A clarification on Kodak coating practice

[Henning Serger]

Hi Ron,

Color paper: AFAIK Kodak hast lost market share to the competitors, which are currently Fuji, DNP, Mitsubishi, InovisCoat.

Best regards,
Henning

Sorry, I had forgotten one of the major RA-4 paper manufacturers:
Ilford Imaging Switzerland with their Ilfocolor RA-4 color paper line.

Some weeks ago on the German fineartforum in Paderborn (film only) Kodak, Adox and Maco Photo Products presented their (new) products and H. Brümmer from Kodak, M. Böddecker from Adox and H. Schroeder from Maco gave lectures about their plans, the situation of the market and the future of film photography.

H. Brümmer said that rumors about production stop of TMZ, Plus-X and BW 400 CN are wrong. They stay in production (BW 400 CN as 135).
Furthermore Kodak realized that lots of professionals prefer film for certain projects.
And they see a trend, that a significant amount of digital snapshot photographers use SUC film cameras in some cases, e.g. in holidays at the beach, or in the water the waterproof SUCs. This market stays quite robust.
Mr. Schroeder said the same, increasing demand for SUCs, one reason why Maco/Rollei-Film has recently introduduced several new models, even with B&W and slide film.
Maco presented their new Retro 100 Tonal there, and the Agfa APX 100 glass plates. They reported increasing demand for their products. With some products they have capacity problems because demand is higher than current production.

Both Mr. Böddecker and Mr. Schroeder said it is difficult for independant manufacturers at the moment to get paper cut and packed. The specialist companies for that are operating at full capacity, mainly because of a high demand for RA-4 paper.

Mr. Böddecker presented the new 400 BW emulsion, made by InovisCoat and based on former APX 400. He said the first production run this summer is planned for 10000 m², distributed as AgfaPhoto APX 400 (Lupus Imaging) and Adox AP 400.
He gave a very detailed and honest insight in the current status of building up the little new Adox plant in Bad Saarow. He talked about the difficulties and the recent progress. At the moment they are concentrating on getting the machine for 120 confectioning work properly (it's the former Forte machine), and are preparing the first "Fällung" of Polywarmtone emulsion.

All three gave a quite confident outlook concerning the future of film based photography.

Best regards,
Henning

[Photo Engineer]

Please go here: http://makingkodakfilm.com/ for an excellent book about Kodak's manufacturing processes.

The author will donate a portion of the sale price to APUG if ordered by an APUG member or subscriber and if APUG is mentioned in the order.

PE

[Henning Serger]

Please go here: http://makingkodakfilm.com/ for an excellent book about Kodak's manufacturing processes.

The author will donate a portion of the sale price to APUG if ordered by an APUG member or subscriber and if APUG is mentioned in the order.

PE

Thanks Ron, I have already seen your link in the product availability forum.
I will order the book.

Best regards,
Henning

[michaelbsc]

... 3. Ilford, Agfa-Gevaert, InovisCoat, Foma and Fotokemika have very flexible production lines. For example, all of them are coating film and paper on the same coating machines.
Last week I had a talk to a friend who is involved in the tests of the InovisCoat/Adox AP 400 (based on former APX 400). This film will probably have a first production run of only 3000m². That means very,very small runs are nowadays possible on this adapted/downscaled machinery.

This, and this alone, is the salvation of the film market for us unless some new and as yet undiscovered use emerges that demands astronomical amounts of film. (An unlikely expectation at best.)

Note that this (3000 m2) is only about 500 boxes of 100 sheets of 8x10. Or about 500 (give or take a lilttle) cases of roll film. (Assuming a yield of about .85. I have no idea what a slitting organizations real yield would be, but 85% seems like a reasonable guess.)

Flexible manufacturing of small batches will keep the dwindling but active users stocked.

God (and Man) rest the soul of Kodachrome, but it couldn't be made economically enough to sell in small batches.

MB

[michaelbsc]

... Next, regarding the machines, they must be kept in a state of "threadedness" :D. The machines must remain threaded as the threading operation is tedious.

I'm curious how the process changes from the leader to the production base.

I've been in a offset plate making operation a number of times, but the substrate they coated is aluminum instead of film.

In that operation there are a number of rollers which hold tens of meters of material, and they are movable in such a way that the process line can be fed at a continuous rate while the injection point is stopped. The slack feeds out of the spools under a PLC controlled process.

When the tail is stopped, the roll is cut and the next roll welded to the first by an arc.

I'm sure there must be something similar, but my question is how do you adhere the two pieces in short order so you can begin feeding the process again?

Michael

[Henning Serger]

Hello Michael,


This, and this alone, is the salvation of the film market for us unless some new and as yet undiscovered use emerges that demands astronomical amounts of film. (An unlikely expectation at best.)

"astronomical amounts", that is probably unlikely, but there are already market segments with very strong increasing numbers of photo film sales. For example films for the toy camera / Lo-Fi / Lomography segment.
There you have growth rates of 30 - 50% p.a..
There is a reason why in the last three years several special films for this segment were introduced by the Lomographic Society and Maco/ Rollei-Film: Increasing demand. These films are selling in seven digit numbers. The LSI is permanently introducing new films under their own label because of this increasing demand.
They have developed very successful marketing strategies for film.



Note that this (3000 m2) is only about 500 boxes of 100 sheets of 8x10. Or about 500 (give or take a lilttle) cases of roll film. (Assuming a yield of about .85. I have no idea what a slitting organizations real yield would be, but 85% seems like a reasonable guess.)....

MB

Please have a look at my posting from yesterday: The first production run will be 10000m². The number of 3000m² was mentioned by Mirko at a former date.
I've had a long talk with him at the fineartforum. 3000m² would be possible, but then the film would be a bit pricey. A production run of 10000m² makes attractive prices possible. Therefore as well the cooperation with Lupus Imaging / Germany, who will sell the film under their AgfaPhoto label.

Best regards,
Henning

[Photo Engineer]

Film support is spliced together with tape. It is done on the fly at high speed. It is a totally machine controlled operation and humans had better not be in the way! :(

As for coating film and paper on the same machine, consider this. Film coating is benign, but paper coating (both FB and RC, but FB is far worse) create fluff made of paper fibers and baryta dust. After coating paper, the machine must be shut down and the room and machine must be cleaned before film coating can be resumed. This is why Kodak used 2 separate facilities and specially enclosed coating machines. It was to isolate the two products and then isolate the problem and confine it to the coating machine itself.

PE

[ic-racer]

Good thread. Well worth reading.

[Henning Serger]

As for coating film and paper on the same machine, consider this. Film coating is benign, but paper coating (both FB and RC, but FB is far worse) create fluff made of paper fibers and baryta dust. After coating paper, the machine must be shut down and the room and machine must be cleaned before film coating can be resumed. This is why Kodak used 2 separate facilities and specially enclosed coating machines. It was to isolate the two products and then isolate the problem and confine it to the coating machine itself.

PE

Hello Ron,

interesting that it can be even a problem with RC paper, I've been told it's only a problem with FB paper. And that the necessary cleaning process of the machinery after FB paper coating is one major reason for the higher price of FB paper.
But it looks that the companies have solved the technical challenges of coating both paper and film on the same coating machine
(looking at my Ilford films and papers, I've never had any quality problems).

Best regards,
Henning

[Photo Engineer]

The problem with RC is orders of magnitude less than with FB.

Even so, paper is restricted to a tight schedule if coated on the same machines as film. There is a schedule with most companies with combined paper and film coating and a non-dedicated line. There is also a prescribed cleaning time between changeover from paper to film.

PE

[jgjbowen]

It seems like I learn something new from PE every day! Thanks Ron!