Harman Photo cryptic announcement/teaser

[Melvin J Bramley]

Sad, I expected an upgraded DIY black an white product.

What comes next, a resurgence of one hour labs?
I think not.

Whilst I may be wrong I predict this product will drain the profitability of Ilfords Black and White world.

TB

 

[Melvin J Bramley]

Sad, I expected an upgraded DIY black an white product.

What comes next, a resurgence of one hour labs?
I think not.

Whilst I may be wrong I predict this product will drain the profitability of Ilfords Black and White world.

Looking at the ad it would seem the film comes with a free condom!!

TB

 

[mshchem]

Nico must be going NUTS!! He won't be able to break the news. It's been 2 weeks since he has been on YouTube with a new show. I'll bet he will have finished prints, scans, and good commentary when the embargo expires. He's fun to watch.

 

[Overrank]

. But I miss being able to buy a brick of 10 36-frame rolls for about £30-40, just a few years back. The prospect of having to spend £100 for the same these days means I hardly even bother with colour film these days (and less work for my local lab too).

I remember a few years ago buying “Poundland Film” (“AgfaPlus Vista”AKA Fuji) for £1/roll, and then when they were getting rid of it 50p/roll. But the reason it was so cheap was because everyone was getting out of the film business. If that had continued for a few more years then there wouldn’t be a colour film business to be revived.

 

[koraks]

we have lost the classic reliable cheap C-41 everyday film

We've lost it mostly because it was unsustainable. Color film is a gigantically complex product. When manufactured in small volumes, as is today's reality, the only way for it to survive is if it's expensive.

Cheap, good color film can't exist anymore. Those days are definitively over.

 

[Overrank]

Cheap, good color film can't exist anymore. Those days are definitively over.

Tbh it was never that cheap if you look at prices pre-2003 and factor in inflation. It’s just that digital, being “free”, has led to a race to the bottom in prices

 

[koraks]

Tbh it was never that cheap if you look at prices pre-2003 and factor in inflation.

That's certainly true. The race to the bottom was more of a free fall given how fast it all went. It took Fuji 1 year to go from full production in their EU film plant to total shutdown. One day they were pumping out pallets of film per day, the next day, they had to pull the plug. Those last pallets were the film that we could buy for €1/roll for some time until stock ran out. Which actually still hasn't happened, entirely - I can still purchase film here from those last production runs, but now it's more like €8/roll. Same film, just more expired.

 

[Prest_400]

That Ex-Agfa capital belongs to Polaroid and is working for Polaroid for more than a decade now.
InovisCoat has a contract that they can use the infrastructure in certain time-slots. But with the recent insolvency and further brain-drain that has of course become even more challenging.

Despite their start with original Agfa machinery from the former Agfa-Leverkusen plant and Agfa experts they needed more than a decade to produce a decent colour negative film. And had two insolvencies!
So you can imagine how difficult establishing an economically and technologically working colour film production is.

Best regards,
Henning

Thanks Henning for the insight again, I know you provided a good view of the different actors there and what would be the name that encompasses Monheim's manufacturing complex independently of the end product purchaser (Filmotec, Polaroid, etc)?
Honestly as it is a complicated network and as an outsider I just name it with the most recognisable brand.
Neither it is simple to what happened to Agfa (the film arm of the company that died off). It went during the cliff of the digital revolution and unfortunately also the quality of it.

Interesting about the knowledge loss as well as difficulties, thought positive that Polaroid can back it up. In the In an instant Eschede factory visit video, there are some figures that they produce many more million packs of instant film now vs years ago (can't cite it now) which impacts positively on the requirement for color substrate. Well, and Fuji also makes investments in Instax due to that demand.
So it is an interesting catch-22 of some sort. Kodak is holding prices high just for 35mm as there is a high demand; I have come at peace with high-ish prices given the quality one gets. Fuji is the mystery around, but they are reportedly making 35mm C41 consumer film as well as your report of new Fujichrome shipments.

That's certainly true. The race to the bottom was more of a free fall given how fast it all went. It took Fuji 1 year to go from full production in their EU film plant to total shutdown. One day they were pumping out pallets of film per day, the next day, they had to pull the plug. Those last pallets were the film that we could buy for €1/roll for some time until stock ran out. Which actually still hasn't happened, entirely - I can still purchase film here from those last production runs, but now it's more like €8/roll. Same film, just more expired.

I recall seeing some resources from auctioning the Dutch film plant a decade ago. Quite sad how that went and interesting to know how the big manufacturers had sites per continent. Related to Ilford Harman by Geography is Kodak Harrow which closed relatively recently and now that I bring the topic, no idea of what happened to that plant's capital given that it manufactured color paper and film.

 

[Agulliver]

I don't think there's much point reminiscing about when beer was 20p a pint, film was a dollarpound a pop and everyone was on strike. Those days are gone and aren't coming back.

What is important is that the younger folk who are new to film photography and who are driving the resurgence, mostly want to shoot C41 colour. Which is why a stable supply of reasonably priced film aimed at amateurs is important.

And for sure, these $8 a roll prices have been something we in the UK and Europe could only dream of for several years already in terms of colour film. When I was in the USA last year I made a point of stocking up on that batch of genuine Fuji Superia 400 that dropped into Wal-Mart stores knowing that Kodak Ultramax back home is about double the price.

So a new C41 film that may be imperfect but which isn't some "trick FX" film is always going to be welcome. The first, limited edition will sell because of the hype. Ongoing business will surely require a consistent supply and a price no higher than Kodak colour films. If Harman offer "something a bit different", that's fine....when I have said they probably should be looking at something of similar quality to Color Plus I don't mean an exact copy....I mean something that can work for amateurs with simpler cameras. Because while I do see young folk out with SLRs, more often than not it's 80s P&S cameras they're shooting with.

 

[Agulliver]

Sad, I expected an upgraded DIY black an white product.

What comes next, a resurgence of one hour labs?
I think not.

Whilst I may be wrong I predict this product will drain the profitability of Ilfords Black and White world.

TB

What on earth makes you think that?

Harman, and yes that includes under Pemberstone, have always trodden carefully regarding expenditure. Which is why they have made modest but consistent profits in the last 10 years. We know from publicly available accounts that they've not invested gazillions in this project, because we'd know about it. The initial production run is going to sell out so fast some of us probably won't be able to get any. And that will likely already pay for most of the R&D and manufacturing costs. Harman already had spare capacity to coat and confection for third parties, and do non-photographic coating work on contract. This should in no way whatsoever affect B&W film production, sales or profits. Please explain your thinking process here.

I remember a few years ago buying “Poundland Film” (“AgfaPlus Vista”AKA Fuji) for £1/roll, and then when they were getting rid of it 50p/roll. But the reason it was so cheap was because everyone was getting out of the film business. If that had continued for a few more years then there wouldn’t be a colour film business to be revived.

That was being sold as a loss....Fuji reckoned itw as better to get it out of the warehouse at a loss rather than keep it for years. Lupus Imaging (license holder for Agfa Photo) did a deal to get it into Poundland after their supply of cheap Ferrania Solaris and Kodak Color Plus dried up. I just wish I'd realised sooner what that Agfa Photo stuff was....because I'd have bought a lot more.


But absolutely, Fuji miscalculated and ended up with millions of rolls. Shut down the European factory....then a few years later found themselves unable to manufacture enough film in Japan....and they're still having issues though I note one London dealer has just received several cases of genuine FujiFilm C200 so perhaps they're at it again in Japan? It looks like fresh film.

 

[Prest_400]

But absolutely, Fuji miscalculated and ended up with millions of rolls. Shut down the European factory....then a few years later found themselves unable to manufacture enough film in Japan....and they're still having issues though I note one London dealer has just received several cases of genuine FujiFilm C200 so perhaps they're at it again in Japan? It looks like fresh film.

I'd say Harman's buyout and reorganisation in 2005 plus being just in the BW niche are what made them very solid, and it would be interesting to see insights of how the B&W market went through that period given that it should be far far away from the volumes of color products.
To be fair, also Kodak did in some ways with finishing. I don't have the numbers in my head but in Rochester they must have had a lot of finishing lines which were shut down and now are the bottleneck for that format. As of the coater, recall some discussions with PE in the last decade and discussing downsizing, downsizing, downsizing around 2014-15 as well as an anecdote about an engineer proposing a process to make small match manufacturing sustainable with that huge coating machine in B38. IIRC paraphrasing Jeff Clarke, Kodak was about to pull out the plug.
So of different scenarios, relatively high prices but with sustainable demand it is something positive.

Hopefully Fuji are having that big Covid hiccup aggregated with other factors and are able to make 135/120/sheet film again in stable supply and batches.

 

[brbo]

It definitely is a film.

Don't know about the format of the film. 9,5 sprockets per frame!!! They must be coming out also with a new camera!

JCH was right, obviously it really isn't what we thought it was!!!

 

[foc]

9,5 sprockets per frame!!!

Maybe it's artistic license..................... just like cartoon hands having 3 fingers and a thumb ! ! !

 

[Flighter]

View attachment 355104

It definitely is a film.

Don't know about the format of the film. 9,5 sprockets per frame!!! They must be coming out also with a new camera!

JCH was right, obviously it really isn't what we thought it was!!!

Yes, obviously not a film, it's the new Harman semi-panoramic camera with a 24mm x 43mm negative size, 20 exposures to the roll!

 

[Lachlan Young]

Please explain your thinking process here.

There's been an unfortunate lack of that on this thread in general - other than that there are a lot of people here with extremely narrow agendas about what material(s) they think end-users with orders of magnitude greater throughput should be forced to use.

Maskless
Very spikey spectral sensitivity
Pronounced dip in yellow sensitivity

The first and last statement relate to each other in terms of compensating one with the other - the middle one probably plays a role in it too. It does lend some credence to the idea that Ilford have done this using what they have on hand & are wanting to understand whether diving further into coupler research to make the mask work is financially viable.

 

[grain elevator]

Isn't it likely that they want no mask because they expect the vast majority of users to scan, and no mask will make inverting and getting decent colours easier for the average user?

 

[Lachlan Young]

Isn't it likely that they want no mask because they expect the vast majority of users to scan, and no mask will make inverting and getting decent colours easier for the average user?

Unlikely. More likely is how complex and costly getting the mask to work is. I'd point out that the Innoviscoat C-41 neg stock initially had no mask (Lomo Metropolis) then gained one (Adox Colour Mission) as it evolved.

 

[LeoniD]

Isn't it likely that they want no mask because they expect the vast majority of users to scan, and no mask will make inverting and getting decent colours easier for the average user?

It is extremely easy to invert a masked negative, less than 1min in PS. At the same time no mask means worse colors. Cheaper to manufacture, yes, but masked negative is so widespread for a good reason

 

[Nitroplait]

The mainstream Kodak and Fuji films have returned. They can be found for ~$8 a roll in 3-packs at Freestyle and B&H, or your local camera store. I've had no trouble obtaining it since September.

But it is the US Kodak made Fuji 200 & 400, right?

 

[BrianShaw]

Yes, obviously not a film, it's the new Harman semi-panoramic camera with a 24mm x 43mm negative size, 20 exposures to the roll!

Now THAT would get my attention!

 

[Molli]

Well, twenty minutes into the day of the big reveal and nothing to report from this side of the world....

And we still need another 53 posts to crack the fifteen hundred!

 

[BrianShaw]

I’d think that Harman would be using GMT/UTC to determine when December 1 starts.

For me it’s still yesterday. And if they mark the day start based on the location of their big reveal event, most of the world won’t know what happened until tomorrow, the day after.

 

[koraks]

The first and last statement relate to each other in terms of compensating one with the other

I don't think so, really. Exposure isn't through the base. Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant?

the middle one probably plays a role in it too.

Aerocolor doesn't have the same spiky curve, though.

I think it's all due to limiting complexity to the bare minimum required to make a color film. And probably to be able to coat it on the lines the already have without resorting to double coating or adding a costly new coater to the existing line.

 

[Supercine]

I’d think that Harman would be using GMT/UTC to determine when December 1 starts.

For me it’s still yesterday. And if they mark the day start based on the location of their big reveal event, most of the world won’t know what happened until tomorrow, the day after.

4:00pm GMT UK time is the launch.

 

[BrianShaw]

4:00pm GMT UK time is the launch.

1600 GMT/UTC. 8AM in San Clemente. Thanks!