"How much longer can photographic film hold on?"

[dwross]

You can get a custom run of a monochrome film, for example, for a mere million bucks or so. Any takers?

How about $7 in materials and less than $300 in lab equipment for ten rolls of 120 film? (made some this morning -- shooting this weekend.) Second recipe cooking today for a dozen whole plate glass negatives.

Whether or not the time and effort is worthwhile to any given photographer is a very legitimate topic of discussion. Whether or not it can be done -- with less effort, expense and equipment than most gourmet cooking -- is a question answered.

d

[sanking]

There's a pretty good description by Jim Browning of his home-made coating machine
over on the dye transfer forum, along with a description for making monochrome matrix
film. He had since sold this machine to a carbon printing setup. I have no doubt I could
make a SIMPLE coating machine for under ten grand. But why? The idea that anyone short of industrial infrastructure could personally make something capable of repeatable quality color film is lunacy. You simply don't know what is involved. Short
run research-grade coaters exist and can be subcontacted or bought. You can get a
custom run of a monochrome film, for example, for a mere million bucks or so. Any takers?

Jim Browning's coating machine wound up at Photographers Formulary. It could be used to coat carbon tissue and I experimented with it briefly there a couple of years ago, but so far as I know it has not been used by the PF for that purpose as of yet. The problem with any coating machine is that in order to make it worthwhile you need to produce a lot of coated material, and coating with gelatin requires a fair amount of skill, some art, and close control of temperature.

In reality a coating machine is not necessary to make really high quality carbon tissue for personal use. For my own fine art use I can make as much high quality tissue in a day (14-16 25X30" sheets) as I will use in printing for two weeks or so.

Sandy

[Drew Wiley]

Sandy - I'm well aware that monochrome carbon tissue can be coated using simplified
means, but can't imagine tri or quad color work being done in any significant scale or efficiency that way. I wonder how Tod Gangler and certain others do it? I have been
around commercial processes like Evercolor, who had the tissue coating contracted out
at considerable expense, and I believe that Ataraxia did the same. This is a bit off-topic for this particular forum rather than your own, but I don't want to get into much
detail here, just the general concept. Same goes for color film - I can't imagine anyone
sucessfully doing it in-house without a serious prototyping coater. The tintype look is
a whole different animal. There used to be a fellow in SF and one in Sacto who could
predictably make well-balanced hand-coated color carbons, but these were relatively
small prints and took about a week apiece to make.

[paulr]

Possibly but there are plenty of nutty people around who like to do nutty things. Some more nutty than coating their own film!

I've noticed what seems like a resurgence in wet plate photography. By resurgence, I occasional mention of a dozen or so people doing it. Which is a dozen more than I knew about in the 90s.

I wonder how much of this is iconoclasm ... getting as far as possible from today's technological mainstream ... and also if some of it is a kind of apocalyptic digging-in, preparing for the day film is gone or unafordable.

[Drew Wiley]

I don't see anything nutty about handcoating. Photographers have been hand-coating
papers like albumen, pt/pd, and carbon for some time. Coating film is just another option to experiment for fun, effect, or maybe nostalgia for things past. But it certainly
doesn't come close to replicating the consistent quality of what we've come to expect
from industrial manufacturers and the convenience of simply opening a box of film.
There's a lot more to it than mere recipes, and as I've suggested above, I doubt anyone is doing it with color film except perhaps to come up with a new experimental recipe which could hypothetically be industrially fine-tuned and produced later. The
odds of this kind of thing happening are very very small. The big boys have their own
infrustructure and r&d momentum, and not much financial incentive to start from scratch.

[Brian C. Miller]

I wonder how much of this is iconoclasm ... getting as far as possible from today's technological mainstream ... and also if some of it is a kind of apocalyptic digging-in, preparing for the day film is gone or unafordable.

Paul, are you suggesting that there should be a Society for Creative Anachronism for photographers?

Oh, right, Large Format Photography Forum...

Part of it is the "I can do that too!" fun part of a hobby. Since some of our members build their own cameras, why not also have some fun making your own film? I'm sure there are painters who make their own paints and brushes.

I doubt anyone is doing it with color film ...

AFAIK the only two people who have experimented with actual color film are the two retired photo engineers on APUG.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah Brian, I'm aware of those folks too. Experimenting or protyping with an idea and
then making something practical with it are two different things. But at least these guys have the right kind of background. Even with monochrome, I don't think there's anyone around who's going to come up with a replacement for that Pan F roll I need
for a test this weekend.

[dwross]

Yeah Brian, I'm aware of those folks too. Experimenting or protyping with an idea and
then making something practical with it are two different things. But at least these guys have the right kind of background. Even with monochrome, I don't think there's anyone around who's going to come up with a replacement for that Pan F roll I need
for a test this weekend.

Whoa, boy. If you think the battle between analog and digital is something, you might not have ever stepped into the one between scientists and engineers. I think a biologist (moi) has a reasonable chance of understanding gelatin and organic dyes. But, you're right, I won't have your Pan F ready by this weekend. Bear in mind though, a year ago the retired Kodak engineer who lives at APUG said, with certainty, that making roll film was next to impossible for a home darkroom. I can't speak for engineers, but the word 'impossible' is catnip to scientists . And, most artists don't much care one way or another about 'practical'. 'Impractical' is another word for market niche. There are many who might say that Cibachrome printing is impractical. I'm glad you've ignored them.

[sanking]

Sandy - I'm well aware that monochrome carbon tissue can be coated using simplified
means, but can't imagine tri or quad color work being done in any significant scale or efficiency that way. I wonder how Tod Gangler and certain others do it?

Drew,

Guess you missed my link to Tod Gangler's coating method. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHLeUm0M_KU

This is how he does it. I have seen him do it this way.

Basically, whether you want to do monochrome or quad-color work, level of difficulty is about the same in making the tissue.

Sandy

[D. Bryant]

Drew,

Guess you missed my link to Tod Gangler's coating method. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHLeUm0M_KU

This is how he does it. I have seen him do it this way.

Basically, whether you want to do monochrome or quad-color work, level of difficulty is about the same in making the tissue.

Sandy

This is great Sandy thanks for posting that link.

Don Bryant