So, what companies actually coat film?

There are many brands of b/w film available now. I am just curious as to what underlying manufacturers actually do the basic coating of emulsion?
Of course there would be Kodak, Ilford, Fuji, we all know them. Then there would be Forte, Gevart in Belgium, Lucky in China, and then who else? I am not talking here about who markets film, and the brands they use to market film, rather I am curious about the manufacturers who actually make the raw film that is marketed under many different names.

I thought that I remembered that Ilford played some part in the manufacture of some of these other films and/or papers. I can't remember if they do the coating or not, but I'm sure that I read somewhere that they provide some services to other brand names.

- Randy

reellis67 said:

I thought that I remembered that Ilford played some part in the manufacture of some of these other films and/or papers. I can't remember if they do the coating or not, but I'm sure that I read somewhere that they provide some services to other brand names.

- Randy

Click to expand...

I here this occasionally, "its repackaged HP5". Having used HP5 as a primary film for the last 20 years, I can only wish that it was true. Its not. I have never found another brand that was HP5. I doubt that Ilford ever did something like this.
The local proshop used to have a black boxed paper that was supposed to be Ilford warm tone. It did seem to be the same paper, but I never performed any comparison tests. I did notice that it is no longer available. Which seems to support another rumor that Ilford has adopted a marketing strategy that does not include rebranding.

Ferrania coats film (although all color) as they are a former component of the old Scotch film manufacturer, and there is also Orwo, I believe, although I've heard they don't do it all themselves. I'm pretty sure that they coat though. Isn't there a Mitsubishi that still makes some products for limited release in Japan? I still have some 7" spools of their B&W paper that are laying around at the studio, although I know they've stopped making that particular product.

Regards,

~Karl Borowski

Efke/Adox

I know Slavich still coats film (and plates!), and I think there may still be a company in either Russia or Ukraine, but I can't recall the name.

Ferrania is not a current part of 3M company. Kentmere also makes papers.

PE

Terence said:

Efke/Adox

Click to expand...

Not exactly nitpicking, but the name of the company is Fotokemika: "Efke" is their own brand used for the materials they manufacture (although they too occasionally rebrand some other stuff, manufactured by others, as "Efke"), and Adox is a brand used to sell various stuff (mostly Fotokemika-made) by others worldwide.

Rather confusing, I must admit.

But, when you purchase Efke KB/R/PL 25, 50 and 100, you can be pretty sure that the film was actually manufactured (coated) in Fotokemika's plant in Samobor, Croatia.
Their papers are called "Emaks" (graded paper) and "Varycon" (multigrade paper), although from what I hear, it is now also being sold in the USA under "Adox" name...

To be honest, this whole "branding" business annoys me quite a bit

No, I have nothing against anyone who manufactures and sells photographic materials (I wish them all prosperous and healthy business future, with lots of film and papers for us to buy) - I'd just like to be sure what I am buying - and I can never be sure when different stuff is sold under the same name, and the same stuff is sold under different names.... Just adds to the confusion

Denis

There's also Foma, in the Czech Republic. DBP is probably thinking of either Svema (Ukraine) or Tasma (Russia), although I heard that Svema is no longer making film (I wouldn't consider that information reliable, though). There's at least one other Chinese manufacturer, ERA.

To summarize, so far we've got, in alphabetical order:

• ERA (B&W film & paper)
• Ferrania (color film)
• Foma (B&W film & paper)
• Forte (B&W film & paper)
• Fotokemika (B&W film & paper)
• Fuji (B&W and color film and paper)
• Gevaert
• Ilford (B&W film & paper)
• Kentmere (B&W paper)
• Kodak (B&W and color film, color paper)
• Konica (B&W and color film, color paper; but exiting the market RSN)
• Lucky (color & B&W film; I don't know about paper)
• Tasma (B&W film, maybe paper?)

at last

Now I sad before that I’m off from this thread because I’m tired of this discussion but one question raised here and I felt that I have something to say for the last time on this thread!

Now the main issue here Is just that question which this thread begin with in the first page and that is we want to be sure of (I don’t know about you) that if I buy Kodak is that really a Kodak or if I buy Forte is that really a Forte or if I buy Ilford is that really Ilford and so on!

Now of course I personally would like to know which companies are really into manufacturing for some reasons and really have know how when it comes to baking emulsion and have a full control over the process! Beside of that big 3! (And I think have a right to know) And not only in it for making a big buck! You know, buy cheap and sell expensive with out any control at all what they are selling! Because than I feel as victim of experiment because I don’t really know what I got! If you not manufacture than that means you depend on others and if that others don’t do it right than I’m sitting on the floor! Now I’m not that type of a guy! I watch when you are in misery and I learn from it!

Now I repeat myself because lots of people coming in but the tendency here is that they are not reading the whole article or thread from the beginning only some lines!

Why this is so important? Because if you manufacture and sell under your own name than you probably have a resource team whom constantly developing the product! You are afraid of your reputation too! I mean now not modernising silver (Ag) out of the film but, apply modern laser technology to measure the size of the grain and choose the right similar size to bake an emulsion of it! Because fine grain gives fine resolution and higher density! This is not the case of the companies who only deliver to other in a re-labelling industry and let them sell their product. They held over the responsibility to each other and the end of the day no one knows anything!

A good quality film should contain lots of silver it should be baked right and use quality base preferable polyester as this have a very good archival status! Coated with knowledge and care! The negative is your only original and I want the best quality or I could say bring it up to scientific quality! To make an exceptional emulsion are art in a high class!
Silver fatigue thin emulsion oxidizes faster than the tick in any cases! Emulsion with less silver fatigue on details in low keys and on high keys less density gives low contrast!

Now this type of know how is only a hands of a few people around the world! Coating a film? I can do that home that’s not a question and I did coat some holographic plates! But can I do quality! No way!

(By the way it should be a low for all manufacturers to state how much silver they have baked into the emulsion per quadrate inch or quadrate cm.)

Anyway I also would like to know all the re-labelling type of brands so called manufacturers that they state where they buy their film so I have a choice to buy what I want and not facing the same problems as a couple friends of mine to ruin there lifetime shut because poor film with bad quality!

Now just think, what do you think why they don’t tell you?

Now the other thing is that its statements like, I can see a difference between or it’s a same I find this film is better and so on! Now people, what do you really mean by that?

What do you based this kind of statement on? Looked two different images taken with two different films? That’s it? I would say very primitive way of seeing things and letting out statements!


Now if you really want to compare quality of two different maker’s film then at least you must measure density! You must take two totally identical images at the same time with the same equipment develop those at total identical conditions and measure density on the negative not on the print! And you got to do several l tests in several developers and so on if you really want to know what that film for go for!

Of course I know I got some really good friends out there now but I really don’t care at all!

Now I’m off!

uraniumnitrate said:

Now I sad before that I’m off from this thread because I’m tired of this discussion but one question raised here and I felt that I have something to say for the last time on this thread!....

Now I’m off!

Click to expand...

Woo Hoo!

FWIW - You were the 10th poster on this thread, each of which was a different poster.

You didn't post on this thread before your Grand Exit so you were never here to leave!

Maybe it's time to lay off the "sauce" a bit?

There have been other closely-related threads where UN has contributed. I think he meant "subject" rather than "thread".

copake_ham said:

Woo Hoo!

FWIW - You were the 10th poster on this thread, each of which was a different poster.

You didn't post on this thread before your Grand Exit so you were never here to leave!

Maybe it's time to lay off the "sauce" a bit?

Click to expand...

Sorry I made a mistake! There was one thread where all this begin and when I was finished with my contribution the thread is suddenly divided I did not seen it when post! I just looked the authors name and that was Mr Phototone! Well,kill me!

johnnywalker said:

There have been other closely-related threads where UN has contributed. I think he meant "subject" rather than "thread".

Click to expand...

Thanks!

uraniumnitrate said:

Sorry I made a mistake!

Click to expand...

As a matter of interest, why do you think that silver content matters so much? Once you have enough, you have enough: adding more won't make a difference. It's HOW you use it that matters. The biggest single reason for more silver is more speed...

Cheers,

Roger

Some emulsions have a lot more silver than some others. Quite often that is because much of the silver is "inactive" and won't help in increasing density. T-max and Delta emulsions are very low in total silver, yet capable of at least as much density as "traditional" films with several times as much silver.

If you really need to know how much silver a particular emulsion contains, you may have to learn to measure it yourself.

Roger Hicks said:

As a matter of interest, why do you think that silver content matters so much? Once you have enough, you have enough: adding more won't make a difference. It's HOW you use it that matters. The biggest single reason for more silver is more speed...

Cheers,

Roger

Click to expand...

Not exacly! Where you got that statement from?

In reality how much silver need to be in baked in the emulsion varies where do you intend to use the film and so as the thickness of the emulsion!! For example holographic plates thickness is 5 thousand of an mm but some fusions plates have as much 50.

A high sensitive row grain films are 15 thousand of an mm tick and uses approx around 1g silver per quadrate meter. The x-ray films for medical use contains 10g silver in baked in both side of the film just because the film capable produce a higher contrast negative!
Industrial x-ray films have around 40 g per quadrate meter. Regular colour film has around 5g per quadrate meter.

That is because you need different contrast and fine details with different purpose or of the use of the photographic method.

Now how speed works in usual photography had nothing to do with how many grams silver you got in-baked per quadrate meter! It has to do with the sizes of the AgHal crystals!
In a low sensitive film are these crystals are smaller and fine grain similar in their size! The high sensitivity film has those AgHal grains in different are larger in size!

Ole said:

Some emulsions have a lot more silver than some others. Quite often that is because much of the silver is "inactive" and won't help in increasing density. T-max and Delta emulsions are very low in total silver, yet capable of at least as much density as "traditional" films with several times as much silver.

If you really need to know how much silver a particular emulsion contains, you may have to learn to measure it yourself.

Click to expand...

That’s not exactly the truth! In the modern film making industry things are more sophisticated then the early days that means the blending the emulsion the coating yes almost everything had changed! It’s easier to choose the right grain size with help of the modern laser measurements techniques! That means of course that is easier to save some silver out of the emulsion with out visible effect! That’s exactly what the big 3 is doing! It’s keeping down the costs of manufacturing!

Now contrast is goes hand by hand with the silver content and how much you use out of all silver available on your film has many different factors. Schwartchilds effect are one of them lens factor, developer and so on. Its just that modern films are not that sensitive to those factors as they contain less silver!
I must point out that the sat back here is also that usually all silver oxidize and the thin layer of emulsion with less silver is more sensitive to that process!

Now one question! Why is that everyone crying out for a positive image material with lots of silver in it? I’m talking about paper! Would you like to copy your image on paper contain say 1g silver per quadrate meter or two for that matter?
I would not because the result I got is the very poor image with out of contrast!

PE?

Care to elaborate?

uraniumnitrate said:

Not exacly! Where you got that statement from?

In a low sensitive film are these crystals are smaller and fine grain similar in their size! The high sensitivity film has those AgHal grains in different are larger in size!

Click to expand...

Dear Uraniumnitrate,

Where did I get it from? Any emulsion chemist. Note that I said that the MAIN use of extra coating weight is for speed: I was not considering holographic plates or X-ray plates, and I do not regard this as a foolish omission in the context of this forum.

Your understanding of the relationship between coating weight and density is very imperfect; the highest Dmax Ilford ever measured with a commercially available paper was from an Agfa contact paper (very slow) with under 1 gsm (gram/square metre) while some Kodak enlarging papers exceeded 2 gsm and could not equal the Dmax of Ilford papers with 10-20 per cent less silver.

Back in 2004 Helen posted some hard numbers. From memory, Kodak colour films were 5.3 gsm for ISO 100, 8 gsm for ISO 400 for colour film, and B+W films were 2.5 to 8 gsm.

Stop and think about it. If slow and fast films had the same coating weight, either the slow film would have more silver than it needed (lots and lots of small grains) or the fast film would have too little (not enough big grains). Take a brick: it covers 4.5 x 9 inches. Crush it to powder: it can cover a square metre. Brick = big, fast silver grain; powder = small, slow silver grain. You need a lot of bricks to cover a square metre... This is obviously an oversimplified analogy but it will suffice.

I will cheerfully defer to those who know more than I (such as Helen or Ron) but I do not think you are in that group, at least in this area. Also, could you possibly cut down on exclamation! marks! to! some! extent?

Cheers,

Roger

srs5694 said:

There's also Foma, in the Czech Republic. DBP is probably thinking of either Svema (Ukraine) or Tasma (Russia), although I heard that Svema is no longer making film (I wouldn't consider that information reliable, though). There's at least one other Chinese manufacturer, ERA.

To summarize, so far we've got, in alphabetical order:

• ERA (B&W film & paper)
• Ferrania (color film)
• Foma (B&W film & paper)
• Forte (B&W film & paper)
• Fotokemika (B&W film & paper)
• Fuji (B&W and color film and paper)
• Gevaert
• Ilford (B&W film & paper)
• Kentmere (B&W paper)
• Kodak (B&W and color film, color paper)
• Konica (B&W and color film, color paper; but exiting the market RSN)
• Lucky (color & B&W film; I don't know about paper)
• Tasma (B&W film, maybe paper?)

Click to expand...

FILMOTEC (aka ORWO): http://www.filmotec.de/

Roger Hicks said:

Also, could you possibly cut down on exclamation! marks! to! some! extent?

Cheers,

Roger

Click to expand...

Hi Roger !!!!!!!

Do they (!!!!!) make you nervous, too ?????????:rolleyes:

Just remembering back to the Ilford trip in June....

Simon Galley (and correct me if my memory is wrong Simon) said that Ilford do not make film or trraditional monochrome paper for anyone else.

In other words if it doesn't say Ilford on the packet it isn't Ilford in the packet.

I think my memory serves me right.

Matt

Your memory does serve you right, if my memory is anything to go by...

But: Ilford did this before, up until the reorganisation. So there's still a lot of Ilford-made materials out there. Lots of the film wasn't the FP4+ / HP5+ we're used to, but "Pan 100" and "Pan 400".

Roger Hicks said:

Dear Uraniumnitrate,


Roger

Click to expand...

Where did I get it from? Any emulsion chemist. Note that I said that the MAIN use of extra coating weight is for speed: I was not considering holographic plates or X-ray plates, and I do not regard this as a foolish omission in the context of this forum.

Your understanding of the relationship between coating weight and density is very imperfect; the highest Dmax Ilford ever measured with a commercially available paper was from an Agfa contact paper (very slow) with under 1 gsm (gram/square metre) while some Kodak enlarging papers exceeded 2 gsm and could not equal the Dmax of Ilford papers with 10-20 per cent less silver.

It could be so but they forgot to tell you that that is a totally different emulsion on that paper and it’s used for contact copy! Now any those type of papers based on either AgCL or AgBr which have a total different sensitivity to light.

If you remember Forte had a paper called Verdita which got a very nice olive green tone enormous contrast and really turned out to be something in the upper class with gold toning! Now I’m trying to wake up this paper and negotiating on a first line production it only can be use as contact for large format as this film is entirely contain AgBr

It’s a same with regular paper too if you expose under the smallest f stop than increase the exposure time and the top of that using a slow developer it would give a totally different density! Observe that developing in that case should be in a very low almost nothing of safe light as solarisation is a problem! For your information the regular paper for esthetic use should have at least 3g per sq m and definitely not under!

Back in 2004 Helen posted some hard numbers. From memory, Kodak colour films were 5.3 gsm for ISO 100, 8 gsm for ISO 400 for colour film, and B+W films were 2.5 to 8
gsm.

Well that is not so! It would be a dream isn’t it and you would see neon signs all around the place! It would be very expensive too but, actually color films have a higher silver content as usual B/W films but it’s more like 5 and it’s doesn’t matter if it’s a 100 or 400 film at all!!!

Stop and think about it. If slow and fast films had the same coating weight, either the slow film would have more silver than it needed (lots and lots of small grains) or the fast film would have too little (not enough big grains). Take a brick: it covers 4.5 x 9 inches. Crush it to powder: it can cover a square metre. Brick = big, fast silver grain; powder = small, slow silver grain. You need a lot of bricks to cover a square metre... This is obviously an oversimplified analogy but it will suffice.

I did! And all I got to say that it’s a very complex physics/chemistry are involved in this! And to explain all this, I don’t even have the right tangent for those letters which I must use if I would try, so I won’t! I don’t understand why I jump into this in the firs place! I can’t give you a Bsc in photographic science thought the internet!

I will cheerfully defer to those who know more than I (such as Helen or Ron) but I do not think you are in that group, at least in this area. Also, could you possibly cut down on exclamation! marks! to! some! extent?


That’s no problem I already did or at least try! I learned English in New York City and to be there is to living together with Blacks, Arabs Italians Irish, Swedes, Finnish, Germans, Hungarians, Puerto Ricans ectr, ectr! Languge there is harsh so as life! Sorry for that! If I had learned in a small town I New Jersey for example than the tone would probably be totally different at least thats what I believe. I’ve got problem with this before

I will cheerfully defer to those who know more than I (such as Helen or Ron) but I do not think you are in that group,

At last, I’m not tying to belong anywhere especially not to any group thats the last thing I would do in my life to belong anywhere (not a communist) and I hate groups and things alike! I’m not sure if I like people either any longer!

I’m simply an independent solitary horsemen and nothing else!