Request For Survey Support From HARMAN technology Limited :

[Roger Cole]

The warmtone range that my local shop stocks only starts at $100, that's a bit much just 'to try', and I don't even think they have coldtone.
Next time I order from B+H I might throw in a cheap box of each, but that happens once a year.
Then if I like it that's another year wait, or cough up for high shipping or high aussie retail prices.
So if there were a sample pack of cold/warm tone etc, and I could get it from my local shop for less than $30, I'd be all over it, and may even like it enough to buy a box of 100 and get to know it better.

You can get 25 sheets of 8x10 FBWT from B&G for $37.95. Add some film or something you need anyway to bump the order to $49 and get free shipping:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/755283-REG/Ilford_1168374_Multigrade_FB_Warmtone_Fiber.html

Not super cheap, but a lot better than $100.

 

[Dr Croubie]

Add some film or something you need anyway to bump the order to $49 and get free shipping:

If only...
But shipping on that alone is $53 to get it down here, hence the reason I try to only order from OS once a year with a huge order to make the postage cost-effective. I just got a whole bunch of E6/C41/B+W chemicals and Rollei RPX/IR/ATP from Macodirect, just under 10kg cost me €59, my last B+H order in March (including a bunch of MGiv RC, plus some FB to try) cost me $98 in shipping.

And that $38 is only to try warmtone, cooltone is as much again. If I can pay the same $40 or $50 and get some warm, some cool, some Art300, some Galerie and Portfolio, that's what I'd like. To buy 25 sheets of each is well out of my budget...

 

[Roger Cole]

Ah sorry - I missed your location. The alternative that might work is to get in on a collective buy with others but you aren't in control of whether and when that can happen.

We do get spoiled in the US I'm sure.


Sent from my iPhone via Tapatalk using 100% recycled electrons. Because I care.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Participated

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Done.

 

[Simon R Galley]

Dear Dr.Croubie,

We make the most lovely printed swatch book, the trouble is we have so many papers it costs us a great deal to make each one, but every reseller should have one to show customers, so please ask.

Whilst I appreciate you looking for a manufacturing solution, we would never stick anything on a sheet of unexposed paper :

Why ? The act of pressing on a sticker possibly could stress the paper
The adhesive may affect the paper, the base and / or the chemistry
To do the checks, including incubation which we would... would take a long time and cost.
In manufacturing paper is not allowed in the 'open' long enough to have a sticker hand applied.
Applying a sticker takes longer than bagging.
Hand applying thousands of stickers is not what we would expect our finsihing people to have
to do.

All is possible...but you have to start with the 'best' quality route.

Thanks

Simon. ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited

 

[padesig]

Done! Great think hear the Ilford voice here! I hope in a future with a great part of traditional photography even in countries like Italy, where I live, where seems that digital is the only reality.

 

[rpsawin]

Done. Thank you Simon for all you and Ilford do for us.


Best regards,

Bob
CEO CFO EIEIO, Ret.

 

[cjbecker]

Done.

 

[stormpetrel]

Done!

 

[Dr Croubie]

Dear Dr.Croubie,

We make the most lovely printed swatch book, the trouble is we have so many papers it costs us a great deal to make each one, but every reseller should have one to show customers, so please ask.

Whilst I appreciate you looking for a manufacturing solution, we would never stick anything on a sheet of unexposed paper :

Why ? The act of pressing on a sticker possibly could stress the paper
The adhesive may affect the paper, the base and / or the chemistry
To do the checks, including incubation which we would... would take a long time and cost.
In manufacturing paper is not allowed in the 'open' long enough to have a sticker hand applied.
Applying a sticker takes longer than bagging.
Hand applying thousands of stickers is not what we would expect our finsihing people to have
to do.

All is possible...but you have to start with the 'best' quality route.

Thanks

Simon. ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited

HI Simon, thanks for the response. I'll ask at my local shop again, but I'm pretty sure they don't have the swatch book (I know they've got the swiss Ilford inkjet book because I've looked at it there). But they're the only retailer around here that sells darkroom paper or chemicals at all.
Besides them, there are 3 serious film-sellers (two are the only remaining E6 labs within 1000km), and another few camera shops with a few token rolls of film (not counting supermarkets selling unfridged Gold400). Not much but we're actually doing better than other state capitals compared to our size.
So if they don't have the swatch book then noone else around here would.

It sounds like the sticker option is out then, in which case it'll have to be multiple bags (come to think of it, I peeled a sticker off one of the Moab papers and tried to print over that, it didn't work and the colours actually changed. If something damaged the emulsion from pressure that's just as bad, especially when you're trying to showcase stuff).

I'll also presume you can't / won't want to just print on the back of the paper either just for these special samplers (as you can't print on the back of all of them like Crystal Archive does, that'd ruin the ability to contact-print paper negs).

So yeah, I see your point, it does sound like a sampler-pack would just price itself out of the market, especially with all the hand-loading multiple bags into one box and all that.


The only viable thing left that I can think of is just smaller and cheaper boxes.
For example, a 25-pack of 5x7 regular MGiv is only $10 at B+H, but the cheapest FB cooltone is $24, FB warmtone is $30, Art300 is $30, and Galerie is a whopping $48 just to try, all of them are in packs of more of bigger size sheets.
Maybe instead of a sampler, it might be worth investigating just some smaller packs of smaller sheets, like 10 - 25 sheets of 5x7 or 8x10s, whatever gets you within the $10-15 mark? I regularly cut up smaller 4x6s and 5x7s for test strips, so nothing would go to waste if I decided I liked it and bought bigger sheets.

They'll probably have low sales and tight margins, but if it's the gateway-drug that gets someone interested in a paper that wouldn't otherwise be, it could lead to more sales down the track. (But that's for your BDM and Marketing to decide, don't listen to me, I'm just the Engineer with the wild ideas ).

 

[Elchin13]

Done!

 

[ShawnM]

Done, and thank you so much for the opportunity.

I like the idea of the sample pack also, but understand how expensive producing one can be. I was given a Kodak darkroom guide a few years ago and it has a swatch book of papers in it. I love the textures, mostly no longer available. I'd like the option of buying a similar book from Ilford because actually seeing the difference between tones and textures would be very nice as there is no industry-wide standard for descriptive terms like glossy, pearl, semi-gloss, or matte. It's a bit frustrating to buy an expensive box of paper only to find I don't like the surface. As for the swatch book being available at retailers, I'm seldom in a area with a brick and morter photoshop.

Thank you again, Ilford
Shawn M.

 

[Athiril]

HI Simon, thanks for the response. I'll ask at my local shop again, but I'm pretty sure they don't have the swatch book (I know they've got the swiss Ilford inkjet book because I've looked at it there). But they're the only retailer around here that sells darkroom paper or chemicals at all.
Besides them, there are 3 serious film-sellers (two are the only remaining E6 labs within 1000km), and another few camera shops with a few token rolls of film (not counting supermarkets selling unfridged Gold400). Not much but we're actually doing better than other state capitals compared to our size.
So if they don't have the swatch book then noone else around here would.

It sounds like the sticker option is out then, in which case it'll have to be multiple bags (come to think of it, I peeled a sticker off one of the Moab papers and tried to print over that, it didn't work and the colours actually changed. If something damaged the emulsion from pressure that's just as bad, especially when you're trying to showcase stuff).

I'll also presume you can't / won't want to just print on the back of the paper either just for these special samplers (as you can't print on the back of all of them like Crystal Archive does, that'd ruin the ability to contact-print paper negs).

So yeah, I see your point, it does sound like a sampler-pack would just price itself out of the market, especially with all the hand-loading multiple bags into one box and all that.


The only viable thing left that I can think of is just smaller and cheaper boxes.
For example, a 25-pack of 5x7 regular MGiv is only $10 at B+H, but the cheapest FB cooltone is $24, FB warmtone is $30, Art300 is $30, and Galerie is a whopping $48 just to try, all of them are in packs of more of bigger size sheets.
Maybe instead of a sampler, it might be worth investigating just some smaller packs of smaller sheets, like 10 - 25 sheets of 5x7 or 8x10s, whatever gets you within the $10-15 mark? I regularly cut up smaller 4x6s and 5x7s for test strips, so nothing would go to waste if I decided I liked it and bought bigger sheets.

They'll probably have low sales and tight margins, but if it's the gateway-drug that gets someone interested in a paper that wouldn't otherwise be, it could lead to more sales down the track. (But that's for your BDM and Marketing to decide, don't listen to me, I'm just the Engineer with the wild ideas ).

Melbourne has a few E-6 processing options. It's only 725km from Adelaide

 

[Roger Cole]

Done, and thank you so much for the opportunity.

I like the idea of the sample pack also, but understand how expensive producing one can be. I was given a Kodak darkroom guide a few years ago and it has a swatch book of papers in it. I love the textures, mostly no longer available. I'd like the option of buying a similar book from Ilford because actually seeing the difference between tones and textures would be very nice as there is no industry-wide standard for descriptive terms like glossy, pearl, semi-gloss, or matte. It's a bit frustrating to buy an expensive box of paper only to find I don't like the surface. As for the swatch book being available at retailers, I'm seldom in a area with a brick and morter photoshop.

Thank you again, Ilford
Shawn M.

Well that's an idea. Sell a swatch book of actual (but they could be small just not tiny, say 4x6) photo prints made on an assortment of Ilford papers. WT in particular needs toning to bring out what it can do though, and there are so many variations and possibilities there, which do you include?

 

[ShawnM]

What to include? I think the three most important aspects of paper selection are base (fiber or resin), weight (light, standard, double, card), and surface (gloss, semi-gloss, pearl, luster, matte, et c.). I would also like to see the differences between warm, neutral, and cold tone paper. I don't think a swatch of each and every paper Ilford makes needs to be included. I would just like to be able to compare the various attributes of the papers, so long as they are consistent. If the standard weight is consistant across all their papers, then only one standard weight swatch is needed and it could also represent warm tone and semi-gloss. And yes, swatches are small and the subject matter depicted isn't very important, although marketing might feel differently.

I would be very grateful if a swatch book was available because right now, for photography, I use mad money. So, I tend to be very conservative when trying new products because the sting of a bad choice is a bit more intense.

 

[Simon R Galley]

To cover our costs a swatch book would cost about $ 30.00 at retail...would you really pay that? the upside is that you get every paper in every surface RC / FB and Art 300 and I have also seen people frame the images as they are rather splended !......

Dear Dr.Croubie.... engineers change the world... suggestions always welcome !

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :

 

[Oxleyroad]

Done.

 

[flavio81]

engineers change the world...

As an engineer, i give two thumbs up to this comment!!

 

[K-G]

As an engineer, i give two thumbs up to this comment!!

+1

Karl-Gustaf

 

[one90guy]

Survey done.

 

[cmacd123]

one item that Illford did many years ago was quite useful to me at the time.

Together with one of the Photo Magazines (remember Photo magazines) they set up an offer for a example Negative.

Someone sat down with one of the cameras that takes 250 shot backs and shot a scene with a fellow in a small boat fishing. The exposure however was extremely carefully metered and the film was machine processed to the liking of one of Illford's Photo scientists. either FP4 or HP5 I don't recall.

They then chopped the film up into little strips of 1 1/2 frames and sent them out one to each person how responded to the article, I think there was a small cost involved also.

I recall that when I got mine, I was amazed at how low the density was compared to the film I had been processing myself, but by printing the negative I was able to convince myself that the results were better than I had been getting. Needless to say it was quite the education. I had been cooking my poor film with way too much development.

I dutifully filed my negative away in a "safe place" and I may yet find it some day.

Such a project might be useful for the younger photographers coming up. it also helps to highlight just how good the film really is.

 

[Roger Cole]

Humm. Some of the density preference, I think, depends on format. Traditional black and white builds grain with density so in miniature formats like 35mm and down the best exposure is the minimal one that captures all the shadow detail you want to preserve and places it above the toe. This was more important with older films that were grainier. It used to be somewhat true of larger formats too because older films also had more shoulder and this helped to prevent important highlights where you want detail from falling on the shoulder and losing separation.

With modern films that have so much straight line that isn't much of a concern and, likewise, today's films, even traditional (or partly so) ones are much finer grained. But larger formats that will be enlarged less can stand a bit more exposure as long as the highlights don't blow out.

The old adage to expose for the shadows (generous exposure) and develop for the highlights (control contrast) still holds. I'd rather print a negative that has a bit more exposure than it needs than one that has a bit less any day.

Sorry, I know this is OT to the main thread, just musing about the comments about the thin negatives.

 

[Steve Roberts]

I dutifully filed my negative away in a "safe place" and I may yet find it some day..

Nicely put! Glad it's not just me......
Steve

 

[Nathan King]

Completed. Thank you for your commitment to traditional film photography! The darkroom is one of the most mentally stimulating, yet relaxing places I have ever come across and Ilford products make the process as simple and rewarding as possible.