Orwo planning return to colour production

[foc]

I saw this and thought it was an interesting read.

https://kosmofoto.com/2020/11/orwo-planning-return-to-colour-film-production/

 

[Cholentpot]

Do I hear affordable 100 foot bulk rolls of C-41 maybe? If not, can ORWO make it happen please?

 

[ludwighagelstein]

I think it will be quite a while until we see any actually useable color material from ORWO/Filmotec. They merely say they can do it. Not how good the material will be, neither when they´ll be at a point where they´ll be able to supply sufficiently good material. Innoviscoat may coat several of the experimental films like Lomochrome Purple, Metropolis and other "experimental" color materials already gone from the market again. I wouldn´t get too hyped for a new actually normal rendering color negative film in the near future. 2-3 years maybe.

 

[Ian Grant]

I shot a few rolls of Orwo UT18 slide film in the 1970's it was a quirky contrasty film. Did they ever make C41 or E6 compatible films ?

Ian

 

[AgX]

We already discussed the talk, that Kosmophoto refers to as source, here:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...george-campbell-of-orwo-north-america.179406/


We also discussed changes at Filmotec (Orwo) here:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...ial-producers-inoviscoat-and-filmotec.179514/


In both threads quite some questionmarks arose.

 

[foc]

I shot a few rolls of Orwo UT18 slide film in the 1970's it was a quirky contrasty film. Did they ever make C41 or E6 compatible films ?

Ian

To my knowledge Ian, they never made the change to C41 or E6. They stayed with the Agfa based negative and transparency processes.(cns & ap41).

 

[AgX]

They DID make the change. It was long planned but realized only in C-41 in 1988 and in production in 4 types up to 1995.
Though they never made E-6 films.

 

[foc]

They DID make the change. It was long planned but realized only in C-41 in 1988 and in production in 4 types up to 1995.
Though they never made E-6 films.

Thank you for the correction, I didn't realise they produced C41 film. Did it have a product name that differentiated it from the older Agfa based film?

 

[AgX]

Yes, of course. But as main name Orwocolor remained.
Keep in mind that Agfa in Wolfen marketed over the years more than 50 colour still films, each with an own designation.

 

[foc]

Yes, of course. But as main name Orwocolor remained.
Keep in mind that Agfa in Wolfen marketed over the years more than 50 colour still films, each with an own designation.

I know that Orwo had film designations of two letters followed by the film speed in DIN (AFAIK)
For example:

• NP was for b&W panchromatic negative film
• UT was for colour transparency daylight film
• NT was for colour negative daylight film

I was wondering did they have a designation to differentiate between Agfa based film and C41 based film when they changed over.

 

[Arcadia4]

Orwo Color QRS 100 was an end of line C-41 process film
Example from sale details here- https://www.etsy.com/listing/846601143/expired-orwo-color-qrs-100-35mm-camera
Seems to be the only speed it was produced in

 

[cmacd123]

Orwo Color QRS 100 was an end of line C-41 process film
Example from sale details here- https://www.etsy.com/listing/846601143/expired-orwo-color-qrs-100-35mm-camera
Seems to be the only speed it was produced in

remember that their are rumors that Kodak provided master rolls of C41 film to several eastern European companies, and then after they had discontinued their old colour stocks, the supply of the master rolls of Kodak stock became scarce. Some may have also bought film from Ferrania, who I understand was flexable on what they would sell competitors.

 

[AgX]

Orwo Color QRS 100 was an end of line C-41 process film
Example from sale details here- https://www.etsy.com/listing/846601143/expired-orwo-color-qrs-100-35mm-camera
Seems to be the only speed it was produced in

As I posted above, the made 4 different C-41 films. But yes, they all were ISO 100.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

I saw this and thought it was an interesting read.

https://kosmofoto.com/2020/11/orwo-planning-return-to-colour-film-production/

Given the apparent sole basis for this rumor, I have serious doubts Filmotec is aware of it. Perhaps they are. Let's see when ORWONA one-man show updates his website with N75 availability, which it has been for a quite a few months now. I'd be suspicious of a source that does not know current line of products predicting non-existing ones.

 

[foc]

Orwo Color QRS 100 was an end of line C-41 process film
Example from sale details here- https://www.etsy.com/listing/846601143/expired-orwo-color-qrs-100-35mm-camera
Seems to be the only speed it was produced in

Thank you for the link. Interesting that they have DX coded cassettes and the sealed foil packing. In other cases they had the film boxed. I see Made in Germany on the packing so made after the GDR/DDR was dissolved.

 

[ph]

Thank you for the link. Interesting that they have DX coded cassettes and the sealed foil packing. In other cases they had the film boxed. I see Made in Germany on the packing so made after the GDR/DDR was dissolved.

Yes, the reunification crash and its preceding industiral mayhem when Zeiss.Jena fadded out . .ORWO was a successor to AG Farben, does anyone know what became of them at the time when Bitterfelds chemical waste soup was being cleared away?

p,

 

[AgX]

Thank you for the link. Interesting that they have DX coded cassettes and the sealed foil packing. In other cases they had the film boxed. I see Made in Germany on the packing so made after the GDR/DDR was dissolved.

As I said C-41 films were made by Orwo from 1988 to 1995 thus both, preceeding and following the demise of the DDR. The ORS was made from 1991 to 1995.

The ORS 100 came in standard cardboard boxes. Whether it was sold also without box but only in foil with wrapper I don't know. Maybe inside the box was that foil-bag with wrapper. Orwo had sold films in different forms before. And in the West too type 135 films were offerd alternatively without box.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Let's be realistic here: it'll be Agfa Leverkusen/ Inoviscoat technology underpinning any colour film that the newly merged company produces, rather than someone's nostalgic (Ostalgie?) reminiscence of some Orwo film or other. And more than likely a choice of a derivation of Optima, Portrait or Ultra. I'd be considerably more surprised if they launched an ECN-2 film for cinema, given that Agfa got out of that market in the early 1990s. Of course, it may be that it's going to be a cinema print/ lab film, which Agfa produced until much more recently - given that that market seems to be of considerable interest to Orwo already.

 

[AgX]

And more than likely a choice of a derivation of Optima, Portrait or Ultra. I'd be considerably more surprised if they launched an ECN-2 film for cinema, given that Agfa got out of that market in the early 1990s. Of course, it may be that it's going to be a cinema print/ lab film, which Agfa produced until much more recently - given that that market seems to be of considerable interest to Orwo already.

Orwo is interested in a living cine market. That Agfa not that long ago left the cine print film market is telling. And there has not been a rise in this market since then.

 

[flavio81]

[QUOTE="Lachlan Young, post: 2349067]And more than likely a choice of a derivation of Optima, Portrait or Ultra.[/QUOTE]

This would be extremely exciting!! Agfa C41 film was very very good.

 

[cmacd123]

I always liked the AGFA cinema Camera Negative film, BUT I am not sure if the technology for that is still held in Belgum, remember that Agfa Photo only had consumer products technology. And Filmotec has up till now concentrated on strictly Motion Picture stock. it would take a fair bit of "twisting" to get a Still Film formula to work well with ECN-2 Processing. (even if they took a shortcut and used a Still Film style Anti-Halo undercoat layer rather than a REM_Jet style layer)

let me put it this way, I would not be holding my breath.

 

[Lachlan Young]

I always liked the AGFA cinema Camera Negative film, BUT I am not sure if the technology for that is still held in Belgum, remember that Agfa Photo only had consumer products technology. And Filmotec has up till now concentrated on strictly Motion Picture stock. it would take a fair bit of "twisting" to get a Still Film formula to work well with ECN-2 Processing. (even if they took a shortcut and used a Still Film style Anti-Halo undercoat layer rather than a REM_Jet style layer)

let me put it this way, I would not be holding my breath.

I don't know if the Mortsel plant has the level of multilayer coating ability needed to manufacture certain colour materials - the Agfa aerial colour films seem to have been coated in the German coating plants & seem to have gone out of production when the last master rolls went too foggy - from what I recall reading, the last coating runs at the Leverkusen etc plants were huge & intended to produce a lot of stock to last 10+ years. Remjet is the easiest anti-hal layer of the lot to enact, yet one of the most effective - if it wasn't so troublesome to remove, I'd bet that it would be used on still film much more widely.

The other possibility is that Inoviscoat/Orwo would also be able to make a late model E6 Agfachrome emulsion for camera use. It doesn't matter which bit of Agfa marketed the product, it depends on which plant produced it - and the German plants seem to have produced almost all the colour material for camera use latterly.

 

[AgX]

This is the old story of Agfa in Mortsel not being able to make colour films. Those colour films were coated in Mortsel.

 

[AgX]

Remjet is the easiest anti-hal layer of the lot to enact, yet one of the most effective - if it wasn't so troublesome to remove, I'd bet that it would be used on still film much more widely.

Rem-Jet is already in first instance on wrong position to be the most effective AH-means. The only benefitial characteristic it got is its wide spectral repression. But to my knowledge that was never exploited.

 

[Lachlan Young]

This is the old story of Agfa in Mortsel not being able to make colour films. Those colour films were coated in Mortsel.

The cinema stocks (camer and lab) were all Mortsel as far as I know, but the camera negative stocks had gone by the early 1990s - and I could certainly see there being a case that if the Mortsel coater was a 6-layer per pass machine (fine for cinema print stock etc), that 2 passes was good for up to early 90's technology emulsions, but the need to go beyond that would have required a costly investment in both emulsions and coating, which was worthwhile on the German plants servicing the still camera films - but that doesn't explain why they couldn't have simply translated the cinema stocks to Leverkusen etc at that point. What's never been clear to me is how many Agfa coating plants for photographic materials (as opposed to offset plates etc) there were at the time - Mortsel, Leverkusen, another one in Germany whose location I forget, and somewhere in France (seen on boxes of MCC etc). Were there more - and is it known what their coating capabilities were? I note that Agfa's specialty products division toll-coating offering is a little cagey as to exactly how many simultaneous layers they can coat at once, but on the other hand stating that double pass coating is fully possible. That makes me suspect that they can't do as many layers at once as their former colleagues in Germany.

Rem-Jet is already in first instance on wrong position to be the most effective AH-means. The only benefitial characteristic it got is its wide spectral repression. But to my knowledge that was never exploited.

Maybe so, but I don't think that really explains why colour neg for cinema never really shifted over to an anti-halation underlayer - or kept the rem-jet and added an anti-halation underlayer - I suspect that the high degree of mechanical protection it offers is/ was important. Cinema print film has an anti-halation underlayer and no rem-jet.