Why is there not a no-frills orthochromatic film?

[keenmaster486]

Yes, I know there's Rollei Ortho, but that film is much too expensive.

Here's my reasoning: A large part of the expense of making film goes into making it more sensitive, smaller grain, more sensitive, smaller grain, oh, and did I mention more sensitive? And also smaller grain. Kodak, Fuji, Ilford & co. all want you to think that every one of their films, B&W or color, has the finest grain of any film out there! And then you go out and pay five bucks a roll for finer grain that you really don't need unless you're making huge enlargements.

Also, pretty much every B&W film out there today is panchromatic. There's some expense that goes into making the emulsion red-sensitive as well. This also means that, for the guy who wants to develop his stuff in trays in the darkroom, he can't use a safelight and is deprived of the classic experience of watching his images magically appear on the film.

So why couldn't Kodak, or some other company (Ilford, are you listening?) make a bare-bones, no-frills, low-speed, don't-care-about-the-grain, orthochromatic B&W film? It would have to be much easier to make than even one of their simpler films like Tri-X. It would basically be just like their original roll films that they made back in the early 20th century, which were later branded Verichrome (am I right?).

They could crank them out in the thousands and charge two dollars apiece. I would buy ten or twenty of them right off the bat, and develop them at home. It would instantly drastically increase the volume of film I buy from Kodak, or Ilford, or whatever company it would be.

As it is, all my B&W stuff is Arista.EDU, which is the cheapest stuff I can find. I'm willing to spend more money on color.

On a larger scale, I think it's time for companies like Kodak to discard the "razor and blades" business strategy. Personally I think it would be great for some company to flood the market with cheap (but not crappy) B&W rolls of film (maybe package them with developing mailers to Dwane's or something) or even sell a home developing kit like those tintype kits Rockland Colloid used to sell, and watch the artsy millennials go nuts. The whole point of it, which would be one of the main marketing plugs, would be that it's so cheap, you can totally afford to go out and shoot three rolls of this stuff and develop it for the price of a pizza.

 

[Sirius Glass]

It has to do with the law of supply and demand. Rollei can only sell so many rolls of this film a year. Rollei may have more film available, but Rollei cannot sell any more of that film. Rollei has to make a profit, even if you think that Rollei should just give you the film. That will not happen. If Rollei drops the price, then they will loose the profit that they need to cover the master roll. At that point Rollei would say that they will no longer product the film at a loss.

So if you must have that film, either pay the price or buy PE's book and start making your own film.

 

[keenmaster486]

Oh, I know Rollei's selling their film at the correct market price... for that particular film.

I just think some mainstream company with more marketing oomph should make such a film so cheaply that they could sell it for two bucks and still make a profit.

Basically, if Arista.EDU was made using a much cheaper emulsion. They're already selling that at $3.50 a pop, so what if they unveiled "Arista.EDU Ortho 25 ISO" for $2.50?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Different companies; different costs.
Different countries; different costs.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

It's too much of a niche product. The cost to the company to "make a bare-bones, no-frills, low-speed, don't-care-about-the-grain, orthochromatic B&W film" isn't so much the specific materials or specific process, but rather they would be adding another "sku" to their manufacturing.

Here's a (maybe too simplistic) scenario: Let's suppose I made Model T cars - I can only sell so many to pay my costs and have a bit of profit. If I now have to add a color other than black, I lose money.

 

[flavio81]

Also, pretty much every B&W film out there today is panchromatic. There's some expense that goes into making the emulsion red-sensitive as well.
(...)
So why couldn't Kodak, or some other company (Ilford, are you listening?) make a bare-bones, no-frills, low-speed, don't-care-about-the-grain, orthochromatic B&W film? It would have to be much easier to make than even one of their simpler films like Tri-X.

Orthochromatic films do not give natural, nice tonality. Even worse if they are only blue-sensitive.

Panchromatic films are what everyone makes because this renders images more beautifully. Ever used a green, yellow, or red filter? You know how useful it is in many situations. Orthochromatic films are not sensitive to red nor yellow or amber.

I guess this is why in the fifties the "PAN" word was used proudly:

PANatomic X
Tri-X PAN
Plus-X PAN
PANCHRO P30
Verichrome Pan

Curiously, modern orthochromatic films usually are finer grained and/or higher resolution than a comparable panchro film!!

 

[Arctic amateur]

Every new film HARMAN/Ilford introduces competes not only with Kodak, Fuji and the other makers, but also with other Ilford films.

You're assuming most of the cost of the film is in the emulsion, is this true? It also costs fair bit to buy the backing, and to cut the master roll and spool it into cartridges or add backing paper. Not to mention the cost of designing and testing new emulsions.

That said, HARMAN does make bespoke films. You could contact them and see what it'd cost to have this film made, if you think there's a market for it and you'd sell it yourself. But if what you really want is the cheapest possible BW film, here: http://www.ultrafineonline.com/ulxtblwhfiis5.html A 100 ft bulk roll for $34, that's less than $2 per roll (at 18 rolls per bulk roll).

 

[Europan]

486, you can have 35mm perforated orthochromatic film from FilmoTec, namely Orwo TF 12d (Ton-Film, sound recording film). Admittedly 2,000-ft rolls and a bit harsher contrast but, hey, cheaper than Rollei

 

[Cholentpot]

I think you have a good point.

I don't believe many are still shooting 35mm for its lack of grain and sharpness. When I shoot film I want people to know I shot film. It's interesting and different. Some grain would be a plus for the younger gen. Make film look like film. Shanghai GP3 was selling 120 for really cheap until the stopped. That had a nice look for a very nice price. Sure it was no Tmax100 but it fed the cameras at a good price and looked dandy. We need more of that.

 

[AgX]

If one is only interested in the spectral sensitisation but finding a respective film too expensive, than why not spend the money in buying a respective filter?

 

[pdeeh]

It might be a good idea to find out just exactly how "easy" it is to formulate, make, test, debug, finish, package, market and distribute a new film, before starting threads asking "why don't they just ...? "

There is a wealth of information on apug from people who have actually been senior figures in film manufacture for decades about exactly the above issues. They explain very adequately why "they don't just ..."

 

[Lachlan Young]

It might be a good idea to find out just exactly how "easy" it is to formulate, make, test, debug, finish, package, market and distribute a new film, before starting threads asking "why don't they just ...? "

There is a wealth of information on apug from people who have actually been senior figures in film manufacture for decades about exactly the above issues. They explain very adequately why "they don't just ..."

My thoughts too...

And a quick look at Ilford's product list would have shown the OP that Ilford make Ortho+, a sheet film of normal contrast that is essentially FP4+ without red sensitivity... I'd imagine if enough money was offered, they'd do the R&D to coat it on tri-acetate and package it in whatever formats OP wanted. And when you read his post more closely, it's the same tired old whine about cost - of course photography is expensive to do well (as is all art)! Then again, my view is that people seem to always have too many cameras, & not spend enough on film and paper to actually become proficient...

 

[removed account4]

paper negatives

 

[ic-racer]

$41 dollars for 100feet of Arist.EDU film today is like paying $10 for a 100ft roll of film in 1976. I don't think I ever paid that little back then.

In terms of orthochromatic film, if you have trouble working with film in the dark, IR visualization is affordable.

If you want red items in your pictures to be black, you can use a green filter with panchromatic film.

 

[pdeeh]

paper negatives

indeed.

or DIY:
http://stores.photoformulary.com/ph...-coating-and-testing-book-dvds-by-ron-mowrey/
http://thelightfarm.com

 

[Rick A]

No-frills ortho film? Medical xray film for large format. I paid $50 for a 100 sheet box of 11x14 film. I bought two boxes for my 11x14 camera and cut it down for my 5x7 and 4x5. There are other sizes available, unfortunately no 35mm or 120.

 

[removed account4]

indeed.

or DIY:
http://stores.photoformulary.com/ph...-coating-and-testing-book-dvds-by-ron-mowrey/
http://thelightfarm.com

yep !
and denise ross' website and book explain how to coat your own FILM.

of course there is washi ...

 

[guangong]

As Lachlan noted, doing art is costly. Genuine artist paints are expensive (not the cheap color fugitive paints sold at craft stores) and the cost of sculpting chisels and good stone is expensive. Photography is no exception. As for the unavailability of a not very popular film, think of the poor painter who is deprived of certain colors because of the nanny state (the rule makers believe that artist are stupid and literally eat art supplies).
We actually live in contradictory times when much photo gear is affordable. But some of our favorite films and chemicals are no more. Some of this again due to the nanny state.

 

[Alan Johnson]

Nearest may be Fuji Acros, it is orthopanchromatic, see the data sheet:
http://www.fujifilmusa.com/support/...dcat=238390&sscucatid=664273&sscucatid=664274

 

[Lachlan Young]

As Lachlan noted, doing art is costly. Genuine artist paints are expensive (not the cheap color fugitive paints sold at craft stores) and the cost of sculpting chisels and good stone is expensive. Photography is no exception. As for the unavailability of a not very popular film, think of the poor painter who is deprived of certain colors because of the nanny state (the rule makers believe that artist are stupid and literally eat art supplies).
We actually live in contradictory times when much photo gear is affordable. But some of our favorite films and chemicals are no more. Some of this again due to the nanny state.

I'm going to partly agree with you, but significantly disagree over the nanny-statist comments - it's not necessarily because of risk to the end user, but rather to those in the manufacturing process that some have been partially banned (more often restricted to one extent or another) - finely ground pigments are probably one of the easiest ways to ingest heavy metals - thus to pay for appropriate safety measures, prices go up, some product sizes have to be discontinued etc. And that's before we get on to the printing industry and their fairly careless use of solvents, heavy metal based driers etc over the decades... Compared to this, photography is very safe indeed.

Anyway, if you look elsewhere, I recall that PE has pointed out that the removal of heavy metal salts (Cd in particular) was not because of risk to the end user, or even necessarily them escaping into the water from manufacturing plants, but rather the quantities (5-15g?) that had to be used per mole of silver and the financial/ environmental costs of mining/ extracting them, vis a vis using osmium complexes and other chemicals which can be used in quantities that are multiple orders of magnitude less.

If there is any process that is in desperate need of a bit of nannying, it's the wetplaters - the salted collodions can be loaded with Cd and other heavy metals, along with all the organic solvents etc - I do wonder what the longer term health effects will be.

 

[flavio81]

Nearest may be Fuji Acros, it is orthopanchromatic, see the data sheet:
http://www.fujifilmusa.com/support/...dcat=238390&sscucatid=664273&sscucatid=664274

We had a thread on the meaning of "orthopanchromatic" related to Fuji Acros, recently.
Fuji Acros is far from orthochromatic. That is, it has good red sensitivity.

In this context "orthopanchromatic" means "Correctly panchromatic" or "Ideally panchromatic".

 

[removed account4]

Some of this again due to the nanny state

hi guangong

cameras / lenses inexpensive, chemicals+film+paper &c are expensive = nanny state?
naaah
it has to do with supply and demand.
used cameras and lenses are inexpensive because no one wants them.
products are discontinued because no one uses them
there is no point in making things no one buys, or very few people buy.

as someone noted, film and paper are not really that expensive,

not sure what this has to do with the nanny state unless not polluting the water and air is the nanny state ...

If there is any process that is in desperate need of a bit of nannying, it's the wetplaters - the salted collodions can be loaded with Cd and other heavy metals, along with all the organic solvents etc - I do wonder what the longer term health effects will be.

you forgot about the KCn ..
one local wet plater was told to just pour his spent cyanide fixer in his back yard
by a wet plate guru. he said " it comes from the ground you are just putting it back in the ground "
i worry not just for the effects on the practicioners' health but the toxic waste dump they turn their backyard
into, their well water, the local fish/wildlife.
that said, i know of others who are extremely responsible, but the ones who aren't make me cringe

 

[Alan Johnson]

We had a thread on the meaning of "orthopanchromatic" related to Fuji Acros, recently.
Fuji Acros is far from orthochromatic. That is, it has good red sensitivity.

In this context "orthopanchromatic" means "Correctly panchromatic" or "Ideally panchromatic".

Thanks, here is the thread:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
It may be the reason there is no orthochromatic film is that its possible to use panchromatic film with a cyan filter.
See also here for a definition of orthopanchromatic:
https://dacnard.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/the-real-shades-of-gray-bw-film-is-a-matter-of-heart-pt-1/

 

[Lachlan Young]

you forgot about the KCn ..
one local wet plater was told to just pour his spent cyanide fixer in his back yard
by a wet plate guru. he said " it comes from the ground you are just putting it back in the ground "
i worry not just for the effects on the practicioners' health but the toxic waste dump they turn their backyard
into, their well water, the local fish/wildlife.
that said, i know of others who are extremely responsible, but the ones who aren't make me cringe

I gave them the benefit of the doubt on that one - some at least just use regular fixer...

As you say, collodion does seem to attract some folk with cavalier attitudes towards basic health and safety.

 

[MattKing]

I expect that the OP is over-estimating the potential for saving.
I expect that people would be surprised if they learned what percentage of the cost of 35mm film comes from the emulsion manufacturing and coating part. Less than 5%?
Quality control, substrate, edge printing, sprockets, cassettes, spools, finishing, packaging, distribution, mark up at various levels - more than 95%?
And I'm fairly sure that there still is way more 35mm film sold than all the other formats combined.