Renew My Faith Please ...

[BrianShaw]

Okay Allen, I'll have to plan a visit to one of my local liquor stores this weekend. That should't be too traumatic!

When I saw the Everclear in Solvang, I remember thinking "wow... that's powerful stuff" but now I can't recall if it was 150 or 190 proof. Actually I didn't think to look too hard becasue I was not aware that it was available in different strengths.

As I said, I'll check it out and let you know.

The guy at BevMo (Beverages & More) confirmed that only 151 is available in CA. You are right. That must be what I saw.

 

[Didzis]

Kodak to close facilities in France, England

Well, that's quite obvious, given the fact that they produce X-ray film and the factories are in Europe. Higher costs and environmental regulations coupled with shrinking demand might as well do the trick.
At least I don't really expect the yellow company to be a major film supplier in the future. However, that does not mean that film will not be available -- Kodak is by no means the sole producer of film in the whole world. Even if all the factories close, making some kind of film will not be that unrealistic. That probably would mean going back to slow orthochromatic films, but people did take pretty good photographs with them, so why can't we do the same? The steam engine analogy is nice and probably better than buggy whips -- steam engines are still available. Yes, they're not exactly the size of Titanic engines, just as the niche market film will probably not be homemade Kodachrome. But, if there are companies that still make steam engines large enough to power a steamboat and sell for $825, then odds are we will have companies that will make slow-speed orthochromatic film for $10 or 15 a roll. At least I could live with that.

 

[Wigwam Jones]

But, if there are companies that still make steam engines large enough to power a steamboat and sell for $825, then odds are we will have companies that will make slow-speed orthochromatic film for $10 or 15 a roll. At least I could live with that.

What if the film was available, but cost $150 a roll? The economies of scale that make consumer color print film so (comparitively) cheap will be gone. Even assuming that some minimally-acceptable form of ortho-sensitive B&W film could be made commercially (for the sake of argument, I happen not to think so), I believe that's more like the price you'd be looking at.

 

[Allen Friday]

You do not need a license to buy "consumer" fertilizer or pesticides. They are readily available in the home and garden stores. But, you do have to have a license to buy them at commercial strength and quantity. For example round-up is a systemic herbicide which can be purchased in a watered down version at home stores. But, to buy it in bulk, and in commercial concentrate, you need the restricted use permit.

As a farm manager, I am actually pretty content with the present situation regarding licenses. The test and continuing eduction classes you have to take are very much a teaching tool. Much of the test and educational materials focus on safety and proper application--with a great emphasis on not applying one drop more than is needed.

In the past, many farmers have been injured, particulary from applying anhydrous ammonia. The injury rates have gone down with the testing requirements. Also, anhydrous is one of the main ingredients in meth. Part of the class dealt with keeping it out of the hands of people who would miss-use it. (It was also the main ingredient in the Oklahoma City bomb.)

The inconvenience of the regulations is pretty minimal. The chemical suppliers I deal with keep a copy of the license on file, so it doesn't really come up except when it expires.

 

[JBrunner]

(It was also the main ingredient in the Oklahoma City bomb.)

The Oklahoma bomb was ammonium nitrate and nitromethane. (FWIW)

 

[Wigwam Jones]

The Oklahoma bomb was ammonium nitrate and nitromethane. (FWIW)

That's what he said.

The man who killed the world is the one who discovered how to synthesize ammonia out of the air we breathe.

http://www.growlery.com/wigwam/2006/01/good-bad-and-hungry.html

 

[Allen Friday]

Anhydrous ammonia contains nitrogen. It was my understanding that the nitrate was made from anhydrous ammonia. So I guess that it actually was the source for the main ingredient.

But, I could be wrong here. I have never really looked into bomb making.

 

[Didzis]

What if the film was available, but cost $150 a roll? The economies of scale that make consumer color print film so (comparitively) cheap will be gone. Even assuming that some minimally-acceptable form of ortho-sensitive B&W film could be made commercially (for the sake of argument, I happen not to think so), I believe that's more like the price you'd be looking at.

Well, I'm not really that sure. For example, new, commercially produced radio valves are still available at pretty decent prices, about $12 or so. I hope you're not really going to suggest that there is a huge demand for valves and they are used just about everywhere, so the scale keeps the price down or that valves are easier to make than film. Or a brand new dot-matrix printer can be purchased for $200. If you want to get really fancy, you can get a 24-pin dot-matrix printer complete with an USB connection for $450, your suggested price for three rolls of film. I'm not quite sure that producing three rolls of simple ortho film is just as expensive as making a fancy dot-matrix printer. Typewriter ribbons cost from $5 to 10, and typewriters are not very widely used. And I haven't heard of hobbyists coating their own typewriter ribbons, either, although I've heard that about film. Really, it's not that a few obsolete technologies have somehow managed to survive; actually, quite a few obsolete technologies are still alive and well, although firmly in the niche market. I'd be really hard pressed to believe that a technology so popular as analogue photography could simply disappear without a trace within a couple of decades.

 

[Wigwam Jones]

Well, I'm not really that sure. For example, new, commercially produced radio valves are still available at pretty decent prices, about $12 or so.

Made in the former Soviet Union - at an old Soviet tube (valve) making plant. Yes? Other than that, just NOS and tested pulls. But I've been out of high-end audio for awhile, perhaps Sovtek has competition now.

Think about what a valve is made of. Glass. Wire. A vacuum. Dielectric base of some kind. And some plating chemicals. Nothing esoteric. Even so, pollution produced such that there can be no tube manufacturing plant in the US - probably not in the UK either, yes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube

I hope you're not really going to suggest that there is a huge demand for valves and they are used just about everywhere, so the scale keeps the price down or that valves are easier to make than film.

As to 'how easy' it is to make valves as opposed to film, I'd have no idea. It would be like asking if it is easier to make a tank or a violin. I personally can't make either one. However, I do have some concept of what both are made of. One uses seriously poisonous and heavily regulated chemicals and creates incredibly polluting biprodocts. One does not. Color and B&W film are made with dichloromethane, for example. The EPA classifies it as 'highly carcinogenic' and one of the most commonly-released industrial toxins on earth. It is part of the reason that Rochester, NY is consider the most polluted city on earth. Do you think that the EPA (or its counterpart in other industrialized countries) will license a new factory to make film?

http://science.howstuffworks.com/film3.htm

http://uspirg.org/uspirg.asp?id2=8822

• In 2000, more than 100 million pounds of cancer-causing chemicals were released to the nation's air and water, with dichloromethane—an industrial solvent that is also used in the manufacture of photographic film—the most frequently released carcinogen nationwide.

Or a brand new dot-matrix printer can be purchased for $200. If you want to get really fancy, you can get a 24-pin dot-matrix printer complete with an USB connection for $450, your suggested price for three rolls of film. I'm not quite sure that producing three rolls of simple ortho film is just as expensive as making a fancy dot-matrix printer. Typewriter ribbons cost from $5 to 10, and typewriters are not very widely used. And I haven't heard of hobbyists coating their own typewriter ribbons, either, although I've heard that about film. Really, it's not that a few obsolete technologies have somehow managed to survive; actually, quite a few obsolete technologies are still alive and well, although firmly in the niche market.[/quote]

Name one of them made in a newly-built factory, with new tooling. Do you think anyone is 'making' typewriter ribbons? I think they have a mountainous stockpile of them. Could be wrong, but I seriously doubt they're being made somewhere.

In any case, none of them require access to such esoteric and proprietary chemicals as film, particularly color film. I have been reading with interest the comments that one can get chemistry by the boatload at Art Chemicals and other places. And indeed, it is true. Do you suppose they make those chemicals themselves? They do not. They sell them, from the Indian and Chinese and US companies that do make them. And do you know who they make those very specialized chemicals for? The photographic film industry, that's who. When those factories go silent, the companies that supply them will make other things. It is that simple.

I'm not talking about the chemicals needed to develop film. Yes, you can develop film with coffee and salt water and so on. I mean make film. You tell me where you get

You can throw some brass on a lathe and turn a cylinder, make it into a boiler, create a nice little puffer-belly locomotive engine. The ingredients are simple - what is difficult is having the tooling and the knowledge to do it. Film is both difficult to make and difficult to source the parts for.

Let's take a recent Fuji patent on a new color film of theirs:

Dead Link Removed

A silver halide photographic material comprising a support having provided thereon at least a silver halide emulsion layer, wherein the material contains at least one metal complex contained in any of groups A, B and C: group A: an optically active metal complex; group B: a metal complex comprising a metal ion selected from the group consisting of transition metallic elements belonging to period 4 to 6 and group III to XI of the Periodic Table, and typical metallic elements belonging to period 4 to 6 and group XII to XIV of the Periodic Table, and at least one ligand represented by the following formula (I): ##STR1## wherein Z represents an atomic group to form a 5- or 6-membered ring; A represents a carbon atom or a nitrogen atom; X represents O.sup.31, S.sup.31 , NR.sub.1 R.sub.2 or COO.sup.- ; R.sub.1 and R.sub.2 each represents a hydrogen atom or an alkyl group; R represents a substituent; and n represents 0 or an integer of from 1 to 6; group C: a metal complex selected from a porphyrin complex, a porphycene complex, a phthalocyanine complex, a chlorin complex, and a bacteriochlorin complex.

Tell me, where does one source "ethylene diaminedisuccinic acid" these days?

Sure, B&W film is a lot less complex to make. Same with very early autochromes and that sort of thing. I still think even if they can be made, the cost will be prohibitive for all but the well-heeled, and everyone who uses it will have to accept that it will be as low in quality as it was at the turn of the last century. And for what? To prove a point?

I'd be really hard pressed to believe that a technology so popular as analogue photography could simply disappear without a trace within a couple of decades.

They won't. Plenty of companies will squirrel away large stocks of them on spec, and then sell them to the highest bidder over a long period of time. I never said it would disappear without a trace in a few decades. What I did say, and I stand by it, is that color film will no longer be manufactured commercially within the next two years, and B&W film may last a decade before Ilford, et al, pull the plug.

That doesn't mean you won't have film. It means it won't be made any more on anything resembling a meaningful scale, and if it is made at all, it will horrible quality and cost the world.

Now - having said that, I see that Ron Mowery has indeed got further with making film than I had thought - and that may have to modify my position, depending on what he does next. I seriously doubt that even he can make color film, but I remain hopeful.

I found this interesting...

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[Steve Smith]

"...commercially produced radio valves are still available at pretty decent prices, about $12 or so. I hope you're not really going to suggest that there is a huge demand for valves and they are used just about everywhere..."



Just about every professional recording studio and a large percentage of musicians with their own home studios use valves/tubes in the process somewhere - usually microphone preamplifiers and compressors. The irony is that they are used to 'warm up' the sound of the otherwise clinically perfect digital recording process. I have a small sideline business in building these preamplifiers. Valves also still have a place in guitar amplifiers.

The supply of valves is much like that of film. There is still a demand for them but nothing like the demand which existed between 1930 and 1960. Hopefully, as with film, so long as that demand exists someone will fill the gap.

Despite the relatively low demand for valves - now produced in Russia on old Mullard equipment and in China and Eastern Europe, the prices are not much different (relatively) to when they were in production in the US and UK.

Steve Smith.

 

[copake_ham]

Hey all,

Isn't it time we just "cut to the quick" here?

"Wigwam Jones" used to post on RFF as "Bill Mattock".

There he used to post F-I-D threads and troll others with the same "message". This guy actually has a following on RFF who now "lament" the fact that he voluntarily decided to move on (er...for now...he's done this before).

See: http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25369

Oh, he also has been know to 'dis this site on a regular basis.

Now, Bill (er...Wigwam) has his own site: Dead Link Removed

Wherein he is "inviting" his fans from RFF to join him and also providing a venue to continue his F-I-D harrangues.

Now I don't begrudge anyone's opinions - expressed civilly in the proper place. But why is this guy, a well-known F-I-D harranguer, tolerated HERE?

BTW: I've been "banned" from RFF - in case anyone reading this thinks that info is relevant to the discussion.

 

[Kino]

Hey all,

Isn't it time we just "cut to the quick" here?

"Wigwam Jones" used to post on RFF as "Bill Mattock".

There he used to post F-I-D threads and troll others with the same "message". This guy actually has a following on RFF who now "lament" the fact that he voluntarily decided to move on (er...for now...he's done this before).

See: http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25369

Oh, he also has been know to 'dis this site on a regular basis.

Now, Bill (er...Wigwam) has his own site: Dead Link Removed

Wherein he is "inviting" his fans from RFF to join him and also providing a venue to continue his F-I-D harrangues.

Now I don't begrudge anyone's opinions - expressed civilly in the proper place. But why is this guy, a well-known F-I-D harranguer, tolerated HERE?

BTW: I've been "banned" from RFF - in case anyone reading this thinks that info is relevant to the discussion.

It sure is time; I put him on my "ignore user" over a week ago and the atmosphere of APUG improved instantly.

Life is too short.

Shoot film, ignore jerks.

Frank W.

 

[DBP]

The last figures I could find showed worlwide film sales of almost 3.5B for 2001 if you add in disposables. Wiggy is proposing that this will be gone by 2008, a seven year interval. For a point of comparison, Western Union discontinued telegraph service last year, acknowledging that it had been supplanted by email. Email over the internet started to come into common use about 15 years earlier. Wiggy is proposing that the conversion from film to digital will be twice as fast, notwithstanding the difference in relative market sizes for film as opposed to telegrams. I am hard pressed to find a way in which the telegram is superior to email. The same is clearly not true for film. Clearly he has been pulling our legs - the signature should have been the giveaway:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/24/W0152450.html

 

[JBrunner]

I for one have enjoyed the postulations, but I would readily second the move to the Doom and Gloom subforum. Somebody needs to dig up this thread in 24 months and we should all go out and buy a roll of film

 

[Wigwam Jones]

The last figures I could find showed worlwide film sales of almost 3.5B for 2001 if you add in disposables. Wiggy is proposing that this will be gone by 2008, a seven year interval.

Color film manufacture, yes. 2001 is a long time ago. Kodak and Fuji have both stated that film sales have been dropping 20% (Fuji) or 30% (Kodak) year-on-year since at least 2003.

For a point of comparison, Western Union discontinued telegraph service last year, acknowledging that it had been supplanted by email. Email over the internet started to come into common use about 15 years earlier. Wiggy is proposing that the conversion from film to digital will be twice as fast, notwithstanding the difference in relative market sizes for film as opposed to telegrams.

Correct, I am saying that the shift from traditional film to digital photography has the fastest consumer adoption curve in history.

I am hard pressed to find a way in which the telegram is superior to email. The same is clearly not true for film. Clearly he has been pulling our legs - the signature should have been the giveaway:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/24/W0152450.html

'Superior', as I have been saying, does not enter into it. There are many 'superior' technologies that died. All that matters (to the manufacturers) is sales. 'Superior' film sales are falling off a cliff. Digital camera sales have skyrocketed.

And I quite agree - film is superior to digital. I've never said otherwise.

 

[Wigwam Jones]

I for one have enjoyed the postulations, but I would readily second the move to the Doom and Gloom subforum. Somebody needs to dig up this thread in 24 months and we should all go out and buy a roll of film

If Kodak, Fuji, or Ferrania are manufacturing color film 24 months from now, I will stand you a round of cheer at the (out of town, we have no bars) nearest bar. I will stand on the bar and apologize to one and all, and will bear the slings and arrows I will so richly deserve with malice towards none.

 

[JBrunner]

No malice here, I hope you will owe me a beer! (poet, din't know it.)

 

[coriana6jp]

If Kodak, Fuji, or Ferrania are manufacturing color film 24 months from now, I will stand you a round of cheer at the (out of town, we have no bars) nearest bar. I will stand on the bar and apologize to one and all, and will bear the slings and arrows I will so richly deserve with malice towards none.

I think color film has a little more life in it than 24 months.. Fuji has publically said in several interviews recently here in Japan, that even though film sales are down they feel its necessary to keep producing film. Fuji film also runs alot of "camera classes" here, and recently they said there were surprised because they expected alot of retirees to join, but instead the biggest group were young women in thier early 20's and 30`s(I will try to find the article). I expect there to be a number of film lines terminated, but I feel for the foreseeable future there will be plenty of film around. All the pros I know here use primarily film for most events, but use digital only for the quickies. They have said they feel film is a superior product for the time being. This may change as technology advances, but I feel your opinions are rather premature.

Gary

 

[edz]

Color film manufacture, yes. 2001 is a long time ago. Kodak and Fuji have both stated that film sales have been dropping 20% (Fuji) or 30% (Kodak) year-on-year since at least 2003.

The snowball is now slowing down and most of the photographic and optical market players have hit their ejector seat buttons on their participation in the digital imaging marketplace.

Correct, I am saying that the shift from traditional film to digital photography has the fastest consumer adoption curve in history.

There has been no shift. Film is still around. If you mean in professional publishing? The move was actually quite slow and after decades of press digitalization the shift is not yet complete.

'Superior' film sales are falling off a cliff. Digital camera sales have skyrocketed.

The growth in digital camera sales has slowed significantly in Japan and Europe. The DSLR market is now more or less a one man show around Canon and cell phones are increasing edging out the P&S class cameras which have fallen to dumping price levels and low end supermarket distribution. Looking at the drugstores in my part of town (a rather afluent, educated and urban neighborhood of Munich) the processing is still overwhelmingly colour negative. Volume is down since most people don't seem to print many (if any at all of) their digital snapshots. People are still buying film.

Sure film sales levels are down and sales of new film cameras is almost non-existant other than disposible toss-away, collectors. luxury and niche specialities. The bottom of much of the better and more "collectable" cameras seems to have been passed and prices are slowly inching their way, once again, upwards--- some items surpassing price levels of even the 1990s. Its still, on the whole, a low price market. It reminds me a bit of the late 1970s and into the early 1980s. Everyone was quite convinced that 16mm film was moving fast into history, replaced by video. I recall dreaming with friends of getting that dream "Mitchell" for $30 USD. It never happened. Even my Bolex has gained in value. Film projectors are now cheap, editing gear like Hammann spalters have fallen to pennies (due to polyester print materials) and even nice Steenbeck flat-bed editing tables can be had for hardly more than the (relatively high) cost of transportation but that's just a result of the paradigm change in editing and handling with the replacement of well-paid and trained cutters by quickly trained and cheap "video editors"--- the use of technology to lower demands on staff and reduce labour costs. Video and HDTV capture do neither.... they reduce the cost of raw capture materials which are the smallest block in a production--- even a rock video-- but increase the total costs (equiptment rental etc.) and frankly don't handle as well or look as good. Keeping video capture gear in condition is also more expensive so the total labour costs between a cine camera and a video camera too favour the use of motion picture materials.

Digital too has great problems competing with film as a delivery system. Digital prints might be much cheaper to produce than film but their presentation systems are prohibitive. Sure some high street cinemas can invest in high-end high-definition digital projection systems but most of the cinemas in the world are much more modest. The option for much of the developing world would be micro cinemas where DVDs get projected by LCD beamers. That's even more full-spin on the digital rights dream of the studios.. so cinemas need to continue to be fed print materials.

Microfilm too is hardly dead and obsolete. With suitable developers they can be used to great success offering highest resolution and good tonality. Many microfilms are made without perforations but given the modest demands of still cameras this is an easy aftermarket task.

Traffic film too is still around.. and the extended red sensitivity too is quite interesting.. Parla Tech Pan?

And.. there are quite a few coating machines around.. to get one up and running to make B&W materials is not that much of a great task.. Sure.. not to the high standards that we knew from Agfa.. maybe more to the mediocre standards we know from Efke.. but still.. one can make some great pictures using Efke materials and quite a few people even prefer its look to the uniformity of T-Max and friends.

 

[Ray Heath]

so guys, what is more important, making photographs, or the medium used, if film becomes unavailable, dare i say it, use something else

 

[Andy K]

so guys, what is more important, making photographs, or the medium used, if film becomes unavailable, dare i say it, use something else

If film becomes unavailable I will probably take up watercolour painting. Video and computers hold zero interest for me.

 

[jmailand]

Kodak, Fuji, and others will still be making Color Film 2 years from now and probably 10 years from now. There are just to many film cameras still in use for them not too. Not everybody in this world has a computer or a camera phone.I find it funny that everybody keeps predicting Kodaks demise in film but they still have pretty much the same type of product offering that they had ten years ago, except for B&W paper and some specialty films . I read in Photo Techniques that Kodak employees got a bonus last year.

Maybe there should be a chart some where on APUG that list films, paper, and chemicals still available and then people would see the wide array of products still out there. (unless this already exists)

Anyway back to the original posting, films not dead yet buy some and use it.

James,

 

[DBP]

Maybe there should be a chart some where on APUG that list films, paper, and chemicals still available and then people would see the wide array of products still out there. (unless this already exists)

That would be quite a list. B&H alone lists 22 types of 120 color print film, and they don't even carry the likes of Ferrania or Maco.

The only things I worry about the long-term availability of are 110, 126, and Kodachrome, all of which are low volume items requiring special tooling or processes. (I would add APS, but who cares if it goes away?)

 

[BrianShaw]

The only things I worry about the long-term availability of are 110, 126, and Kodachrome, all of which are low volume items requiring special tooling or processes. (I would add APS, but who cares if it goes away?)

With the exception of Kodachrome (which is, unfortunately, a "has been" anyway), I agree.. who cares!

 

[DBP]

With the exception of Kodachrome (which is, unfortunately, a "has been" anyway), I agree.. who cares!

Well, I have some really fun 110 and 126 cameras, including a Pentax 110 and (possibly the silliest camera I have seen) an instamatic with a dive housing - 4 shots per dive, it uses flashcubes.