5x7 Delta 400, who wants it?

[JC Kuba]

Jeff from Badger Graphics has told me he is willing to talk to Ilford about a group purchase of Ilford Delta 400 5x7 if there is enough interest in it. The chances of succeeding might be remote, but I think it's worth a try. So if anyone is interest,please reply to this post so we can gauge the demand. Since 5x7 Delta 100 is about $150 per 100 sheet box, I'm going to assume 5x7 400 would be similar, but this is only a guess. If anyone has experience with Delta 400 and can relate where this falls on the palette of film options, I'd appreciate that too(hopefully this question will qualify this post to remain here and not be put into premature obscurity in the Resource section).

Thx,

- JC

[Sal Santamaura]

...The chances of succeeding might be remote...5x7 Delta 100 is about $150 per 100 sheet box, I'm going to assume 5x7 400 would be similar...

The chances of succeeding are about equal to winning the lottery. Ilford coats Delta 400 only on acetate base for roll film, not on 7-mil polyester stock for sheet film, so one cannot purchase it in 4x5 or 8x10. Simon Galley, one of Ilford's owners, has posted elsewhere that it would be a significant development effort to add sheet sizes and that the company has no intention of doing so.

I think the price of your first 5x7 box of Delta 400 (100 sheets) would be in the neighborhood of a lottery jackpot, i.e. $millions, not $150. In other words, you'd need to fund the entire development effort yourself to make it happen.

[Oren Grad]

What Sal said. The critical difference is that Delta 100 is already coated and cut for sheet film, so it's just a matter of cutting a different size. The current version of Delta 400 does not exist on a polyester base. I expect it would be technically possible, but the up front investment required for test runs and quality control would likely never be paid off, both because volumes are so low and because a substantial portion of any new Delta 400 sales would likely be cannibalized from other Ilford sheet film emulsions.

[JC Kuba]

Yikes! I was hoping that since they use to produce Delta 400 sheet film and that they currently make Delta 100 5x7, it wouldn't be such a problem.

- JC

[Oren Grad]

The current Delta 400 is not the same emulsion that they used to offer in sheet film. Both the 100 and 400 emulsions were changed; IIRC this was when they changed the name from "100 Delta", which seemed to confuse many, to "Delta 100 Professional", and similarly for the 400. The new version of the 100 emulsion was "ported" to sheet film, but AFAIK the current 400 emulsion has never been coated on polyester, or at least never been offered for sale coated on polyester.

[Riverman]

Wel... if it ever did hit the shelves I'd be in for 200 sheets or so.

[JC Kuba]

Simon Galley, one of Ilford's owners, has posted elsewhere that it would be a significant development effort to add sheet sizes and that the company has no intention of doing so.

It took me a few hours of going through Simon Galley's posts on APUG, but I finally found the post I think you referenced. In response a question in 2008 about making Delta 3200 in 4x5 he said:

"Its true we are flexible enough ( small enough ) to respond to special requirements, and we most certainly do do special makes. The issue is normally around finishing product to special sizes, or like we do with our annual ULF run when we pre-sell and make available very small run items, but that are very important to end users.

The issue around a DELTA 3200 sheet film is very different because we currently do not manufacture this in sheet film : We would need to develop an emulsion suitable for coating onto 175 micron polyester sheet film base, as it would differ significantly from the existing 35mm and 120 emulsions : We then need to coat a minimum of 5,000m2 ( why? because all our emulsions are made in an automated facility, to allow 100% consistency batch to batch, the minimum batch is emulsion to coat 5,000m2 ).

5,000m2 may not sound like a huge amount, and indeed is very small for an automated emulsion plant and why we are very flexible, but 5,000m2 is 387,882 5" x 4" sheets.

Every APUG member in the World would have to buy about 13 sheets !

We would love to do it, but the economics mean that we would have to charge too much for each pack to enable us to recover the cost of the coating within 12 months, ( the maximum under our QC regime that we could cold store product before leaving the factory ) a quick calculation shows a cost of somewhere around 3 times the cost of of HP5+ sheet film, those who may wish to try the film may be put off by its ( much ) higher price, therefore you sell less, therefore the risk is just too high.

Kind Regards

Simon. ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited : "

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