Should Kodak/Fuji rethink color sheet film for room temp processing?

[tykos]

Absolutely not, get a Jobo.



I used to think about that but 1. Kodak's problem is supplying enough film, interest in it has not been an issue. 2. If instant film can be brought back from the dead someone will move heaven and earth to make a C41 film.

[i think that:]
kodak is having troubles supplying film because it's using old freezed master rolls or the research production facilities. The big machines that produced film in the old era would put out LOTS of film, way more than the quantity needed for the current instagram posts' rate. And revamping those old machines may be a little complicated, they are incredibly complex and all the old mantainance workers are gone.
Regarding research: there are no film engineers anymore. Adox would love to produce some new bw films, but they say it's quite impossible to find an engineer, they usually "capture" a young generic chemical engineer in the wild and teach him/her all film things, if he/her i̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶e̶s̶c̶a̶p̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶s̶o̶n̶ is willing to work there for some time. Colour/slide reasearch is 100x more complicated, i think.

[Drew Wiley]

Kodak is doing a lot of fresh coating. That's an evident fact from both completely new products like E100 chrome film, and from successive new batch numbers on longstanding popular films like TMax.

[Tin Can]

Good to know

Kodak is doing a lot of fresh coating. That's an evident fact from both completely new products like E100 chrome film, and from successive new batch numbers on longstanding popular films like TMax.

[Bernice Loui]

Why ?

Given the intensive research and development that was applied to achieve color film image excellence there little if any justification to alter the entire color film system for "room temperature" processing out of "ease" for those that do not fully appreciate or understand the very real demands and needs of GOOD color film images.

If plants require good clean water and sunlight to grow, why try giving plants anything else?

Seems these days, film photography has become far more "hobbyist" centric than serious color film image maker centric where the serious color film folks knew what is GOOD color and accepted what was required to achieve this. There are a few relics from that era that still remember what was required and demanded to achieve good color on film. Think-suspect this is not quite true today as opinion-perception has become the greater deciding factor.


Bernice

[sharktooth]

Like it or not, the reality is that film has to be "hobbyist" centric now to survive. The mass market went digital long ago, and it's never coming back to film. Black and white film exists today since the "hobbyist/artist" market kept it viable. The black and white film market went through this catharsis at least 50 years ago. It was a tiny market then, and remains a tiny market now, but it has survived the digital age quite nicely thank you very much.

As I stated in the original post, Agfachrome 50S Professional film could be processed at room temperature using Agfa chemicals. This is more than 40 years ago. I'm sure that Kodak and Fuji have done research on room temp processing long ago, but it would never have made sense for production then, since volume throughput would be the key to profits. The Agfa process was an anomaly in that era, since it was catering to the "hobbyist", and probably against their better interest at the time.

My point is that machine processing of color film may survive for 35mm in the foreseeable future, but the prospects look grim for 120 and especially large format. We're losing large format film at an alarming rate, and the people that process it are disappearing even faster. The only way to keep it around is for everyone involved, from manufacturers to users, acknowledges that the market is going to be small, and probably similar in size to the black and white large format market now. The black and white market is hobbyists and artists who are primarily doing things themselves. That's just the way it is, and the only way it can work.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, making film is apparently art as well as science, and therefore dependent not only on well-tuned equipment but a continuity of informed film-craftsmen, so to speak. But given the fact that the quality control of Kodak color film is better than ever, they must be doing something right, even if it's at the expense of dropping quite a few films of the past. That was inevitable anyway.

Hobby film use is a drop in the bucket square footage wise. Yes, there are a few deliberately goofy fun 35mm color films now briefly on the market which by very nature do not require tight quality control; but Kodak does not participate in that. And most amateur interest has shifted toward digital anyway. There would be no sense in Kodak risking their own high-quality reputation niche by somehow compromising manufacture. Let's hope it lasts. Ilford is analogous - good stuff too, but only in black and white.

[Bernice Loui]

Why color film today?

Well understood the possible advantages of color film compared to digital. Read from Post# 50 and forward:
https://www.largeformatphotography.i...light=demosaic

Hobby color film ok, question becomes again why when the color image becomes an expression of fantasy instead of accurate/precise and correct color rendition, contrast, saturation and LOTs more involved with color images. How "good" was that Agfachrome color image processed at home?

At this point in time what is defined is a good color image, who is decided and judges what is good color or good enough color?

The requirements to achieve excellence in color images is more than what most would want to do/try/know. If color film is scanned into a digital film, not convinced this is the ideal hybrid process a it would incur problems from both digital and analog film process.. resulting in a "different" color image in place of trying to meet a standard reference of color image excellence.

Kinda like folks doing alternative process images ~just to be different~
Yet, different alone does not constitute image excellence.

The bigger picture has more to do with the many hundreds of millions of digital images up-loaded to the web daily. This reality tends to discount and dilute the value of images in the eyes of the beholder in a similar way as want to believe propaganda.

Hobby color film is ok, question is will the manufactures of photochemical image making support this or simply stop and move on to another business that is viable? Fact is, color film might disappear regardless of what the hobbyist market demands.. Just like Fuji Velvia.

There are many good reasons to do B&W sheet film images. Consider why this is true?


Bernice

Like it or not, the reality is that film has to be "hobbyist" centric now to survive. The mass market went digital long ago, and it's never coming back to film. Black and white film exists today since the "hobbyist/artist" market kept it viable. The black and white film market went through this catharsis at least 50 years ago. It was a tiny market then, and remains a tiny market now, but it has survived the digital age quite nicely thank you very much.

As I stated in the original post, Agfachrome 50S Professional film could be processed at room temperature using Agfa chemicals. This is more than 40 years ago. I'm sure that Kodak and Fuji have done research on room temp processing long ago, but it would never have made sense for production then, since volume throughput would be the key to profits. The Agfa process was an anomaly in that era, since it was catering to the "hobbyist", and probably against their better interest at the time.

My point is that machine processing of color film may survive for 35mm in the foreseeable future, but the prospects look grim for 120 and especially large format. We're losing large format film at an alarming rate, and the people that process it are disappearing even faster. The only way to keep it around is for everyone involved, from manufacturers to users, acknowledges that the market is going to be small, and probably similar in size to the black and white large format market now. The black and white market is hobbyists and artists who are primarily doing things themselves. That's just the way it is, and the only way it can work.

[Drew Wiley]

Bernice - so what is your alternative? If you're worried about color film being abused for unrealistic results .... well, doing digi instead, or having ones fingers on a cornucopia of pushbutton fake-isms after a scan sure isn't going to help in that respect. But it is a mighty jaded opinion if someone thinks that color is a less noble medium than black and white film photography. Any medium is capable of abuse, or of careful respect the other direction. No photographic medium represents actual visual reality or ever will. We have to be the shamans who connect the rather limited logistical possibilities of the photochemical world to an impression or illusion of the visualized ideal. And at that point, the subject of taste and esthetics is inevitable.

I personally can't stand a lot of popularized color photography, there's no nuance to it; but that's never the fault of the film itself - it's neutral in that respect. I just want a dependable quality product; and at least we still have that. There's nothing inherently "amateurish" about color film. That lies in the mind itself : if one thinks like a dork, they'll take dorkish photos, regardless of the gear involved. And sheet film never had much amateur appeal to begin with. I've had my color prints side by side to prints by some of the best known black and white photographers who ever lived, and held my own, even beside the works of top tier abstract expressionist painters and Impressionists at one point or another. Just because it's color film and used outdoors doesn't mean we all want to make postcards of cute little chipmunks who charge five dollars apiece to pose on the south rim of the Grand Canyon six yards from the tour bus turnout.

I'm being sarcastic of course, and am speaking axiomatically, and certainly not implying that you yourself have discriminatory views on the potential of color film. I like it specifically for its capacity for subtle nuance, extreme detail, and yes, even its signature limitations corralling one into not going hog wild, at least in the darkroom, relatively speaking. What people do with computer apps is up to them; but most don't know the distinction between thoughtfully modulated hue and fluorescent curb marking spray paint.

[Kiwi7475]

Why color film today?

Well understood the possible advantages of color film compared to digital. Read from Post# 50 and forward:
https://www.largeformatphotography.i...light=demosaic

Hobby color film ok, question becomes again why when the color image becomes an expression of fantasy instead of accurate/precise and correct color rendition, contrast, saturation and LOTs more involved with color images. How "good" was that Agfachrome color image processed at home?

At this point in time what is defined is a good color image, who is decided and judges what is good color or good enough color?

The requirements to achieve excellence in color images is more than what most would want to do/try/know. If color film is scanned into a digital film, not convinced this is the ideal hybrid process a it would incur problems from both digital and analog film process.. resulting in a "different" color image in place of trying to meet a standard reference of color image excellence.

Kinda like folks doing alternative process images ~just to be different~
Yet, different alone does not constitute image excellence.

The bigger picture has more to do with the many hundreds of millions of digital images up-loaded to the web daily. This reality tends to discount and dilute the value of images in the eyes of the beholder in a similar way as want to believe propaganda.

Hobby color film is ok, question is will the manufactures of photochemical image making support this or simply stop and move on to another business that is viable? Fact is, color film might disappear regardless of what the hobbyist market demands.. Just like Fuji Velvia.

There are many good reasons to do B&W sheet film images. Consider why this is true?


Bernice

I find this too broad of a statement. If you’re doing product photography, maybe (not even). But say in landscape photography for example, portraiture, or documentary/street photography, color accuracy is not the end-all.

We routinely adjust and manipulate B&W contrasts and tones in the darkroom, isn’t that fantasy too? So what do we care if the colors are not exactly truthful? (within limits).

Many professional landscape photographers I know scan their film negatives and adjust/manipulate in PS. Lightly. Carefully. These are not “Instagram” photographers.

“Excellence in color images” is sometimes more than achieving perfectly accurate “captures” of the colors and tones.

[tykos]

hobbyist market has always kept the industry alive, even in the past decades, except maybe let's say before 1950-ish. For every roll shot by a pro there have always been thousands of rolls shot at birthdays, school trips, etc. For every camera bought by a pro there were thousands of cameras sold to the amateurs.
These days, however, the hobbyist market is waaaaay less than 20 years ago, and the pro market either.