Orwo planning return to colour production

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Film-Niko

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I can't read their comments.

Just log in and you can read all. Simple as that.
If you are either unwilling or unable to do it it is only your fault alone. Period. And then you shouldn't make wrong statements as you have done.
We are living in 2021, and not in 1980 anymore. Media channels like facebook, instagram, youtube, twitter etc. are
- mainstream information
- public relation
- and customer contact
channels for many years. It is a standard and it is established.
And that is the world where most of the film revival activities are going on. Those who ignore that will lack lots of the important information.
If someone don't want to use these channels, o.k., it is his free choice. But then he also should accept the consequences. And he should be very careful with statements, because of his lack of information.
 

AgX

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As already what I can read is nonsense, I refrain from becoming a member to read more of it.

But to stay with your argumentation, then talking nonsense is the form of social media. Then indeed Filmotec would be wise to do so too.
 

Film-Niko

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Good friend of mine is from former Yugoslavia. He used to work for the Fotokemika plant (Efke). According to him, by the late 70's all stock sold under the name Orwo were either from Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia.

Sorry, but that is complete BS. At that time about 15,000 employees worked at the ORWO plant. Not all in film production, but most of them. I have visited the remaining parts of that factory, which is now a very interesting museum about film production and the history of ORWO. Talked there to our guide, which worked at ORWO. There are also detailed documentaries available.
 

AgX

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But to refrain to the subject of this thread:
If Lomography is interested in having regular colour films toll-produced for them, why then did they not do so already?

Well, one can argue that Kodak and Fuji would not want to cannabalize their business in first instance and that Agfa who are free of such restrictiins are still too costly in lot-size.
But why not a toll-coating at Inoviscoat? On this point it makes no sense to wait for Filmotec.
 

Lachlan Young

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All of its colour stock got imported mainly from the USSR. Regarding B&W, why not? Due to costly ‘consumer socialism’ and continuous trade deficits with the West, GDR's balance of payments crisis was aggravated towards the end of the 1970s. Facing a Western ‘credit boycott’, in spring 1982 bankruptcy seemed unavoidable to many of the GDR’s economic experts. However, after the adoption of several emergency measures, solvency was secured in the short-run and finally the loans negotiated by Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss in 1983/84 released the GDR from the acute debt crisis. In late 70's they almost had no money to produce anything. But since the state was heavily under prism, possession of film material was important. Therefore it is highly likely that GDR imported stock from other socialist countries with far better production stability.

Cite the person whose abstract you just block-quoted.

Nobody, but nobody doubts that ORWO was producing colour materials in Wolfen until they shut down coating facilities there. Fischer coupler materials do not require the latest/ greatest high speed coaters - indeed the incompatibility of Fischer coupler technology with high speed slide/ waterfall coating was a big driver in the move towards everyone coalescing on Kodacolor couplers amongst western manufacturers. Furthermore, anecdotal evidence from those who have attempted to successfully develop Orwo and Svema colour materials strongly suggest that they came from different plants, with different recommended developers and differences in the couplers used.

Maybe you are conflating some stories your friend told you with the well known forcible acquisition of camera and photographic technology from the nascent DDR by the USSR in the 1940's, but by the 1970's, ORWO was producing products of a quality that could be sold for hard currency. Svema was largely focused towards the USSR market. Oral history is notoriously problematic in terms of its relationship to the actuality at the time.

Oh, and given that the western manufacturers spent a lot of time disassembling their competitors' products to see what technology they were using, the likelihood of Orwo and Svema's products being subjected to similar investigation is very high indeed - and if they really came from the same coating plant, that would have been identifiable and would have likely leaked out into the public domain a long time ago.
 
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Film-Niko

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As already what I can read is nonsense, I refrain from becoming a member to read more of it.
But to stay with your argumentation, then talking nonsense is the form of social media. Then indeed Filmotec would be wise to do so too.

That is simply a very ignorant and arrogant attitude. And totally wrong concerning FilmoTec here, and also concerning Kodak, Fujifilm, Ilford, Foma, Adox, Film Ferrania, CineStillFilm, Silberra, Lomography, Polaroid, Bergger, Fotoimpex, and all the thousands of labs and photo shops which are all using these established channels to successfully communicate with their customers. And it shows that you simply refuse to use established channels to get correct information. But not surprising, as you you have often posted wrong statements about the industry here on photrio.
Some people just will not leave their own echo chamber.
 

K25

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Cite the person whose abstract you just block-quoted.

Nobody, but nobody doubts that ORWO was producing colour materials in Wolfen until they shut down coating facilities there. Fischer coupler materials do not require the latest/ greatest high speed coaters - indeed the incompatibility of Fischer coupler technology with high speed slide/ waterfall coating was a big driver in the move towards everyone coalescing on Kodacolor couplers amongst western manufacturers. Furthermore, anecdotal evidence from those who have attempted to successfully develop Orwo and Svema colour materials strongly suggest that they came from different plants, with different recommended developers and differences in the couplers used.

Maybe you are conflating some stories your friend told you with the well known forcible acquisition of camera and photographic technology from the nascent DDR by the USSR in the 1940's, but by the 1970's, ORWO was producing products of a quality that could be sold for hard currency. Svema was largely focused towards the USSR market. Oral history is notoriously problematic in terms of its relationship to the actuality at the time.

The guy who worked for the Yugoslav plant knows for sure! They were shipping B&W raw stock to GDR to be rebranded as OROW. Why would he lie to me? The guy use to work in the export department.
 

AgX

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That is simply a very ignorant and arrogant attitude.
As I have the choice between an official and reasoned statement from the longtime director of Filmotec, and a nonsense statement of unclear origin I bother only with the former.
 

Lachlan Young

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The guy who worked for the Yugoslav plant knows for sure! They were shipping B&W raw stock to GDR to be rebranded as OROW. Why would he lie to me? The guy use to work in the export department.

Memory is very often faulty/ wishful. It is a huge and fundamental problem in historiography. And you don't know if it was camera stock, X-ray, technical or other emulsions. Fotokemika was not seemingly well set up to do multiple pass coating, so it is highly unlikely to have been one of the higher speed emulsions. It is perfectly possible that if your coating plants are working at capacity, and you have access to another coating plant that is adequately similar, you can farm out some production there. Especially if the premium product from your main plant is getting hard currency from the west on the table. Don't forget the vast array of industries that consumed mind boggling amounts of film - camera stills film was only a tiny part of it.
 

Film-Niko

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As I have the choice between an official and reasoned statement from the longtime director of Filmotec, and a nonsense statement of unclear origin I bother only with the former.

You are just repeating again the same fake news. The origin is clear, it is FilmoTec's own instagram account. As all of their customers there know, because they are asking questions there on that account and getting official replies from FilmoTec, e.g. where to get their films in France. FilmoTec reply: "At our official distributor in France......" and then they posted the direct contact and email.
 

Film-Niko

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The guy who worked for the Yugoslav plant knows for sure! They were shipping B&W raw stock to GDR to be rebranded as OROW. Why would he lie to me? The guy use to work in the export department.

Do yourself a favour and simply visit the former ORWO plant with its outstanding film production museum to get the correct information. It is highly recommended.
http://www.ifm-wolfen.de/de/
 

AgX

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You are just repeating again the same fake news. The origin is clear, it is FilmoTec's own instagram account. As all of their customers there know, because they are asking questions there on that account and getting official replies from FilmoTec, e.g. where to get their films in France. FilmoTec reply: "At our official distributor in France......" and then they posted the direct contact and email.
I do not need to be of Filmotec to give such reply, I can just take such information from their website.
 

MattKing

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Media channels like facebook, instagram, youtube, twitter etc. are
- mainstream information
- public relation
- and customer contact
channels for many years. It is a standard and it is established.
A very large percentage of people refuse to become "product" for those profit making entities. I am one of them.
 

miha

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A very large percentage of people refuse to become "product" for those profit making entities. I am one of them.
Wise words!
 

alter ego 6x9

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Be serious.

Your comments sound like from 55 Savushkina Street, St Petersburg. You know what I mean. “I know the friend who knows the friend who told it” and we should believe in spite of obvious facts. USSR never had any serious production capacities or “know how” for color film or even raw material manufacturing. Maybe just gelatin, but I doubt even that. Paper raw material for packaging? Well, even this was quite a scarce resource in USSR. It was hugely problematic to buy color film in USSR and it was of poor quality (as anything else). USSR was exporting oil, gas and other natural resources. Anything else was very fragmented, of poor quality, competed only on price and mostly went to Soviet block countries or regimes under sanctions (e.g. Cuba).
 

Lachlan Young

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USSR never had any serious production capacities or “know how” for color film or even raw material manufacturing.

Svema (Ukraine, so USSR at the time) was making colour film based on WWII era Agfa/ Fischer coupler technology, both for still & cinema (Sovcolor). But unlike Orwo it doesn't seem to have been exported as much outside of the Warsaw pact countries. There are quite significant differences between the two companies' colour products despite similar coupler technology - though I'm drawing the line at putting samples of them in an electron microscope, getting microtomed sections made or having mass spectrometry done on the emulsions to see what immediately detectable differences there are at an emulsion level.
 

AgX

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USSR never had any serious production capacities or “know how” for color film or even raw material manufacturing. Maybe just gelatin, but I doubt even that.

You are wong on that, the USSR manufactured the majority of their need for colour film themselves, though the import from Orwo made still a great share. But on the other side the USSR also delivered chemical compounds to Orwo, necessary for those colour films.

A major part of photochemical research had been done just in the USSR, the names of many those researchers are well known at their western collegues.
 
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AgX

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Reasoning the causes for Orwo getting behind their western competitors likely will show several causes. Interestingly even from within former Orwo seemingly contradicting causes have been uttered. Going from blaming the USSR insisting on delivery of technology that does not neccessitate any kind of changes on their side to the lag being self-inflicted and just the USSR being those who claimed higher quality from Orwo.


In the discussion about coupler technology and an alleged outdated technology one should not overlook that Agfa and Gevaert together were number 2 amongst the western manufacturers and held that position for decades, nonwithstanding their application of such technology. They were the last in the West to changeover to Kodak technology and processes.
Things are often more complicated than people like to tell.
 

flavio81

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But to refrain to the subject of this thread:
If Lomography is interested in having regular colour films toll-produced for them, why then did they not do so already?

Haven't they done this already? Lomochrome Purple!
 

flavio81

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Oh, and given that the western manufacturers spent a lot of time disassembling their competitors' products to see what technology they were using, the likelihood of Orwo and Svema's products being subjected to similar investigation is very high indeed - and if they really came from the same coating plant, that would have been identifiable and would have likely leaked out into the public domain a long time ago.

I agree with your previous arguments, but I should say that these kind of research info, as well as tons of other research done by Kodak, Fuji, etc... is not leaking to the public domain. We know very little of what was reserarched inside those plants. Much of we know was because of the generosity of Ron Mowrey (RIP), but many have acknowledged film production was based on mostly closed (secret) research.
 

flavio81

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USSR never had any serious production capacities or “know how” for color film or even raw material manufacturing. Maybe just gelatin, but I doubt even that.

The really, really silly things one reads on forums...

I guess the URSS didn't manufacture their own spaceships either.
 
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