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FRESH 16mm NEGATIVE B&W - PRODUCTION START


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These are Fomapan films. The sensitometric curves are from the Fomapan data sheets.

It would have relieved some skeptics here to know that the manufacturer is Foma in Czech Republic.

Perhaps Valerian can pay Foma a little extra rent for the Fomapan name. Cinematographers have a right to know where their film comes from.

 

The sensitization might better be termed "super panchromatic" than "panchromatic". Spectral sensitivity to 700 nm is way beyond Eastman 7231. So cinematographers wishing to maintain the Eastman panchro look must find a filter to remove the long wavelength sensitivity. Otherwise expect a surprise!

 

Foma's spectral sensitivity data is primitive compared to Kodak's. It's a "wedge spectrogram". Information is lacking for interpreting its vertical axis. It's logarithmic, but that's not enough. We can't even remove the curve's 2850K bias without knowing the vertical scale. So cinematographers must determine the effects of their filters from scratch.

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These are Fomapan films. The sensitometric curves are from the Fomapan data sheets.

It would have relieved some skeptics here to know that the manufacturer is Foma in Czech Republic.

Perhaps Valerian can pay Foma a little extra rent for the Fomapan name. Cinematographers have a right to know where their film comes from.

 

The sensitization might better be termed "super panchromatic" than "panchromatic". Spectral sensitivity to 700 nm is way beyond Eastman 7231. So cinematographers wishing to maintain the Eastman panchro look must find a filter to remove the long wavelength sensitivity. Otherwise expect a surprise!

 

Foma's spectral sensitivity data is primitive compared to Kodak's. It's a "wedge spectrogram". Information is lacking for interpreting its vertical axis. It's logarithmic, but that's not enough. We can't even remove the curve's 2850K bias without knowing the vertical scale. So cinematographers must determine the effects of their filters from scratch.

He he...Dennis, Dennis !

 

Always the guy that "fights for everybody's rights"! he he That's a rhyme!

 

I recall your name and attitude from a few years ago, in 2010 when your way of "fighting for your rights" drove nuts even Ron Lindeboom, the CEO of Creative COW LLC! he he he

You drove him so crazy!! that he felt the need to message you:" I'll likely just nuke your account and be done with it" ...NUKE your account!!! he he

 

"Your account is about ready to be closed if you don't lighten up -- and that includes writing me privately. (If you do, I'll likely just nuke your account and be done with it.)"

 

 

Oh boy...oh boy!!

 

So my dear knight...and I quote you " Cinematographers have a right to know where their film comes from." he he he ."Your Cinematographers" will be informed because the product will have all the information necessary on the label and also on the prospects! As you can see the prospects are quite available for everybody to download! Even you did and found there that it has the "Spectral sensitivity to 700 nm" ...Well it is your choice to buy or not to buy the product when it will be available! This post is not for debate regarding the cinematographers' rights but if you the cinematographer could be interested in buying a product with the tech specs available for download!! One thing that you didn't understand and went right to "rights fighting"! he he he

 

The really unpleasant thing from your post is the fact that you start criticizing this product that you have not tested based on your interpretation of the "spectral sensitivity data" which is "primitive compared to Kodak's." Be serious!! Go buy Kodak and shoot half the movie you can shoot with this one!!! But I'm sure you already know that Kodak's old stock spectral sensitivity is way worse than this film's that you are against! Am I right? (rhetorical question!! no answer needed...)

For sure this film is not for pretentious guys like you therefore I will not invite you to fill up the survey!!

Indeed the sensitometric curves are similar with Fomapan's since the emulsion formula came from the same European source...but you can stop here with the conclusions, like "Valerian can pay Foma a little extra rent for the Fomapan name"! Man, are you real? he he

By the way, Foma never ever made 16mm negative! FYI

 

Have a great life and keep up the shiny sword! A lot of people count on you! he he

 

Valerian

 

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Valerian,

The way you take offence and over-personalise rather than begin a more open discussion is sad. Denis is just trying to pull back the curtain and see what is behind this piece of theatre.

 

Are the technical specs for a film stock that has never been made? There are no test runs, evaluation and testing by the development technitians? If so then that data is a projection, an anticipation, at this point a hopefull fiction.

 

Balanced on a knife edge between seeming like an interesting mysterious exercise and complete buffoonery.

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The curves look the same to me and I've no axe to grind.

One assumes that Foma make their own emulsion, they have marketed a 16mm reversal and it's no big deal to neg process a stock meant for reversal or vice versa.

I'm not in the market but it wouldn't hurt you to 'come clean' about the origin of this stock. You're obviously not establishing a film manufacturing plant from scratch- not even Ferrania are doing that- you're trying to get together a minimum order of 130 sq.m. Nothing wrong with that. But folk would like to know.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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The sensitization might better be termed "super panchromatic" than "panchromatic". Spectral sensitivity to 700 nm is way beyond Eastman 7231.

 

 

Presumably because it's their air film recut. That has the extended red sensitivity to cut through haze.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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The curves look the same to me and I've no axe to grind.

One assumes that Foma make their own emulsion, they have marketed a 16mm reversal and it's no big deal to neg process a stock meant for reversal or vice versa.

I'm not in the market but it wouldn't hurt you to 'come clean' about the origin of this stock. You're obviously not establishing a film manufacturing plant from scratch- not even Ferrania are doing that- you're trying to get together a minimum order of 130 sq.m. Nothing wrong with that. But folk would like to know.

Hello Mark!

 

To cut it short I will agree with ALL of what you said on your post here... Now, since the main purpose of this thread is to see how many people could be interested in this item, can you please express your options and answer the survey's questions?

 

Thank you!

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Some thoughts from my perspective as some one who's been shooting beta, DV and digital since I started filming tv-shows around 14 years ago…

Earlier this year I noticed how low the price of s16 cameras had become and felt that I finally could take action and follow my long dream of shooting film. I just missed Fujis production, but I'm very great full to still have the Kodak Vision 3 stock. Now my biggest nightmare is that Kodak will stop production and leave me with a feeling of being some decades to late to the party. I believe the most important thing I can do film stock wise is to buy as much Kodak film I can (and develop at my local lab to support them). But I'm very glad for any effort from small companies to start production. If Kodak fail, they (the small companies) might be all that's left. So even if I don't expect Ferrania or any other small manufacturer to have the same quality to begin with, I'm very happy to do what I can to get them started so there'll be as many options as possible.

I'm not saying it will be… but even if this first batch would be terrible... I'd still like to test it and be a part of something new that could benefit all film shooters in the future.

 

I understand that some of you want to know the technical details, I just wanted to share my opinion and show my support.

 

Also I'd like to say that for me digital cameras have their given place for tv-shows an similar (what I do for a living), but I think film needs to live for those times when you need the emotion that I feel only film can capture (what I do as a hobby/passion).

 

Take care! Kalle

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Some thoughts from my perspective as some one who's been shooting beta, DV and digital since I started filming tv-shows around 14 years ago…

Earlier this year I noticed how low the price of s16 cameras had become and felt that I finally could take action and follow my long dream of shooting film. I just missed Fujis production, but I'm very great full to still have the Kodak Vision 3 stock. Now my biggest nightmare is that Kodak will stop production and leave me with a feeling of being some decades to late to the party. I believe the most important thing I can do film stock wise is to buy as much Kodak film I can (and develop at my local lab to support them). But I'm very glad for any effort from small companies to start production. If Kodak fail, they (the small companies) might be all that's left. So even if I don't expect Ferrania or any other small manufacturer to have the same quality to begin with, I'm very happy to do what I can to get them started so there'll be as many options as possible.

I'm not saying it will be… but even if this first batch would be terrible... I'd still like to test it and be a part of something new that could benefit all film shooters in the future.

 

I understand that some of you want to know the technical details, I just wanted to share my opinion and show my support.

 

Also I'd like to say that for me digital cameras have their given place for tv-shows an similar (what I do for a living), but I think film needs to live for those times when you need the emotion that I feel only film can capture (what I do as a hobby/passion).

 

Take care! Kalle

Hi Kalle,

 

Thanks for your post and for your support!

 

Can you please fill up the survey questions (find them on the first post on this thread )?

That will be helpful for this project!

 

Thank you!

 

Valerian

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There are two requirements peculiar to cine film stocks that do not apply to still film stocks (like this Fomapan being sold as Valerian's Fresh Film): emulsion uniformity and perforation uniformity. They are omitted from specification sheets (even from Kodak) but are very important parts of the internal quality control for cine film stock manufacturing.

 

Emulsion uniformity. Minute random variations, like D = 0.01, from centimeter to centimeter, make absolutely no difference for a still film stock. But as they translate into frame-to-frame differences in cinema, they make visible flutter. Cinematographers should test the Fomapan versus the Kodak film for uniformity. Shoot a grey card with a camera having a steady shutter. Use the good cine lab. Then either use an accurate densitometer on many consecutive frames or project the films and see.

 

Perforation uniformity. Because camera, printer, projector typically locate a film frame using a different perforation (or perforations or parts of perforations or a film edge) relative to that frame, inaccuracies in perforation translate into image jumpiness. Again, these are not part of a cine film stock's public specification, but in-house standards. For example, in 1989 Kodak announced that it had tightened its perforation tolerances on all its 16 mm film stocks, while giving no numbers. Pray that the cine-perforated Fomapan has as accurate perforations as pre-1989 Kodak cine films. (It is not difficult to test perforation accuracy. One method is to shoot a fixed target twice, using two cameras having disagreeing pin systems, in a double exposure.)

 

If Foma itself is doing the cutting and slitting then it shouldn't be too poor since Foma had experience making 16 mm films in the past. But if some amateur is doing it, beware! In the late 1970's, wanting a high contrast film in double-8 mm, I found a joint that was interpolating the extra perforations into 7302 film stock. It was terrible. There have always been know-nothing buffoons operating at the fringes of motion picture technology. It is an exacting technology, with few shortcuts. Those working to keep 16 mm cinema alive should consider carefully whether the aesthetic properties of 16 mm cinema that matter to them will tolerate the shortcuts meted out to them.

Edited by Dennis Couzin
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Dennis,

 

Thanks for this new post! You are totally right in what you are saying regarding the quality tests!

Once this film will be available I'll send it for testing to Dirk DeJonghe in Belgium to run sensitometric tests that will be published online for anyone to see the results before they buy!

The entire qty will be produced on my expenses! I'm not asking for money from anybody! With this thread I'm just interested in THE NUMBER of the potential buyers and their filming habits!! This way I can calculate if this product's perspective is a wide one or a narrow one...Thing that you haven't even touched in your posts here! From the beginning you've had a negative opinion to express...

As you said, "There have always been know-nothing buffoons operating at the fringes of motion picture technology" like there will always be uncomfortable alarmist people that put the bad before everything...

 

I truly hope that this is not the case with either of us!

 

Regards,

 

Valerian

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Hello Mark!

 

To cut it short I will agree with ALL of what you said on your post here... Now, since the main purpose of this thread is to see how many people could be interested in this item, can you please express your options and answer the survey's questions?

 

Thank you!

1. per foot, just about

2. 400 subject to tests and assuming it's a T-grain type

3. only interested in 100' daylight spools, subject to that, 2

4. only off the shelf as required

5. yes

 

The answers are qualified. That was my point.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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1. per foot, just about

2. 400 subject to tests and assuming it's a T-grain type

3. only interested in 100' daylight spools, subject to that, 2

4. only off the shelf as required

5. yes

 

The answers are qualified. That was my point.

Thanks for your answers but they are not related to the subject (1 can= 2 x 400'roll)

No 100' daylight spools will be produced at this time.

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1. "Sensitometric tests" per se are not lacking for Valerian's Fresh Films, since the film materials are exactly "FOMAPAN [100/200/400] Creative" and Foma has done sensitometric testing. (A proper log sensitivity vs. wavelength spectral sensitivity curve would be nicer, and also the aperture size must be given for rms granularity.) Those same sensitometric results apply after the film is cut to cine dimensions but they are no longer relevant because...

 

2. Cine film is seldom developed on small spiral reels with "agitation or turning over continuously during the first 30 seconds, then during the first 10 seconds in every minute". Cine film is generally developed in continuous processing machines with passive or active agitation completely different from that of the Foma testing. So 9 of the 11 graphs -- with Characteristic curves and Development curves -- in each Foma data sheet are irrelevant. Also the standard Kodak developer for laboratory B&W developing is D-96, which is substantially different from Kodak D-76, etc.

 

3. Who will do the tests of emulsion uniformity and perforation uniformity?

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1. Nothing to comment here.

2. This film is intended to be used by everyone (professionals and home movies enthusiasts) Indeed the specs presented are for the spiral tank developing, affordable for any enthusiast.

The cinelab processing needs testings but there is no reason why to get bad results if you can get good results with manual processing...these cinelab tests will be done by Dirk DeJonghe too.

3. I have nothing against the idea of letting you doing these emulsion uniformity and perforation uniformity tests if you agree to help me with.

 

Regards,

 

Valerian

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I will actually be most interested to see how these films perform when processed as reversal. I've been longing for a contrasty stock reminiscent of the defunct Plus-X films. This could be it!

 

Although... if it's the same stock as Fomapan R100 (I'd have to research whether Foma just changes the packaging and calls their 100 negative stock reversal) I have yet to see any good samples.

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Also the standard Kodak developer for laboratory B&W developing is D-96, which is substantially different from Kodak D-76

 

Now in favour of Valerian: The D-76 formula (1927) is a Metol-Hydroquinone one with Borax, the relation M:HQ being 2 to 5. D-96 is also a M/HQ recipe with Borax, relation 1 to 1. D-96A, which brings a tad more acutance, has L-ascorbic acid in addition. We can’t speak of substantial differences.

 

You are right what concerns agitation but one could argue as well that practically all photo films are developed with too little agitation. I have developed 120 films for professional photographers without any streaks and the like. The widespread method of overturning a spiral in a closely nesting tank is only second best. But the spiral reel is the best instrument.

 

 

I will actually be most interested to see how these films perform when processed as reversal. I've been longing for a contrasty stock reminiscent of the defunct Plus-X films. This could be it!

 

Although... if it's the same stock as Fomapan R100 (I'd have to research whether Foma just changes the packaging and calls their 100 negative stock reversal) I have yet to see any good samples.

 

As far as I understand it, Valerian is offering grey TAC base negative stocks. Fomapan R(eversal) 100 is a mixed-emulsion film having a colourless TAC base and a silver undercoat that has to be bleached and dissolved out. Mixed emulsions means a non-sensitized fine-grain emulsion (sensitive to the short wave end of the spectrum) intermingled with a panchromatic riped emulsion of about ISO 50 to 64. The ISO 100 speed is a process inherent result.

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I also looked at the M:HQ ratios and found the difference substantial. The question isn't whether D-76 and D-96 can't ever give similar images, but whether they give similar images under like conditions of time, temperature, and agitation. Otherwise the sensitometric data for D-76 is irrelevant to D-96 processing.

 

No on-reel processing can ever give anywhere near the development uniformity of continous strand processing. Developing 120 film "without streaks" doesn't cut if for cine film that will be projected with time substituted for length. Please read my post #66. The cine film requirements are being overlooked.

 

Concerning reversal use of this Formapan negative film, the grey base is not a serious problem. The original will project darker, if one projects the original. I think the gamma is the problem. Tri-X Reversal film has diffuse gamma = 2.0 in its linear section. What reversal first developer can be found to crank Formapan negative's gamma up to 2.0?

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At first I machine developed ECP 2 with a Photomec, that was in 1987-88. The lab’s name was Cinégram, Zürich, Switzerland. My comrades in the hall were Edi Némez, Miroslav Sniatała, Hans Jost and Tashi Dowa. We collaborated with Didier Ludwig and Ladislav Bartoš who both worked at an Oxberry. Photographer Dietrich “Didi” von Holten was production manager; Hartmut Engel, Johannes Anders, and Fritz Windisch graders. Elvira Moll and . . . Hofmann printers; Alice Christoffel and Barbara Kälin secretaries; Violette . . . accountant; Jean “Huwi” Huwiler technical consultant; Koch general manager; Desponds chemist; cutters Yvonne Steiner and Esther; Rolf “Rofo” Forster chemical engineer. Then I did black and white on an Arribloc and finally CRI in an Debrie Aiglonne.

 

I had my own lab from 1999 to 2008 and I developed everything by hand in spirals. 35, 16, 9.5, 8. I still have my densograph. As a matter of fact the variations along a machine processed film are measurable while the uniformity of density or densities within each portion of a well manual-processed film is so good that no instrument on earth can help detect any differences. You can snip pieces from a reel developed film and compare them in every thinkable way, no disparities. Certainly, the variations from machine treatment are exiguous.

 

Negative films can be reversed for sure. As you say, they’re not made for that purpose. Black-and-white negative films can be forced to their maximum contrast, Kodak D-19 is a formula for that. The Eastman black-and-white negative ciné films have a base density of log 0.23, so cutting about 40 percent light. I personally am very fond of the lighter details up to the highlights in projection. With a grey base film these parts of the image are masked. Fomapan R is the only true reversal film left on the market. Agfa Scala is gone, too. Who remembers the late DiaDirect by Gevaert?

 

Yes. The small gauge film systems for the amateur, 9.5, 16, and Double Eight, have been established with reversal stocks. The remaining positive image after processing was much finer in grain than with a negative film of a comparable exposure index. The success of Kodachrome has to do with this. Pictures of the colour negative-positive process were grainier and less sharp until way up to the 1960s.

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