, color is their game.


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[georg16nik]

Paul;

You have missed one tiny point.

All of these analog negatives are now being printed onto the new Kodak archival print film for storage, or they are being printed as separation B&W negatives or positives for storage. Hollywood is realizing that digital copies deteriorate much faster than analog originals and the duplication and storage costs of digital are almost 10X higher than for analog.

PE

The cost of storing 4K digital masters on digital tape was ~ 1,100% higher than the cost of storing YCM film masters before the new Kodak archival print film came out....

 

[wogster]

The cost of storing 4K digital masters on digital tape was ~ 1,100% higher than the cost of storing YCM film masters before the new Kodak archival print film came out....

One of the problems with digital tape, is that it's tape, and tape is not designed for longer term storage, it's probably fine for financial records that need to be kept for a decade or so, but it's not designed for photographic storage, where an image could need to be stored for centuries. I have in my collection a photograph that is almost a century old, it was taken sometime between 1914 and 1918, I know this because it was taken during WW-I. it's a little faded, this is a scan I did a couple of years ago, other then some cropping it's pretty much as is, including the colour.:

Show me ANY digital media that can be absolutely guaranteed to last at least 94 years! We have movies on film from that era, where you could take the negatives out and run them through a modern film printer and have a copy in at least as good a condition as the photo above. We have no digital media to prove it will last as long. Yes that is a German uniform, and the subject is my grandfather. I plan on giving the print to my daughter (who just turned 1) when she is older, and yes I expect it to be in a similar condition.

 

[georg16nik]

.....
Show me ANY digital media that can be absolutely guaranteed to last at least 94 years!

Come again?
Where did I wrote such thing?

The cost of storing 4K digital masters on digital tape was ~ 1,100% higher than the cost of storing YCM film masters before the new Kodak archival print film came out....

btw: I know the value of old photographs.
We have family book, published in thousands of copies. Some of the photos running within the family are much older than WWI.

 

[Diapositivo]

One of the problems with digital tape, is that it's tape, and tape is not designed for longer term storage, it's probably fine for financial records that need to be kept for a decade or so, but it's not designed for photographic storage, where an image could need to be stored for centuries. I have in my collection a photograph that is almost a century old, it was taken sometime between 1914 and 1918, I know this because it was taken during WW-I. it's a little faded, this is a scan I did a couple of years ago, other then some cropping it's pretty much as is, including the colour.:

Show me ANY digital media that can be absolutely guaranteed to last at least 94 years! We have movies on film from that era, where you could take the negatives out and run them through a modern film printer and have a copy in at least as good a condition as the photo above. We have no digital media to prove it will last as long. Yes that is a German uniform, and the subject is my grandfather. I plan on giving the print to my daughter (who just turned 1) when she is older, and yes I expect it to be in a similar condition.

Very nice picture. What is it that he keeps at his neck? Seems like some kind of instrument. Maybe a portable range-finder?

I suppose your grandfather was an officer, wasn't he? (spike and decoration on the helmet).