Ferrania is back to live!!!

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Foma film is excellent, I have no complaints about their products, I like their developers too.

Eugen Mezei · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 265

If you like it, it's ok.
I have only a problem with this hype of supporting _anyone_ producing film. (Regarding Foma I think about them as follows: They are ok but for the price I can get better. In some markets they are au pair or higher than Ilford, Kodak and Fuji. If I can get those 3 at the same price guess who I will choose.)
The hype that begins to form about Ferrania is as laughable than the one about the purple film. People were enthusiatic, albeit from the beginning it was clear that Lomography is promoting it based on a lie. Now the film appeared and it is a piece of expensive junk. Not to the same degree, but I see something similar evolving with Ferrania too. I hope I'm wrong and they bring out the super-extra-excellent-neverseen best quality film, but to be realistic I don't see where the knowledge to produce a quality film would come all of the sudden.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I don't know where you're buying your film, but I've never seen Foma cost more than others. Fomapan has it's own distinct look, and in technical aspects it is excellent, so I don't see what is to criticise.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I agree. I have had poor results with Fuji Neopan, doesn't make it a bad film though. The more film companies there are, the better. It would be very sad if we end up without any film makers, or just Lucky and Shanghai from China.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Eugen Mezei · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 265

Ian, did you compare the price of Foma with that of Fuji's BW films? Especially in the american market? I didn't say it is more expensive, but it is almost at the same level but for shure quality is not. I didn't say Foma is bad, but it is not the best. 100 ASA is fine, did you look at the grain of their 400? And reciprocity failure is a catastrophe for all Foma films.
Foma has its place, but in segment of the market at a price reflecting his qualities. Also it is ok for some applications, that is why I don't understand why some acclaim it as the �berfilm. It is not. Better material exist from Fuji and Kodak at the same price and from Ilford at higher prices.
As far as I know Lucky don't produce anymore. Or was it just they do no more color film?

Attila, Superia a bad film? In my opinion it is the best consumer film of the last 15 years. Kodak needed 10 years to produce a film that is au pair regarding grain in the 400 and higher ISO class. I consider it eve today superior, including ISO 200, to anything Kodak offers as amateur film.
I'm not an expert in scanning, unfortunately. Can you tell me what Excalibur teached you? Could be it improves my scanning abilities.

ravilamir: I bought two bricks of FG100, and two of FG800 (a brick has 10 rolls) fresh from Fotoimpex. Why did I so? 3 reasons: it is the only 100 ASA negative film I can get today (therefore I haven't bought a brick of 200 ASA and unfortunately they had no 400), the price was right, could be at some point I have the nostalgy to produce pictures of the grain and color balance I did when I was young and had only money for Ferrania.
As with Foma I think this company had it place and can have it again in the market. What I don't like is the enthusiasm for something that is simply not true. It feels like I were in some Lomography hipster group. I see no improvement in FG and for shure it is not improved over Kodak or Fuji. But I will develop some roll of FG100 and see myself. (I don't think I have to compare FG800 with Superia 800.)

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I don't agree with your criticisms of Foma at all. No-one is claiming it to be an uberfilm, but it is excellent, if you don't think so, then you probably haven't hit on the ideal development.

I know that in Europe, Foma is significantly cheaper than Kodak or Fuji and imho, it gives better tonality than the T-grain films like TMAX and Neopan.

Reprocicity problems? Maybe you're just calculating your exposures wrong, works fine for me with long exposures.

Eugen Mezei · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 265

I haven't wrote about reciprocity problems, please read carefully.
You can't deny that Foma has a very high reciprocity failure. Shure this can be calcuated, but I prefer not to sit all night long out in the cold. Foma's reciprocity failure need compensation for as short times as half a second and increases exponentially. Take Acros and you have nothing to compensate up into the minutes.
Btw, your example is not a really long exposure, but I'm shure even for the sub 1 minute measured exposure you had to compensate.

Price?
Have you compared with Kodak? Kodak is definitevly cheaper.
Fomapan around 4,20 for Rollfilm and around 4,30 for 35mm film. No difference if 100, 200 or 400 ASA.
Kodak T-Max 100 or 400: 4,10 EUR, Kodak 400TX: 4,20 EUR.

Fuji is indeed more expensive:
Acros 5 to 5,50 EUR, sometimes cheaper.
We don't need to talk about Neopan. It is up to 6 EUR but that is a manipulated price.

Iford goes between 5,50 and 6 EUR for their normal films (cubic or flat), only their IR and 3200 ASA is more expensive.

Ofcourse this are films delivering different results and I have no problem somebody promoting Foma for the reason he likes the results produced. (Let me mention that I consider the looks of it fits very nicely the theme you got on that picture.) The only thing I don't like is when Foma is presented as tehnically better than other products and a bargain. Both is false.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I can deny it has a high reprocicity failure, it is about the same as FP4, which is not an issue at all, you just compensate, you're criticising Fomapan for something that is typical of many emulsions. Acros is unusual in it's reprocicity characteristics, so not a valid comparison.

No-one has been trying to promote Foma as superior, that's a fallacy you've dreamed up. It is indeed cheaper than Fuji, Kodak or Ilford in the UK and the USA.

Foma make a good product and it is sold at a good price, end of story.

Eugen Mezei · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 265

ravilamir · Joined: 29 Dec 2012 Posts: 16 Location: London, UK

Eugen
You have some wrong conclusions in there.

1. Lucky films. Production of colour films has ended last September. Only the B&W SHD 100 is in production.

2. Foma film prices. Here in the UK, Foma is sold by Silverprint at a considerable lower price than any Ilford, Fuji or Kodak B&W films. Typically �2.59-�2.98 a roll. Compare that with Ilford FP4+ at �4.61.

3. But this thread is about Ferrania. Thank you for buying a few bricks (BTW, I'm British and know what a brick of film is: we invented the term here). I hope it is the FG PLUS versions and not the old FG. Now, the last time the machines at Ferrania produced it was about 3-4 years ago. So, try to use it before the sell by date comes!
Ferrania colour films in the last 20 years were the cheapest and had distinctive characteristics that suited some, but not all.

You talk about "quality" or lack of it. In my humble opinion, there isn't such a thing in today's films. "Quality" as in the quality of production, coating, and even packaging is about the same for all.
Even the cheapest manufacturer today, China Lucky, had increased the quality of their coatings (they were in partnership with Kodak for some years). Long gone the days where you would find coating defects or the emulsion not covering the entire film area.

What there is today are films with different qualities, different characteristics. Ilford film are today produced by a company called Harman Technology. They also make a cheap B&W film under the Kentmere brand. They're about a pound cheaper than Ilford branded films, but all have the same quality. It is their characteristics that are different. As an example, Kentmere 400 is quite grainy, even grainier than Fomapan 400. I can think of a few subjects and situations where it will come handy.

Cheap films like those made by Lucky or Ferrania have their place. I used to like Lucky Super New 100 film as it had pastel colours that suited me.
Lets see what the future holds, but I'm positive that a revamped and slimmed down Ferrania has its place. It is not a coincidence their first films are two 100 ISO colour films. Both are the most modern films Ferrania had at the time they stopped production in 2011.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Excellent post. I agree, all films sold today are good quality, and if you find the right development technique for the look you want to achieve, they are all more than adequate.

Eugen Mezei · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 265

Yes, it is FG Plus.

By quality regarding Ferrania I refer to the '90s (and perhaps before too). Fuji pushed the tehnical edge, they came out with finer grained films, holding for almost a decade the grain record on 400 ISO and higher films, they also came out with the 4 layer for mixed lighting. They did this by investing in research.[1] You can't deny that Ferrania's tehnology was at least 10 years behind. (As told before, both had their place in the market until digital wiped out the need for cheap film by taking away the customers.)
In my opinion Ferrania has a chance only if they bring out formats that are not avaible elsewhere (126, 127, 110, 620). I don't see how should they all of the sudden come out with a film better than Fuji or Kodak (C41 or E6) and I don't see how they could compete by price, Fuji having the C200 at bargain. I simply don't see the need for a new C41 film. In my opinion they should bring out a slide film or even better a real IR.

[1] And I'm convinced this investments where not little amounts of money. Fuji has from where to invest in his research, in the meantime Ferrania was a corpse wandering around from Scotch, 3M, etc. (some of the companies beeing interconnected, some not) nobody wanting to invest in it but sell it as quick as possible to escape the losses it produced.
Where should the money come now for researching a new film (they claim it would be new)?

ravilamir · Joined: 29 Dec 2012 Posts: 16 Location: London, UK

Eugen,
Please, re-read Nicola's interview. He answers most of your questions.
http://www.japancamerahunter.com/2013/08/film-news-ferrania-is-back-exclusive-interview/

The new Film Ferrania company is putting an emphasis in cine film formats. Nicola Baldini, the visible face of the new company, is a cinematographer. That's one of the reasons one of the first films is a slide film with potential to exist in several cine formats.
See: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3996504/

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Regardless of Eugen's misplaced negativity, I think this is great news, more variety available to us shooters. I wonder if Ferrania will also be producing some bw emulsions too?

ravilamir · Joined: 29 Dec 2012 Posts: 16 Location: London, UK

Ian
Maybe! See Film Ferrania's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=369695133132921&set=a.360980390671062.1073741827.298210133614755&type=1&theater

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Cheers, I'll check that out. Smile

Eugen Mezei · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 265

Ian, this are not news and it is not negativity. Those are, at the moment, promises and I have doubts. We don't need another fairytales teller. Do we or is Lomography enough?

ravilamir, reversal film plays no role in commercial filmmaking. (Intended for movie theaters.) We don't talk here about 8 mm amateur filming. The movies you can see (and which have budgets of several millions for production) are made on negative film and copied (in fact printed) to negative film. Even the distribution copies for the theaters are on negative film. (Nothing else is in fact in the interview: "We know that, at the moment, the market needs a good reversal colour film especially for small cinema formats [...]". But if I may remark, home video filmers fuffer no lack of a diversity of material at the moment. They can choose between 3 color reversal and some bw reversal film in 8 an 16 mm casettes. They are pretty happy with what they have today.)
I read the interview.
First he tells us a bit about the history of the company. Nothing about innovation, no wonder... they simply did not exist. Color film introduced after WWII, I'm curios which old emulsion Agfa let them produce. (Ferraniacolor was a pure Agfa product.) Well... I have no problem with purely factoring entreprises without research departments (new Adox is such one, Efke was one, Forte -the biggest lost in my opinion- was another one), I just want to point out (again) that I can't imagine where the knowledge will come from to develop the _new_ film they brag about.
Then he tells us about their plans. Oh look.... suprise... no slogans about a new film. They faded into "the colour negative film Solaris FG-100 Plus will be presented in as many photographic formats as we can provide.".

Again and for the last time: When the film will appear I will buy it in quatitities if it is at around 3 EUR per roll. But I'm not willing to jump around in extasy just based on tales where I clearly can see that they will not be realised in the form they are promised.
Miniproduction and competitive as told in the interview? Shure, at 7-10 EUR/roll. Thank you, I prefer to buy Kodak at 4 USD and Fuji at 6 USD.

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Hi Eugene
I noticed I got a mention in this thread and I don't think I could teach Attila anything as he is a very good photographer, it was just that I thought he made a hasty judgement about Superia 200 and I disagreed with him and produced some shots that he liked.
My favourite is Reala (and consider Superia 200 is a great general purpose film). I've just been on holiday and it will be interesting comparing Reala to Ferrania FG 200 plus as I did have one last roll of Ferrania.
And on mentioning prices:- In the Uk you can buy Agfa Vista for �1 and the popular view is its Fuji C200 under a different name, Ok IMO it's not as good as Superia 200 but you can get good results from it, so it's just another product that Ferrania would be up against on prices.

ravilamir · Joined: 29 Dec 2012 Posts: 16 Location: London, UK

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

In BW, I don't want 'new' products, I want to see the old ones continued. The Efke films were wonderful and they were simply the old Agfa emulsions from the 1950s. I dearly wish we could still buy Panatomic-X and Technical Pan, for my money, none of the modern T-grain emulsions are as appealing as the old thicker cubic emulsions.

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9097 Location: Houston, Texas

Very interesting. Problem with that, though, is most film cameras' ISO settings don't go up that high.

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21