Ashes of Kodak remain, but FILM Ferrania (3M and Imation) is ready to rise again.

It feels as if any day now what is left of Kodak and spinoff Kodak Alaris can cease to exist with barely a whimper. They just announced yet another discontinued emulsion, CN400 B&W. Fuji is also discontinuing their emulsions at a rapid pace (probably as master rolls run out).

With so much bad news for film shooters, it's such a pleasure to hear something good for once. The legendary Italian film manufacturer FILM Ferrania has been refurbishing their old factory and is set to release their first round of new color film in mid-September. They plan on eventually reintroducing their slide film, which was marketed years ago under the Scotch Chrome brand. There are even plans to produce Super 8 and 16mm cine films.

With Ilford seemingly doing fine with their B&W products, hopefully Ferrania can set itself up to efficiently produce a good niche product.

Here's an update from PetaPixel
http://petapixel.com/2014/08/27/ita...manufacturing-film-mid-september/#more-143441

The FILM Ferrania website:
http://www.filmferrania.it/

dan c

 

Cool. I recently watched a documentary about Polaroid, and it turns out that a new plant is making Polaroid camera compatible instant film cartridges. It took them a long time to work out new chemicals to use, because the old process chemicals were too hard to come by. Analog has been relegated to a niche, but I'm glad folks are out there willing and able to keep the processes alive as long as they can.

 

Not directly related to your post, but over the last few weeks I have been scanning my parents old (guess I could omit that adjective) negatives.

It has been interesting. Most were 35mm, but some 2 1/4, and 127. There was one 110 film - at least it wasn't a disc film. A couple of things; even though some of the 120 was shot with a fixed focus, fixed exposure Brownie, these shots IMO surpass a lot of the shots from today's phone cameras. It mirrors the "convenience over quality" issues with music. The scans were so easy to clean up. Some of the 35mm was a pain - rolls of uncut negatives that were wound even tighter than they would have been in the canister, others wrapped around cardboard and paper holders that also resulted in wonky negatives. The tonality of the black and white images was at times amazing. It was also interesting to see how quickly the formulations of color film "matured" from muted watercolor-like images to those that are much more life-like and saturated.

I ready about Kodak dropping the C-41 compatible B&W film. Fortunately Ilford is still selling one. I bought my first digital camera less than 10 years ago. it is hard to believe how fast things have changed.

 

Yeah, the Impossible Project is really cool. I've bought several packs from them to run through my vintage SX-70 Time-Zero cameras (I have two). That was a friggin' engineering and design masterpiece, so even if the Impossible version of the films are expensive and less predictable than the original, at least the camera can live again.

I really wish someone could get some of the old Agfa color emulsions back into production again, but that's just not gonna happen.

dan c

 

Not only do they surpass the shots from today's phone cameras, they often surpass the shots of professional digital cameras, too. We often forget how good film was until we look at properly developed analog again. In fact, the most amazing photos I have seen are turn-of-the-century (that is, 1900) photos made on large format cameras. They are black & white but still manage to yield a level of detail and depth still unattained today even by the best digital cameras. And we're talking about 100 year old photos here. Those big wet plate negatives and those large lenses were just amazing.

 

ah, The SX 70...LOVED THAT CAMERA...still have a bunch of photos! ...I had the original brown leather covered chrome and the later with the sonic bar on top...IIRC, it was black, I can't seem to find both on them. LOL!

 

Oh, I wouldn't bash digital too much. DSLRs are making spectacular images, and can shoot under low light conditions that would sound like science fiction to those of us who got serious with photography in the late-80s. And I will even admit that my iPhone 5s makes consistently better photos under more conditions than my decent P&S cameras of the past. It sure as hell trounces the craptastic fixed-focus cheap cameras most people used back in the day.

Still, you will never be able to match that magical something a good medium or large format piece of film can produce. You can't fake it, it's organic. Whenever I feel like perhaps digital has completely surpassed film, I end up seeing an exhibit of superb silver prints made from high quality negatives and I go 'nope, this is what it's all about'.

I shoot digitally most often, but I will ALWAYS want the option to shoot on film when I desire. My freezer is filled with Tri-X 35mm and 120, along with various color emulsions. It's important to me.

dan c

 

I also have an original brown as well as the sonar OneStep version. The OneStep lacks the elegance of the original, but man is that autofocus system awesome! The innovations Polaroid made back in the day boggle the mind. They are considered the Apple of the analog era. I hope the Impossible guys can keep it going. They recently announced that they're closing all of their retail stores except for the one in Paris. Online they insist it's so they can focus on new emulsions and more film. I hope so.

dan c

 

Oh, it wasn't my intention to bash digital. I'm a professional photographer and I've been using digital exclusively for the last 8 years. Still, there are certain situations where digital still doesn't perform too good, namely high contrast scenes where part of the scenery is overexposed more than 3-4 stops. Or try photographing city streets at night - those lights will always be washed out and plain white. I've never seen good long exposure night city photography in many years. Or try photographing the moon at night AND the clouds around it - no chance both will register.

So what I'm saying is that we should always have an eye on the past, because sometimes we get so enamoured with our gadgets that we forget that they aren't perfect yet. It's good to look at analog photography to know what the areas are where we are still missing out (on a technical level).

 

I liked the manual focus SX-70 bestl...I have the original obstructions as well...I'll have to dig them out someday...I have many fond memories of Christmas with my new SX-70!...

 

OMG! LOL! damn typo! INSTRUCTIONS...although some manuals can be called obstructions! as they suck...

 

Spoke to an owner of a local antiques store today and the topic of 35 mm film popped up in the conversation. [He tried to sell me what he claimed was $4,000+ of Canon cameras & equipment for $450. It was all dated from the 1970s & '80s - all analogue/ pre-digital gear.]

Does anyone produce 35 mm film for non-digital cameras any more? And if someone does, how easily available is it?

 

They still make em...

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Roll-Film/ci/2545/N/4093113317

 

Thanks!

Is that 'old new stock' or newly produced stock?

 

I'm pretty sure it's new.... otherwise people would have snapped them all up. I vaguely remember when Agfa 25 (black and white) was no longer made, people rushed to buy blocks of it to put in their fridges...

 

I thought Kodak was out of the film business. Did someone purchase or licence the name?

 

http://www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/Kodak...m_Agreements_with_Major_Hollywood_Studios.htm

not sure about the camera stuff - that may have been sold - B&H would know - call em and ask...

 

Kodak spun off its consumer film and paper business to a new company called Kodak Alaris. The film is still made by Eastman Kodak in the same facilities in Rochester under a licensing agreement. The old Eastman Kodak kept the motion picture business.

So basically it's the same film made by the same company but marketed by a new company using the Kodak brands and logos. See? Simple!

dan c

 

Keeping their motion picture business alive is imperative to keeping the consumer films alive, even though they're marketed by different companies now (see above). The incredibly complicated process of film manufacturing relies on principles of mass production. Without the larger quantities of motion picture stock being produced it's impossible to make the small amounts of consumer film for what is now a niche market. Kodak's factories were designed to produce massive amounts of film back when the world needed it. Those days are sadly long gone.

Dan c

 

Good to see they're still making film (Polaroids I'm ambivalent about. I never liked Polaroids. They were a fun party trick, but the photos themselves always sucked.) but I would never return to using it. Too many hours hours logged in the darkroom and too much money in expensive sheets of paper thrown away trying for a perfect print. But I do lament the iPhone being the sole camera on the planet. Just the other day I need to take a macro shot of a schematic, good luck with an iphone. Even the cheapest pocket sized Canon from a few years back kills the iphone for real photography.