Harman Photo cryptic announcement/teaser

[Prest_400]

I started an Instagram account just to be able to see posts properly (I haven't posted anything, but somehow have three followers )
So anyway I followed this German magazine 'Camera', and they are excited about the new Wolfen NC200 colour film, which they have tested for their issue 2. So did these clever Germans see Harman's teaser and say 'Guys, we have four weeks to invent a new film and spoil Harman's Christmas'?

Agfa being back is nice Not to misinform, and it's a whole organisation and convoluted parties in the Inovis-Orwo films but the root of it is that a lot of the manufacturing capital is ex Agfa. Never got to try their films first hand so if they get it to that level in a couple years it will be nice.

Plus again let's see Harman. And when their hypothetical film is released with the presence of NC200 it will be interesting if there is any relation between them.

At the Fuji lab I mentioned above, for the dip & dunk line they use a film picker and can tell by the leader if it's remjet backed. For the continuous processing line, the film goes into an automated splicer and nobody ever gets to see the film before it emerges from the processor. This means that any remjet-backed film will go through along with the rest of it, and apparently the impact of this on the process is sufficiently negligible for them to not even spend any time trying to fix it. I've never heard any accounts of people getting film with remjet muck back from this lab. They process many thousands of rolls per week for a significant part of the European market.

The remjet issue is mostly a concern for minilabs.

I recall a lot of mentions towards roll transport processor damage when the minilabs or equivalent machines were not properly maintained. In some video, a small lab running a Frontier developing machine shows how the soot covered other films and thankfully that ECN2 roll was run at the end of the batch

BTW, is the Fuji lab available to end customers? It is interesting as they might run these processors instead of minilabs and they are Fuji after all. That said, at least for C41 most of the newer labs that cater with online scans do take much more care. But again, E6 in some locations is rather spotty.
There might be a niche for high quality "Raw" scans, a lab that I sent film too now merged with another one and upgraded to a Noritsu that makes justice to Medium format -- Some labs really charge a lot for "4.7MB" scans that are just not even 2000px wide.

Now that we drifted to the talk of labs, Harman run their lab which is fantastic both for B&W and color.

 

[brbo]

A B&W film could contaminate an E6 process line, unlikely the chemistry which could be filtered, It's an issue of film hardening and temperature.

Haven't thought of BW emulsion lifting off at 38ºC. Thanks!

 

[koraks]

Haven't thought of BW emulsion lifting off at 38ºC. Thanks!

I doubt many would, these days. I've developed Fomapan at >40C and it worked just fine. There's this guy on YouTube who ran HP5+ through scalding hot water and it developed fine, too (very quickly, in fact).
I imagine old emulsions like Efke would be toast, though. Maybe Shanghai, too.

BTW, is the Fuji lab available to end customers? It is interesting as they might run these processors instead of minilabs and they are Fuji after all. That said, at least for C41 most of the newer labs that cater with online scans do take much more care. But again, E6 in some locations is rather spotty.

They do work for a variety of European outlets; I think in Sweden, too, but I'd have to ask. PM me if interested and I'll share what I know. There are some caveats when it comes to E6 and scanning, but that would take us even further offtopic here.

 

[koraks]

What is the evidence as to when they might have started a colour film project. Could it not have been a lot more than 3 years ago?

Sorry for neglecting this.
Yes, could have been >3 years. I guess at least 2.5-3 years because of the hires that would have occurred as the project was already started, but not in full swing. That would put the project start date at least 3 years or so back. But they may have been working at it earlier, of course. It's often hard to put an exact date on the start of a development like this. Is it the first time someone brings it up at a meeting? Or is the start date the moment a manager asks an R&D employee to spend some time on exploring it? Or the moment a budget is formally allocated to it? It's all very fluid. But if a company's going to hire staff for something like this, at least there have been some rounds of management discussion, budget allocation etc. in order to get the vacancy out etc. Hence my estimate that it must have been going for at least 3 years, and certainly not something like 18 months because that would mean they first started hiring staff with very specific competence in organic dye synthesis, then had them lolling about for over a year sitting on their hands before someone figured out they might as welll start working on a color film. That doesn't sound like a plausible chain of events to me.

 

[foc]

so I wonder if there was another, more sensible reason for the "no re-loadable" policy.

With reloaded cassettes, there is no way the lab can know how the customer attached the end of the film to the cassette spool. For autoloading continuous processors and minilab leader belt machines this can be a big problem.

The machines are designed to activate a film cutter when the film reaches the end of extraction from the cassette. With all proprietary brands of film, this works perfectly but with re-loadable cassettes, the tape holding the film to the cassette spool often extends out of the cassette (on extraction) and can foul the cutter and cause major problems. When I had my lab, we would hand extract any such cassettes and load them into a dark cassette to avoid this problem. I was always amazed at the amount and strength of tape used.

Regarding processing film with remjet in a minilab leadercard processor, we used to leave all those films till last process run of the day. To remove the remjet particles from the chemistry, we also used an aquarium tank net to skim the top of each developing tank and then let the circulation filters do their job BUT all this took extra time but was hard to convey an extra charge to the customers.

 

[BrianShaw]

What is the evidence as to when they might have started a colour film project. Could it not have been a lot more than 3 years ago?


Thanks

pentaxuser

Does it really matter (other than being a somewhat interesting discussion amongst dilettantes)? Any place I worked (commercial or government) a project officially began when management declared it a formal program with a plan and funding, or at least proposed funding. That was anywhere between long after or shortly after the dreaming-and-scheming” phase. R&D generally precedes a development program and are considered an event of its own.

This line of discussion brings to mind all sort of bad memories about another innovative film provider who actually stated how long his project had been in development… and was torn apart by the wolves.

 

[koraks]

Does it really matter

Nah, it's a curiosity kind of thing as far as I'm concerned. Nice to know, not really necessary for anything.

R&D generally precedes a development program

A place I worked at (well, several) made a fundamental distinction between 'program' and 'project', with both R and D activities potentially being part of either.
In innovation research, NPD is a construct that's treated separately from the much more informal R&D, while it's (NPD) is generally considered as mostly constituting the D part of R&D. Of course, R&D can be aimed at much more than NPD, so at best, the two overlap.
It's a forest of definitions (as usual) and it turns out that each industry or sometimes even organization has its own way of labeling things. That, too, is mostly interesting to dilettantes, I suppose.

 

[BrianShaw]

Yes, I should not have used those terms interchangeably. They are not the same, as you state. The date we generally use for official start is when a project becomes a program-of-record. That sometimes offends those of us who worked the R part of R&D…

 

[pentaxuser]

Does it really matter.

No except in the sense that if it was quite a bit longer ago than say 3 years which is what my question was implying, it casts less doubt on whether such a product is possible which seemed to be the "nub" of the perhaps unwarranted scepticism

pentaxuser

 

[koraks]

it casts less doubt on whether such a product is possible

Whatever doubt is/was there, the product apparently exists, so that makes any doubt a moot point!

when a project becomes a program-of-record

That's funny as it suggests a very different relationships between programs and projects that I'm used to, with the program being the overarching entity. Which only goes to show how different contexts have different idioms.
As a respondent of mine once said: "well, in the end, we all boil our water at around 100C".

 

[pentaxuser]

koraks thanks for #1255. It may well be that from germ of an idea at executive level to fruition it might well have been "started quite a long time before

pentaxuser

 

[pentaxuser]

As a respondent of mine once said: "well, in the end, we all boil our water at around 100C".

Except possibly the Nepalese

pentaxuser

 

[brbo]

but with re-loadable cassettes, the tape holding the film to the cassette spool often extends out of the cassette (on extraction) and can foul the cutter and cause major problems.

If you read my post closely, what I was basically asking is how do you know that original cassettes were not reloaded the same way. I always use original cassettes when I load my Vision3 film and tape the film to the stub of original film. When I'm done shooting the film is rewound into the cassette and looks exactly like any other OEM roll of film... I doubt I'm the only one using original cassettes for loading film from bulk rolls.

So, to repeat my question, if you only give special attention to re-loadable cassettes or even straight out refuse to process them, how do you prevent folks like me* to mess up your cutter or solution tanks with all kinds of tape?

* not literally "me" as I process all my film at home

 

[BrianShaw]

koraks thanks for #1255. It may well be that from germ of an idea at executive level to fruition it might well have been "started quite a long time before

pentaxuser

It seems quite fair to assume that assumption is a fact. Management (and stockholder boards, ans applicable) rarely if ever jump quickly into new projects/programs/products without a fair amount of business and technology analysis.

I’m much more interested in seeing this product formally announced, released, and some display of its capabilities/ characteristics. It is sincerely hoped that there is a full-disclosure data sheet to go with it.

 

[mshchem]

Trying to stick with the New Phoenix Harman Technology offering. The fact that it is "limited edition" doesn't mean it's not a good product. I'm sure that Harman wants to be able to develop (no pun intended) a product tailored to their customers needs.

I expect Harman to be a full product supplier, certainly NOT color paper, that's something that we can expect Fujifilm to provide us for the foreseeable future, that's a great thing too.

A December to Remember!

 

[Mark J]

Except possibly the Nepalese

pentaxuser

..and the Tibetans and Bolivians ...and...
Not a very good aphorism actually, when you come to analyse it !

ps. given the way the rumours are developing now, it looks like my secret desire to have Delta 400 in sheet film sizes was just a dream !

 

[BrianShaw]

That's funny as it suggests a very different relationships between programs and projects that I'm used to, with the program being the overarching entity. Which only goes to show how different contexts have different idioms.
As a respondent of mine once said: "well, in the end, we all boil our water at around 100C".

As one dilettante to another, let’s not go down that rabbit hole. LOL.

 

[MattKing]

I can see there being a concern about badly rolled film perhaps introducing contaminants, or incorrectly labelled film screwing up a run and/or gumming up the machine.

The labs are leery because of the potential for their being remjet on the film - a potential that is even greater than it was back in the days of Seattle Film Works.

 

[bfilm]

It is sincerely hoped that there is a full-disclosure data sheet to go with it.

Yes, one of the things I have very much disliked about this new era in film are the often meager data sheets. I hope Harman will not follow this trend.

 

[abruzzi]

ps. given the way the rumours are developing now, it looks like my secret desire to have Delta 400 in sheet film sizes was just a dream !

I was hoping for Delta 3200 in sheet sizes, but then they wouldn't brand it Harman. C41 is likely what lots of people want, but I never shoot the stuff anymore, I'd much rather have more E6 film.

 

[warden]

Yes, one of the things I have very much disliked about this new era in film are the often meager data sheets. I hope Harman will not follow this trend.

I think we're safe there. It's still Harman after all.

 

[brbo]

I think we're safe there. It's still Harman after all.

On the other hand, if this is a "limited edition" and basically a work in progress, publishing specs for each run would probably be counterproductive and confusing.

 

[bfilm]

I think we're safe there. It's still Harman after all.

That is what I am hoping. But is there any precedent for what Harman will do with a somewhat experimental and limited edition film?

 

[Lachlan Young]

I guess at least 2.5-3 years because of the hires that would have occurred as the project was already started, but not in full swing

A couple of data points:

XP2 Super was reformulated about a decade ago to remove a component that was due to be outlawed on environmental grounds (environmentally persistent) - specifically, a component used as a gelatin extender (from recall) - I recall Simon Galley at the time stating that 2 years of stock was coated ahead of the project to ensure no break in supply, should it require more significant R&D/ reformulation than expected. Given that XP2 uses a blend of CMY couplers, it would not surprise me in the slightest if a small scale research project ran onwards from there, ready to be sped up if a market opportunity & colour film specialists became available. I think the same component may well have been responsible for the reformulation a few years earlier of Kodak Portra VC & NC into the 160 & 400 of today.

And, within the last few weeks, Harman were advertising for a chemist job which, from the description, is clearly going to largely revolve around making & dispersing couplers.

 

[warden]

On the other hand, if this is a "limited edition" and basically a work in progress, publishing specs for each run would probably be counterproductive and confusing.

I see your point and can understand if they wait until the product is finalized for a more complete documentation package but I do hope for some useful data even at this stage.