Reply From HARMAN technology Limited Re True IR Film.

[Sal Santamaura]

Guys, you just do not understand...

And they don't want to. Save your "breath."

 

[MattKing]

Just a reminder.

Ilford and Kodak use IR sensors and IR sources to locate and identify film stock on the master rolls that isn't of full quality, so it can be excluded from finishing.

Those sensors and sources would be unusable with true IR film.

 

[StoneNYC]

Just a reminder.

Ilford and Kodak use IR sensors and IR sources to locate and identify film stock on the master rolls that isn't of full quality, so it can be excluded from finishing.

Those sensors and sources would be unusable with true IR film.

Can you elaborate? I don't understand how an IR sensor can identify bad quality. Thanks.

 

[MattKing]

Can you elaborate? I don't understand how an IR sensor can identify bad quality. Thanks.

You really should read Bob Shanebrook's book on Making Kodak Film. Or buy PE or Prof Pixel a whole bunch of lunches!

Here is how I understand it:

In the manufacturing process, emulsion is coated on wide and long master rolls. To be usable, the master rolls need to be cut into the individual sheets and rolls. Unfortunately, though, there will always be small areas on each master roll which which have physical defects that need to be kept out of the final product.

The master rolls of film are scanned for those physical defects, and then any areas that appear to be defective (or at least outside of tolerance) are excluded when the roll is mapped out for finishing into individual rolls and sheets.

The scanning is done with IR sources and IR sensors, because the film isn't sensitive to IR.

 

[StoneNYC]

You really should read Bob Shanebrook's book on Making Kodak Film. Or buy PE or Prof Pixel a whole bunch of lunches!

Here is how I understand it:

In the manufacturing process, emulsion is coated on wide and long master rolls. To be usable, the master rolls need to be cut into the individual sheets and rolls. Unfortunately, though, there will always be small areas on each master roll which which have physical defects that need to be kept out of the final product.

The master rolls of film are scanned for those physical defects, and then any areas that appear to be defective (or at least outside of tolerance) are excluded when the roll is mapped out for finishing into individual rolls and sheets.

The scanning is done with IR sources and IR sensors, because the film isn't sensitive to IR.

Interesting, so how do Fuji do it with Acros100? Isn't that slightly IR?

And heck how do they make regular IR without defects?

Thanks for the info.

 

[Tom1956]

And they don't want to. Save your "breath."

I chimed in on this thread rather late and therefor have nothing of consequence to say that hasn't been said... It's just a crying shame that you can't sell infrared film, but you can sell Justin Bieber or Snookie, whoever they are.

 

[MattKing]

Interesting, so how do Fuji do it with Acros100? Isn't that slightly IR?

And heck how do they make regular IR without defects?

Thanks for the info.

The "regular" IR required a whole bunch of specialized techniques, that only made economic sense in the context of the huge quantities of IR film that were used by the military and other industries (like forestry) for aerial mapping.

The relatively tiny amount of film that ended up in handheld cameras was just a happy byproduct.

And as for the "near IR" films like SFX, the Rollei 400 and films like Acros, their sensitivity just doesn't go into the true IR region.

 

[Roger Cole]

Guys, you just do not understand the scale of the cost of making just the experiments to get set up for something like this! I've said it before. A simple experiment may cost on the order of $50 - $100 and that return must be realized in sales of the product. A failure in the experimental stage will double the cost.

In the mean-time, digital (sorry to say) can do a quite credible job in both color and B&W.

PE

Fifty to a hundred bucks?

Weee-hooo! I'll spot that myself in total if they'll do it!

Ok, ok, I know you meant thousands, just funin'.

And I agree. I look forward to using up my Efke 820 in my freezer but after that I think a converted IR digital cam is in my future. I wish I could do it with film, but I'm glad I can do it at all.

 

[Ricardo Miranda]

I re-read the thread, the second post gives a link that specifically says the asian film Reropan 100 is maco film...

And another poster says maco will soon come out with some of their own.

What am I misunderstanding?

Your bad English reads this:

Also Maco/Rollie is now making a new 127, it's currently being re-sold under some weird Asian name,

You give the impression that it is Maco who makes Rerapan when they don't have anything to do with it.

 

[Tom1956]

Fifty to a hundred bucks?

Weee-hooo! I'll spot that myself in total if they'll do it!

Ok, ok, I know you meant thousands, just funin'.

And I agree. I look forward to using up my Efke 820 in my freezer but after that I think a converted IR digital cam is in my future. I wish I could do it with film, but I'm glad I can do it at all.

These days he might mean 50 to 100 million.

 

[ntenny]

The "regular" IR required a whole bunch of specialized techniques, that only made economic sense in the context of the huge quantities of IR film that were used by the military and other industries (like forestry) for aerial mapping.

The relatively tiny amount of film that ended up in handheld cameras was just a happy byproduct.

So what was going on with Efke/Fotokemika? Their whole production scale seems to have been pretty small---I certainly don't think they were supplying any major military customers with IR film, though I suppose they may have inherited technology from someone who was.

I understand the objections raised by PE and others, and of course Simon's comments are dispositive wrt Ilford---but then how is it possible that a single small company with an outdated factory was able to do it? (Probably the outdated technology itself meant they didn't have the IR tools for quality control---but that in itself seems to prove that there are viable alternatives to those tools!)

-NT

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

So what was going on with Efke/Fotokemika? Their whole production scale seems to have been pretty small---I certainly don't think they were supplying any major military customers with IR film, though I suppose they may have inherited technology from someone who was.

I understand the objections raised by PE and others, and of course Simon's comments are dispositive wrt Ilford---but then how is it possible that a single small company with an outdated factory was able to do it? (Probably the outdated technology itself meant they didn't have the IR tools for quality control---but that in itself seems to prove that there are viable alternatives to those tools!)

-NT

Thanks for this. I have been sitting here now for hours just itching to ask exactly this same begged question. But didn't because, well, just because.

There must be a workable answer. They were doing it...

Ken

 

[Xmas]

The guys that can only do small coating runs of less sophisticated emulsions are living hand to mouth.

They need to keep making their best seller to survive and hope their resellers keep buying.

We are lucky that some can do 120 and 4x5 at all.

If Ilford don't think the niche is economic it probably isn't.

The next step might be a new supplier or a restart or another folder. Doing a far IR might be to send a kissogram to Judas rather than just a loss leader.

This is our fault not the suppliers.

The example being my retailer has FP4+16x20 in stock from last years custom Ilford run. Are their no 16x20 cams in UK?

 

[Tom1956]

I didn't think to check till just now that Mr Galley himself started this thread. It might have been closed at that time, but the chatter and fellowship would have not consequently gone on.
Infrared is Kodachrome is Kodabromide and Ilfobrom and Cibachrome. Did I mention how good 3M audio tape had become by the end? All I know to think is that if it's all lost to computers, I'd rather roll over on the other side of the bed, so to speak. What a complete bore.

 

[Xmas]

There must be a workable answer. They were doing it...

Ken

correct tense...

And they went out of business low margin overall profit = loss...

The companies need to make a profit. Their receiver should have the IPR, does anyone want to buy & prototype the film again, and make a loss?

Buy 120 backs 6x9, 6x12 etc. and stock up on SFX and a sturdy tripod.

If SFX is stopped cause we are not buying it in volume

 

[Roger Cole]

These days he might mean 50 to 100 million.

That seemed...unlikely, but I suppose it's possible. Even worse.

 

[ntenny]

correct tense...

And they went out of business low margin overall profit = loss...

The companies need to make a profit. Their receiver should have the IPR, does anyone want to buy & prototype the film again, and make a loss?

They went out of business because their factory fell down, if I remember correctly. They can't have been making much money---they weren't able to repair the factory, after all---but they maintained regular production of the IR film right up to the end and I don't know any reason to think they were losing money; do you?

-NT

 

[Photo Engineer]

Sorry for the error.

That is $50K - $100K for one experiment. That is current at about this time and degree of inflation. Also, it is correct that EFKE is no longer in production of any film.

PE

 

[Xmas]

They went out of business because their factory fell down, if I remember correctly. They can't have been making much money---they weren't able to repair the factory, after all---but they maintained regular production of the IR film right up to the end and I don't know any reason to think they were losing money; do you?

-NT

maybe...
http://www.adox.de/english/styled-4/index.html
but...
the rumor I heared was their coater broke and it was too expensive to repair. If your auto breaks and you cannot afford to fix it you walk.
Adox might restart the IR you could try but the volume might inhibit donno.
I used a lot of their film to.

 

[Ricardo Miranda]

It is about right, Noel. That was the last drop in a succession of problems. You can see here the state the factory is: http://thefotokemikaproject.wordpress.com/fotokemika-factory-samobor/

 

[Xmas]

It is probably too late for the far IR people to try and fund repairs now as the staff with expertise will have long gone.

They were probably selling their film too cheap.

 

[MattKing]

So what was going on with Efke/Fotokemika? Their whole production scale seems to have been pretty small---I certainly don't think they were supplying any major military customers with IR film, though I suppose they may have inherited technology from someone who was.

I understand the objections raised by PE and others, and of course Simon's comments are dispositive wrt Ilford---but then how is it possible that a single small company with an outdated factory was able to do it? (Probably the outdated technology itself meant they didn't have the IR tools for quality control---but that in itself seems to prove that there are viable alternatives to those tools!)

-NT

I don't know, but I seem to recall that there were quality control issues with Efke films. Possibly because they didn't have the IR equipment for quality control.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

The companies need to make a profit.

Oh dear...

I knew I shouldn't have asked. Never mind.



Ken

 

[Xmas]

Oh dear...

I knew I shouldn't have asked. Never mind.



Ken

HiKen

I apologize for being blunt.

I was using their film too it was cheap and had no QA issues.

Id a payed a lot more & now feel guilty as we have squeezed a small supplier and lost several films thereby.

Bitter lesson but likely to be repeated.

Noel

 

[ntenny]

Id a payed a lot more & now feel guilty as we have squeezed a small supplier and lost several films thereby.

Well, it's not like we were asked to pick a price; I think most of us assumed they were charging what they needed to! (And in defense of Ken's slightly testy response, I'm pretty sure most of us were already aware that the company needed to make a profit. I also suspect they didn't last for 65 years without noticing that themselves.)

Mirko probably knows more than anyone else on APUG about the life and times of Efke, and might be able to shed some light on how much of their work is feasible to replicate. We do know that to bring an emulsion to market similar to Efke 100, he and Adox had to evaluate the price, and CHS II 100 ended up being quite a bit more expensive than its ancestor---but not outlandishly so, and we outside observers necessarily don't know how much of the cost increase came from where.

If he turned up with an Adox IR820 with a price similarly scaled up relative to the Efke version, I think plenty of people would be excited---but "plenty" is defined in terms of the market for infrared film, which of course is small.

I just get frustrated when these threads seem to produce the sentiment "It's hard, and therefore IT CAN NEVER BE DONE BY ANYONE EVER AND YOU ARE ALL A BUNCH OF IDIOTS WHO THINK PRODUCTS JUST HAPPEN BY MAGIC!!1!!one!!". OK, I exaggerate a little, but really only a little.

-NT