THE THIRD COLOR FILM COMPANY

Photo Engineer · Oct 31, 2006

Goldie;

All 3M films were made either by 3M in Rochester NY or their other plant in MN or by Ferrania. IIRC, although R&D was done by both 3M and Ferrania, all color coatings made for sale were done by Ferrania in Italy.

PE

srs5694 · Oct 31, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
They didn't catch up! No way did they catch up with either EK or Fuji. If anything, the gap increased. I have followed the work there as well as at Agfa and Fuji.

I said catch up a bit -- meaning narrowed the gap, not closed it completely. As I wrote in my earliest post in this thread, IMHO Ferrania films are (present tense) behind Kodak and Fuji in terms of grain and color quality. My subjective impression is that the gap is less significant today than it was a decade or two ago, but that's just my subjective impression. It could be my impression is wrong, or it could be that the gap is as big or bigger now in terms of being "x years behind," but that there's been less improvement in emulsion technology in those x years than in the preceding x years.

FWIW, I also agree with Phototone's comment that even films that are grainy, produce poor color accuracy, or are otherwise flawed from a traditional or technical point of view can have their place. Ultimately it all comes down to what you like in a print (or slide), and that's very subjective.

Earl Dunbar · Oct 31, 2006

Not great art, but a test of cameras using Finast (Ferrania OEM) 200: http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=5295

Earl

Photo Engineer · Oct 31, 2006

srs5694 said:
I said catch up a bit -- meaning narrowed the gap, not closed it completely. As I wrote in my earliest post in this thread, IMHO Ferrania films are (present tense) behind Kodak and Fuji in terms of grain and color quality. My subjective impression is that the gap is less significant today than it was a decade or two ago, but that's just my subjective impression. It could be my impression is wrong, or it could be that the gap is as big or bigger now in terms of being "x years behind," but that there's been less improvement in emulsion technology in those x years than in the preceding x years.

FWIW, I also agree with Phototone's comment that even films that are grainy, produce poor color accuracy, or are otherwise flawed from a traditional or technical point of view can have their place. Ultimately it all comes down to what you like in a print (or slide), and that's very subjective.

I can't disagree with what you say. It is all subjective and difficult to quantify in some cases.

PE

Earl Dunbar · Oct 31, 2006

Some of the 3M emulsions were very nice, if a bit grainy.

wirehead · Oct 31, 2006

Hrm. Yeah, sadly with emulsion advances, 400 speed E6 is just not grainy enough anymore. We need 1000-true-speed E6.

Roger Hicks · Nov 1, 2006

wirehead said:
Hrm. Yeah, sadly with emulsion advances, 400 speed E6 is just not grainy enough anymore. We need 1000-true-speed E6.

True. Touble is, no-one ever bought enough of it. Ferrania 1000D and 640T were wonderful, as was Agfa's 1000. But be honest. How many rolls did YOU buy? I doubt I bought 30 in 20 years. I loved it but it was just too expensive. I think I'd buy more now -- if I could get it.

Cheers,

R.

Earl Dunbar · Nov 1, 2006

I agree, Roger. Agfa 1000 was my favourite; the Ferrania/3Ms were too hard to find anyway. And the Agfa 1000 C41 was superb, IMO.

PHOTOTONE · Nov 1, 2006

So if one wants to get obvious "grain" in a color image, (as an "art" effect) we have no choice now? I remember when Kodacolor 400 came out, it had wonderful large grain. I shot some very nice "vintage looking" color photos with that. Kinda looked like Autochromes, sorta.

Phototone

Brac · Nov 1, 2006

For everyday use Ferrania made colour films are perfectly fine in my experience. If they weren't, they wouldn't be making private label stuff for leading supermarkets and others. They seem to have dropped the last of their E6 films a couple of years ago. They used to have a well thought of range of black & white films which my late father and I used in the 50's & 60's but they disappeared from the market over 30 years ago.

3Dfan · Nov 1, 2006

You could try a smaller format (110 or minox). Also while I have not yet tried kodachrome 200, I hear it has objectionably large grain from many reviews.

Photo Engineer · Nov 1, 2006

Earl Dunbar said:
I agree, Roger. Agfa 1000 was my favourite; the Ferrania/3Ms were too hard to find anyway. And the Agfa 1000 C41 was superb, IMO.

Earl;

I too loved the Agfa 1000, but it kept very poorly even when frozen solid.

The film went bad more rapidly than any other film I have seen in the last 30 years.

This was when Kodak could not make their t-grain 1000 speed film in 120 format, as the small 120 rollers would cause the emulsion to crack the gelatin as it was wound around the spools. They had to fix this cracking problem, as it caused fogged specks. The Agfa film did not use t-grains AFAIK.

PE

wirehead · Nov 1, 2006

Roger Hicks said:
True. Touble is, no-one ever bought enough of it. Ferrania 1000D and 640T were wonderful, as was Agfa's 1000. But be honest. How many rolls did YOU buy? I doubt I bought 30 in 20 years. I loved it but it was just too expensive. I think I'd buy more now -- if I could get it.

Cheers,

R.

Well, back when I *could* buy 1000D or 640T, I was shooting Gold 200 or 400 from the grocery store and didn't know you could crossprocess, nor did I have easy access to any way to print or display slides.

Now, I buy 1600 and 3200 speed films of all sorts all the time. I keep a 35mm P&S camera loaded with 1600-3200 speed film in my bag. I've got some rolls of EPH that I got expired that I'm itching to play with... both crossed and as normal.

Roger Hicks · Nov 1, 2006

wirehead said:
Well, back when I *could* buy 1000D or 640T, I was shooting Gold 200 or 400 from the grocery store and didn't know you could crossprocess, nor did I have easy access to any way to print or display slides.

Now, I buy 1600 and 3200 speed films of all sorts all the time. I keep a 35mm P&S camera loaded with 1600-3200 speed film in my bag. I've got some rolls of EPH that I got expired that I'm itching to play with... both crossed and as normal.

This is my suspicion: the specialist market is actually BIGGER now than it was 20 years ago, and Ferrania could do very nicely, thank you, by reintroducing 1000D and 640T.

Cheers,

R.

srs5694 · Nov 1, 2006

PHOTOTONE said:
So if one wants to get obvious "grain" in a color image, (as an "art" effect) we have no choice now?

Try some Ferrania 800 and Fuji 1600. I've not done a direct side-by-side comparison of those two, but my initial hunch is that the Ferrania will have bigger grain. Also, color film grain seems to be exaggerated a bit by scanning, at least on my Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400, so you could try scanning it and getting digital prints made. (The grain doesn't actually get any bigger, but it does become more noticeable than in traditional darkroom prints.) I'm sure there are traditional darkroom methods of exaggerating or adding grain, too, but I'm not very well versed in them. I'd guess push-processing the film would exaggerate the grain, but I've not yet tried that with color film.

FilmIs4Ever · Nov 1, 2006

Sorry if this is hijacking, but does Ferrania make that 400-speed film that is going for 49c a roll (with a min. purchase of 10 rolls) at UniquePhoto? I've wanted to try it to see if it is good enough for photojournalist work I do (it almost certainly is), since the paper I do work for doesn't pay for film and processing anymore. . .

Paul Howell · Nov 1, 2006

While on vacation last summer I needed some fast film and as it was Sunday morning I found a few rolls of Save On brand 400 at a chain drug store, it turned out to be Ferrina, big grain, very poor shadow detail, color seemed off as well. For really large grain try a 35 1/2 frame and Ferrina or Lucky 400.

Jerry Thirsty · Nov 1, 2006

Back in the early 90s, Astronomy magazine (or possibly Sky and Telescope) did a comparison of the best films for astrophotography. Scotchchrome 400 and 1000 actually came out at the top of the list because they had the best far red response at the hydrogen-alpha wavelength. I don't think they took grain into consideration though.

More recently, I've been trying to rescue a roll of negatives that my dad shot at a family event. It's Ferrania 200, sold under the Clark name (I assume from Clark Color Lab?). The prints he got back from them were extremely high contrast, so I tried scanning the negatives. Either my scanner (Minolta Scan Multi) has trouble with the orange mask or the colors are really off. They start out very turqoise and I have been trying to make them look a little more natural. It's been a bit of a challenge. The expiration date on the box was mid-2007, but it looks bad to me. And they have something like 10 rolls of it left :rolleyes: I made a remark to my dad about it being cr*p, but my step-mom likes to use their mailers, so I was thinking maybe for Christmas I should get them some 400UC and she can check out the difference.

dxphoto · Nov 1, 2006

I believe Freestyle aristacolor is Ferrania indeed, right?

srs5694 · Nov 1, 2006

Jerry Thirsty said:
More recently, I've been trying to rescue a roll of negatives that my dad shot at a family event. It's Ferrania 200, sold under the Clark name (I assume from Clark Color Lab?).

A few years ago, Clark Color Lab used Agfa film. I haven't dealt with the company lately, though; they may well have changed to Ferrania as a supplier, perhaps even before Agfa folded.

Jerry Thirsty said:
The prints he got back from them were extremely high contrast, so I tried scanning the negatives. Either my scanner (Minolta Scan Multi) has trouble with the orange mask or the colors are really off. They start out very turqoise and I have been trying to make them look a little more natural. It's been a bit of a challenge.

The scanning software is at least as important as the scanner hardware in getting good color balance. Personally, I use VueScan, mainly because it runs under Linux (Windows and MacOS versions are also available). I have no problem getting good color from Ferrania negatives with this software and my Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 scanner. It's taken me a while to learn to get good color from any film with this combination, though; when I just started out, some scans came out great but others flopped badly in one way or another. Today I know a bunch of little tricks that help immensely.

FWIW, in scanning some of my older negatives (from the late 1980s), 3M negatives "came alive" in a way that the original prints from the time didn't. I can only suppose that the photofinishers I used then and/or the papers of the time didn't do the film justice. Note that I'm not trying to say that the current or former 3M/Imation/Ferrania films are or were great; I'm just trying to emphasize the importance of the quality of conversion from negative to positive (scanned or printed) image in evaluating a negative film.

dxphoto said:
I believe Freestyle aristacolor is Ferrania indeed, right?

Yes -- or at least, it was the last time I bought some (a couple of months ago, out of curiosity about what it was).

dxphoto · Nov 2, 2006

So how was it, srs5694. I heard it doesn't have the 4th layer. does it give you a very nice vintage look?? I have never tried it and am wondering how it looks in terms of enlarging and scanning..

dxphoto · Nov 2, 2006

You know i did try that Chinese Lucky 100 film once. nice saturation (i like it). Kinda grainy on 8x10 enlargement. and there are some red dots here and there (like 5-7 of them each frame). I don't know where that came from. The film was purchased in China and got X-rayed in the checked in bags.

Photo Engineer · Nov 2, 2006

dxphoto said:
So how was it, srs5694. I heard it doesn't have the 4th layer. does it give you a very nice vintage look?? I have never tried it and am wondering how it looks in terms of enlarging and scanning..

Fourth layer?

Some Kodak and Fuji negative films have up to 12 or 14 layers.

PE

srs5694 · Nov 2, 2006

dxphoto said:
So how was it, srs5694. I heard it doesn't have the 4th layer. does it give you a very nice vintage look?? I have never tried it and am wondering how it looks in terms of enlarging and scanning..

As I've said before in this thread, Ferrania film is grainier and produces less saturated colors than Kodak or Fuji films. Overall, I'm not a fan of it, but I can see how it might be useful for some purposes. This is all so tied up with personal preferences that if you want to know how it performs I'd simply suggest you buy some and try it. "A picture is worth a thousand words," as they say, so a 36-exposure roll will be worth 36,000 words of description. I know that some of my posts can get lengthy, but not that long-winded!

r-s · Nov 3, 2006

Roger Hicks said:
My immediate counter would be that a Macbeth chart isn't the real world

I've read that there are issues with dyes (print, textile) being "seen" differently by emulsions (different from each other as well as different from the human eye).

So, two items that appear to have the same color (to the human eye) may very likely photograph as different colors (one may be accurate, the other wildly inaccurate), with different films behaving differently from each other.

I'd think that this would place any printed color chart into the realm of abstraction to one degree or another, unless there is some way to guarantee that the dyes used in each section are 100% incapable of being "misinterpreted" by any film. But, if there is a possibility that two charts, using different dyes, appearing the same to the human eye, will photograph differently, then who is to say whether it's a "film issue" or a "dye issue"?

I'll stop meandering now, and close by saying that I don't think that a color chart is absolutely "final word" in questions of color accuracy for films.

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