New Portra 400 Film

[f64-60]

I would like to introduce myself to this forum as this is my first post. I have worked in photography and cinematography all my life and I'm now retired. I've seen and witnessed the explosion of digital technology and the shrinking of chemical based technology. I worked in the medical and scientific fields doing medical school teaching films and videos of surgical procedures, and research. I've also had a lot of experience with architectual photography. Kodak is hurting, big time! And like most businesses in the USA their main goal is not to support artists but to make a profit for their stockholders. If supporting artists is profitable then they will be there. They discontinued the finest small format color film and processing in the world, Kodachrome and they will do the same for the rest of their product line if it not profitable. If they don't like the way the game is played then they will take their ball, go home and devote their energies to something profitable, like chemicals or fabrics, agriculture or God knows what. They have lost most X-Ray to diigital. They are loosing most motion picture as Hollywood convert to RED digital cameras and cinemas convert to the Texas Instruments DLP and 3D projection. Their competition is out to hammer the nails in the coffin of Eastman Kodak. I fully expect them to discontinue my favorite black and white film Tri-X. If they can figure out a way to put less silver in film, IMHO, they will do it. James

[David Aimone]

inthefix,

Depressing but probably true... Thanks for the perspective (I think).

If it isn't worth production for a large company like Kodak, perhaps they could sell that production area to a smaller company with lower overhead. Either Kodak really is trying to support the film photographers by keeping what they can in production, or they are trying to have it both ways by selling only the products with a large enough profit margin to make it worth their while. Who can blame them?

But a smaller company could possibly produce these limited products at a lower cost to themselves? Maybe. Perhaps it's time for Kodak, like Polaroid, to "$#IT or get off the can" and decide if they want to remain in the film business at all...

We have microbreweries. Why not microfilmaries?

my 2 cents as a film newcomer, FWIW...

[BetterSense]

We have microbreweries. Why not microfilmaries?

I could brew beer in my kitchen. I could not make film in my kitchen. Like it or not, film, especially color film, is not something easy to make. Notice how it took some decades, with great research and development investment, to appear on the market, and it wasn't as good as it is now, either.

As mentioned previously, I can imagine that B&W film could be made in a fairly small facility, but color seems like quite a leap in complexity. Ilford only makes B&W, afterall.

[Ed Richards]

David,

Listen to the podcasts on Analog Photography Radio about the making of film, esp. color film. Kodak's film lines are like paper mills - they can only make big batches of film because the line is so long and the process is so complex to startup and run. They did make some changes a while back according to one ex-employee that allow smaller runs - but smaller by their standards is a huge run by anyone else. At least the way Kodak does it, color does not lend itself to small runs. No small company could support the capital cost of the machine, and even if Kodak gave it to them, their cost of production would be much higher because they would have no way to keep the experts needed employed between runs. From the interview, it appears that the motion picture film business is what is keeping the other film businesses going, which is not encouraging. The problem appears to be not just individual lines of film, but having enough overall film business to keep the staff and the line working. They have closed all the other coating facilities as a way of dealing with this. Large format color film may just become one more technology we cannot buy because there is not enough of a market for it, no matter how good it is. I think the potential salvation will be building up new LF photographers in Asia who want to work in color.

As I mentioned earlier, black and white is a different issue because it is so easy to coat, and because LF is so forgiving. In fact, there appear to be LF photographers who actually prefer outdated b&w film formulations.:-)

[Brian C. Miller]

We have microbreweries. Why not microfilmaries?

Well, we do have microfilmaries. Wet plate and dry plate, coat your own. Could it be done for color? If you don't mind the defects, the answer is yes.

But here's something to think about: in France, the Autochrome machinery was retired and placed into storage. Some time ago, it was taken out of storage and people tried to make it work again. They haven't succeeded yet. This is a process that used dyed potato starch flour and normal B&W gelatin. How basic is that?

The only real (sans color film) avenue for color in 8x10 is tricolor photography. I was just looking at the B+W filter data last night for this, and with the right camera it would make Kodachrome look tame.

[David Aimone]

All very interesting information in this thread. Amazing how color film chemistry is so complicated in this high-tech world. Like recreating a Stadivarius—just can't replicate that varnish.

Necessity is the mother of invention? I guess if there's enough LF need in the future, and the big companies drop color, perhaps someone will figure out a new approach (or rediscover an old one) in time.

We'll see...

Back to b&w and the velvia in my fridge for now!

But here's something to think about: in France, the Autochrome machinery was retired and placed into storage. Some time ago, it was taken out of storage and people tried to make it work again. They haven't succeeded yet. This is a process that used dyed potato starch flour and normal B&W gelatin. How basic is that?

The only real (sans color film) avenue for color in 8x10 is tricolor photography. I was just looking at the B+W filter data last night for this, and with the right camera it would make Kodachrome look tame.

[John NYC]

According to Robert Shanebrook's wonderful book Making Kodak Film, Kodak has a fully automated 4x5 cutter. Anything larger needs to be cut, notched and packaged by hand. So that may help explain why 4x5 was the cutoff.

I've got a copy and I've really been enjoying it. It has had one bad side effect for me. I used to be optimistic that someone would eventually take over producing color film with Kodak's plant when Kodak gives up. Now that I see how MASSIVE the production process is, I do not feel that it would ever happen.

[SamReeves]

It's midway in saturation between VC and NC. Contrast is still low like NC.

That sucks. I tried a few sheets of 400 NO COLOR, and it was like having Gerber for dinner. No taste at all.

Where's Fudgee when you need them?

[Bruce Watson]

How about we eliminate film altogether and then we'll see how chipper you are.

We can't know how close we actually are to that day. But we can judge based on what's happening in the motion picture industry. There is no doubt that day is coming.

I'm happy because that day isn't this day. So should be every film user.

No more color 400 ISO 8x10" film = bad thing. There are just no two ways around it.

What's a bad thing is no film at all. What this change means is that there's not enough demand for Kodak to continue to stock 400Portra in 10x8. Just like they don't stock 11x7. You can still work through a dealer and put together a special order. The 7x5 people did this a year or so ago to buy TMY-2. No reason the 10x8 people can't do the same thing to buy 400Portra.

What you've lost is convenience. Not film. And I think this is way better than loosing the film itself. Why don't you?

[Rick Moore]

The only real (sans color film) avenue for color in 8x10 is tricolor photography. I was just looking at the B+W filter data last night for this, and with the right camera it would make Kodachrome look tame.

This is part of the reason one-shot cameras with working pellicles are very much in demand these days. I believe Sandy King has one.

The original Kodacolor process, not related to the Kodacolor negative materials, existed before Kodachrome. It used a tri-color filter over the lens of a movie camera, loaded with BW film that had a lenticular pattern embossed into the film base. A similar filter over the projection lens reversed the process. The film went into the camera backwards so that it was exposed through the base. The lens had to be wide-open for the three stripes of the filter to work correctly.

This process was available for the home movie market. I have a wind-up Kodak 16mm movie camera and a Victor projector with the attachments for the original Kodacolor. I have ten or fifteen rolls of movies shot with this outfit by my grandparents in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Polaroid's 35mm PolaChrome process used a similar lenticular screen and filter built into the film.

In both the Kodacolor and Polaroid processes, the main problem I saw was the loss of light inherent in the lenticular screen and filters. However, if current color materials are going to disappear, as it looks like they will, these processes, as well as AutoChrome (same principle) may offer an alternative. Although no one seems to be able to produce potato starch particles of sufficient quality to reproduce AutoChrome, there do exist small, hand-driven embossing machines that could emboss a lenticular lens pattern into the base of a sheet of 8x10 BW film.


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Rick