what happens to retired film formulas?

[cmacd123]

Following up on hennings post - firms with ex Agfa kit;
Adox - Agfa Coater being re-installed (and a small pilot coater from leverkusen research)
Inoviscoat - Agfa Coater (scaled down to reduce width of c1m plus a pilot coater )
Harman/Ilford - Agfa film packaging equipment
Leverkusen lives on..

I was given to understand that a lot of other equipment at Ilford was purchased over the years from AGFA, possibly including their coating line. I you read "silver by the ton" they were traditionally an AGFA customer for all sorts of supplies, and had to scramble for alternative supplies in WWII

 

[AgX]

Yes, Agfa machinery is found at quite some competitors. Even sold long before the demise of AgfaPhoto.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I am told that Agfa supplied the making kettles and equipment for Ilford.

PE

 

[twelvetone12]

Anybody knows the relationship between Carestream and Ferrania? Somewhere in the huge Ferrania threads Dave Bias mentioned that the coating line at Carestream was identical to the H line ("big boy") in Italy and they were a conjoint project to build.
Relationships like this are quite interesting. On youtube there is a large series on interviews to ex Ferrania management and it is mentioned many times that Ferrania made x-ray film for Kodak for the European market, and that ultimately in 2003 or so Kodak brought out the whole x-ray division of Ferrania, leading to the ultimate demise of the imaging division as it was not profitable anymore.

 

[Henning Serger]

Hello Sal,
I can assure you that without the Marly coating line there couldn't be new CHS 100 II.

It would be most interesting to hear the way(s) in which you found E100 different, particularly as compared to E100G. Thanks in advance for any details you can share.

There are several differences: The gradation of new Ektachrome E100 is steeper, the film is a bit more contrasty compared to former E100G and Elitechrome 100. E100 has also about 1/3 stop less real sensitivity. The colour rendition is also different: E100 has a significantly cooler colour rendition than E100G and Elitechrome 100. The rendition of blue is improved: E100 has now a real blue without the tendency to Cyan. So far I have not finished yet my resolution, sharpness and grain tests, therefore I cannot talk about that at the moment.

Best regards,
Henning

 

[AgX]

Anybody knows the relationship between Carestream and Ferrania? Somewhere in the huge Ferrania threads Dave Bias mentioned that the coating line at Carestream was identical to the H line ("big boy") in Italy and they were a conjoint project to build.

The big manufacturers built their coating machines themselves.

Thus the machines at Carestream (a spin-off from Kodak) were made by Kodak.
I do not see how in times of fierce competition a essential machine would be made available to a competitor.

 

[Henning Serger]

Hello Charles,

I was given to understand that a lot of other equipment at Ilford was purchased over the years from AGFA, possibly including their coating line.

yes, Ilford has bought important equipment from Agfa, but not their coating line. Their most important asset with Agfa origin is certainly their 35mm film converting/finishing line. We've seen that in action at our factory visit and our tour-guide Simon Galley told us the very interesting story of the enormous challenges of implementing it.
This machinery is very impressive: Huge, fully automated, you put the film pancakes in at the beginning, and at the end of the line you get completely packed 35mm films in their boxes. Output is about one film box per second.

Best regards,
Henning

 

[Henning Serger]

Anybody knows the relationship between Carestream and Ferrania? Somewhere in the huge Ferrania threads Dave Bias mentioned that the coating line at Carestream was identical to the H line ("big boy") in Italy and they were a conjoint project to build.

Probably a misunderstanding. Carestream (under that name) is a quite young company. It is the former Kodak healthcare division, and they are working with Kodak technology.
And "big boy" is dismantled now.

Best regards,
Henning

 

[twelvetone12]

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...-ferrania-part-2.128272/page-141#post-2023453
and
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...-ferrania-part-2.128272/page-141#post-2023745
But is could also be wrong, that's why I asked.

 

[AgX]

Thank you, this seems widely unknown.

Thus when 3M took over Ferrania they installed at Ferrania the same model coater they had in the USA, with the US one then at shrinking their plants being sold to Kodak and ended in Colorado.

I have to look into this.

 

[twelvetone12]

If Imation/Ferrania really made x-ray with the Kodak name in the early 2000s it could make sense they had similar machines. AFAIK line H ("big boy") was more the one coating line, so possibly one shared similar technology. I find it all quite fascinating!

 

[AgX]

Yes, selling anything to a competitor is always critical and should be looked into, even in hindsight.
We should not overlook that 3M sold Ferania again, which of course changed the competition situation again.

 

[Ian Grant]

Hello Charles,
yes, Ilford has bought important equipment from Agfa, but not their coating line. Their most important asset with Agfa origin is certainly their 35mm film converting/finishing line. We've seen that in action at our factory visit and our tour-guide Simon Galley told us the very interesting story of the enormous challenges of implementing it.
This machinery is very impressive: Huge, fully automated, you put the film pancakes in at the beginning, and at the end of the line you get completely packed 35mm films in their boxes. Output is about one film box per second.

Best regards,
Henning

I know the Ilford coating line at Mobberley was British made and upgraded by the manufacturers. I've heard Simon Galley say the same about the Agfa machinery they bought, one was the one used for the edge markings of 35mm and 120 films. The other thing Simon told us was all the major companies had licensed Ilford's patented coating head technology.

It's not so many years ago that Ilford had coating lines at different sites in the UK, as well as the former Tellko plant in Marly as well as the old Lumiere factory in France. Ilford also sold off their Graphics and Medical side to Agfa.

Trade and technology as shared with other companies through various licensing agreements. Before WWII Ilford had agreements with DuPont who supplied their film base and this allowed DuPont to sell Variagram paper which was based on Multigrade, Renwick head of Ilford research had been seconded to DuPont a few years earlier. Later Ilford had agreements with Foton in Poland now part of Foma who made Ilford films and developers under license. I know Simon Galley told us he had been on holiday in the Czech Republic and had a guided tour around the Foma factory.

Then Ilford have had agreements with Fuji manufacturing some films for them, also B&W paper, and Foma have (or had) a joint confectioning plant with Fuji. So there's a lot of inter-trading between some of the companies.

Ian

 

[removed account4]

Just thinking about my simple emulsions...totally agree. My formulas are maybe a page long, but to replicate from scratch would be a 100+ page write-up, a handful of excel spreadsheets, and a power point presentation thrown in for good measure.

and then you would have to do 40hours of classtime or more after all that, and maybe a year of a person actually doing it to get results similar to what you are getting.
and if the work environment ( humidity and atmosphere ) &c isnt the same your students will have to tweek it. its like making bread using a recipe from france...
different grains, different grist process, different atmosphere different ovens .. or grandma's chocolate walnut cake... even though you have the pan and the recipe ...

 

[twelvetone12]

Speaking of which, I found two rolls of "Ilford Colour Film" from le late 90's, that was made by Fuji right?

 

[Ian Grant]

Speaking of which, I found two rolls of "Ilford Colour Film" from le late 90's, that was made by Fuji right?

The two Ilfocolor E6 films I used were made by Konica/Sakura as were the colour negative films. The last time I saw any Ilford colour film on sale was on the shelf of the Ilford importer/distributor in Istanbul in 2013 - it was fresh stock but I don't know who made it, the packaging was similar to other Ilford films.

Ian

 

[Sal Santamaura]

And the difficulty in reading between lines continues.

...I can assure you that without the Marly coating line there couldn't be new CHS 100 II...

Does that mean that any CHS 100 II a consumer purchases was coated in Marley? Or does it refer to Marley's critical role in the R&D that resulted in consumers being able to purchase CHS 100 II that was coated elsewhere?

 

[Photo Engineer]

AFAIK, the coating technology for extrusion hopper, slide hopper and curtain coating were all done at Kodak. A small fraction of invention may be related to other companies and industries such as industrial coating and painting which I know Kodak investigated. Several Swiss engineers were involved in the new coating machine and when it was finished, they returned to Switzerland to set up their own company. They licensed parts of their own coating machine design which had some parts of Kodak technology included, from Kodak. This is all I know about it, but perhaps Henning Knows more.

PE

 

[cmacd123]

Anybody knows the relationship between Carestream and Ferrania? Somewhere in the huge Ferrania threads Dave Bias mentioned that the coating line at Carestream was identical to the H line ("big boy") in Italy and they were a conjoint project to build.
Relationships like this are quite interesting. On youtube there is a large series on interviews to ex Ferrania management and it is mentioned many times that Ferrania made x-ray film for Kodak for the European market, and that ultimately in 2003 or so Kodak brought out the whole x-ray division of Ferrania, leading to the ultimate demise of the imaging division as it was not profitable anymore.

Somewhere on the Film Ferania site there is a history of 3M - Ferrania book as a PDF.

I believe the history is something Like 3M built the plant to make X-ray and Graphic arts film, which of course would resemble the main Ferrania site as Ferrania was 3M center of Film technology at the time. the Plant was sold to Kodak. and they may or may not have modified it. Kodak Spun off the Heath care business as Carestream, and it is now owned by Venture capital. The graphic arts folks use "direct to plate" techniques for the most part so Graphic arts film (LITHO Film to us) is a niche market.

3M later spun off their film and recording tape/disk Business as IMATION. The demand for Computer diskettes probably fell more rapidly than the demand for film, and so IMATION crashed.

 

[Henning Serger]

Hello Ian,

I know the Ilford coating line at Mobberley was British made and upgraded by the manufacturers.

yes, that is the information we've got at the Ilford factory tour, too.

I've heard Simon Galley say the same about the Agfa machinery they bought, one was the one used for the edge markings of 35mm and 120 films.

Well, the situation with the very modern Agfa 135 film converting line was real challenging for Ilford. At the factory tour we've seen this huge line in full operation, and Simon explained us the details. The main problem was that the workers who dismantled the machinery in Germany for transportation to Mobberley did some severe mistakes: They cut all the electric cables, without marking the connection points!! And there were more than 100,000 different cables! The Ilford engineers and technicians needed more than one year to get this converting line running again.
Simon described that with the wonderful and unique British black humour: "Before we've bought the Agfa machinery our engineers did not speak one single German word. After the installation they are speaking fluently German......" .
The factory tour was amazing. Not only because of the fascinating technological information we've got (they even made a test coating run for us under light; and I was only 60cm away from the coating head, an unforgettable experience) but also because of the very kind, friendly and very funny and humerous Ilford employees. We've laughed so much this day. Just another quote from one of Simon's colleagues: "I was hired at the beginning of the 80ies here at Ilford to implement colour film production. You have seen the big green grass field in the middle of our plant area. There the colour film coating machine should have been built. The green grass field and our product portfolio clearly shows you how successful I was....." . They have cracked joke after joke. At the end of the day I had a muscle soreness in my midriff .

The other thing Simon told us was all the major companies had licensed Ilford's patented coating head technology.

I assume that he had probably referred to certain parts. Because the Agfa technology is quite different. As I have seen both life I can directly compare.

Then Ilford have had agreements with Fuji manufacturing some films for them, also B&W paper, and Foma have (or had) a joint confectioning plant with Fuji. So there's a lot of inter-trading between some of the companies.
Ian

Yes, inter-trading is important. But it also changes over time quite a lot due to market changes. So the situation five years ago can be completely different today.

Best regards,
Henning

 

[Henning Serger]

Hello Ron,

Several Swiss engineers were involved in the new coating machine and when it was finished, they returned to Switzerland to set up their own company. They licensed parts of their own coating machine design which had some parts of Kodak technology included, from Kodak. This is all I know about it, but perhaps Henning Knows more.
PE

He does. At least a little bit .
TSE Troller in Switzerland has continuously offered their coating technology and machinery for customers from different industries (coating technology is not only needed for silver-halide film and paper):
https://www.tse-coating.ch/. If you want to buy a new state-of-the-art coating machine, they will build it for you.
The coating technology and the different coating machines at the current film and photo paper manufacturers (I speak for the five different companies I've seen so far) share some essential technologies, but they are also all different in other fields and adopted and specialised to the specific needs and production environment of the single manufacturer. And the modernised and smaller facilities go for some innovative new routes as well. It is very fascinating to see some very clever new approaches, too. I cannot go here into further details because of NDA's.

Best regards,
Henning

 

[Sal Santamaura]

And the difficulty in reading between lines continues. ...Does that mean that any CHS 100 II a consumer purchases was coated in Marley? Or does it refer to Marley's critical role in the R&D that resulted in consumers being able to purchase CHS 100 II that was coated elsewhere?

Henning wrote the following in response to another post by Ron, but I suspect it might also explain why he hasn't answered my question:

...I cannot go here into further details because of NDA's...

 

[Henning Serger]

Sal, your last 'reading between lines' was a wise one...........

Best regards,
Henning

 

[twelvetone12]

From ADOX's website...

http://www.adox.de/Photo/chs-100-ii-planfilm-wieder-da/

Im Sommer hatten wir erfolgreich einen ersten Testbeguss CHS 100 II Planfilm in Marly durchgeführt. Inzwischen steht der etwas einfachrere Planfilm-Schichtaufbau sicher auf der kleinen Gießmaschine in Marly. Die Kleinbild und Rollfilme sind komplexer und wir arbeiten noch daran.

In the summer we successfully carried out the first test cast of CHS 100 II sheet film in Marly. Meanwhile the somewhat simpler Sheetfilm is safely placed on the small casting machine in Marly. The small-format and roll films are more complex and we are still working on them.

Pardon my bad German translation...

EDIT: also pardon my bad English

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...Pardon my bad German translation...

EDIT: also pardon my bad English

Please don't apologize for either your translation or English. If my German were one percent as good, I'd be very proud.

From ADOX's website...

http://www.adox.de/Photo/chs-100-ii-planfilm-wieder-da/



In the summer we successfully carried out the first test cast of CHS 100 II sheet film in Marly. Meanwhile the somewhat simpler Sheetfilm is safely placed on the small casting machine in Marly. The small-format and roll films are more complex and we are still working on them...

The way that is ambiguously worded (I tried Google translate too -- it didn't make things any more definite), combined with Henning's inability to answer directly, combined with Mirko's silence, does nothing to decrease my confidence that CHS 100 II production coating is not done at Marley. My deduction is unshaken that, until Polywarmtone hits the market, Marley coats only test runs of ADOX sensitized products, with production coating occurring elsewhere.

Perhaps I'm wrong and Mirko will jump in here to say so.