Kodak Factory tour

[David Mullen ASC]

Not sure the point of Vision 4 considering most people don’t want the 35mm stocks to get cleaner, sharper, and finer-grained anymore — maybe for Super-16 and Super-8 though.

Unless they are considering a new 35mm 800T or 1000T, that might sell.

[Karim D. Ghantous]

4 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

Not sure the point of Vision 4 considering most people don’t want the 35mm stocks to get cleaner, sharper, and finer-grained anymore — maybe for Super-16 and Super-8 though.

Unless they are considering a new 35mm 800T or 1000T, that might sell.

As a potential documentary film director, I slightly disagree. I do want 35mm stocks to get cleaner, because I truly believe in huge screens. I would like, one day, to be able to shoot an IMAX documentary on 4-perf S35. If you want a slightly grittier image, dupe your neg a couple of times.

Will it happen? Probably not. But that's the aim. If not that, then 8-perf 65mm is the way to go. 15-perf can retire. I also love the Red cameras, and I think they substantially are a film replacement, not taking into account nuances etc. But, this is all just hot air at this point.

You are right, I truly believe, about having higher speeds, while keeping granularity the same. 

[Robert Houllahan]

On 7/31/2022 at 4:27 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

Correct, Kodak is already in financial trouble. "Film" product is the last big market they have. They've sold nearly everything else off.

Kodak did about 1.3B in sales last year and turned a bit of a profit, I think most of the sales volume was in advanced materials and inks etc. The MP products division and the still film division are both profitable I believe.

 

[Tyler Purcell]

On 6/17/2023 at 8:21 PM, William Tracy Babcock said:

This is the first I've ever heard of a potential Vision 4.  Do you know any technical specs of the stock and/or details of its supposed aborted release?

A google search literally only returns your post and another thread from 2012. 

I've literally held the can of test film, so it absolutely exists. Obviously, not called "Vision 4" but it clearly was the intention. The people who got test rolls, were pretty random. One of my friends got a few and he just shot a commercial with them. I wish he had some left overs, I would have loved to test it myself. 

I'm not sure the sensitivity as it was not labeled on the can itself. The concept was to make a stock that didn't need to be pushed in order to achieve 1000 iso. After conferring with some friends who also knew about this film, they said it worked best at 800 ISO. So not an incredible improvement, but that was the concept. 

Evidently, the results weren't beneficial compared to simply pushing Vision 3 one stop. So my guess is that it wasn't pursued as an option and Vision 3 will be around for a lot longer. Just a guess, but it seems to make sense with the evidence. 

Another thing is that right after the test stock was released, the person who engineered it, left Kodak. So perhaps there is some correlation between that person leaving and the reason we haven't seen any new stock. 

Honestly, the current lineup is pretty good. If I were to develop a new stock, I would go about making something radically different, rather than simply another flavor of vision stock. Maybe some re-hash of the Kodachrome look? They tried with the new Ektachrome, but it kinda fell flat on its face. I think people are desperately looking for something to define their work and there just aren't many workable options. 

 

[William Tracy Babcock]

1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I've literally held the can of test film, so it absolutely exists. Obviously, not called "Vision 4" but it clearly was the intention. The people who got test rolls, were pretty random. One of my friends got a few and he just shot a commercial with them. I wish he had some left overs, I would have loved to test it myself. 

I'm not sure the sensitivity as it was not labeled on the can itself. The concept was to make a stock that didn't need to be pushed in order to achieve 1000 iso. After conferring with some friends who also knew about this film, they said it worked best at 800 ISO. So not an incredible improvement, but that was the concept. 

Evidently, the results weren't beneficial compared to simply pushing Vision 3 one stop. So my guess is that it wasn't pursued as an option and Vision 3 will be around for a lot longer. Just a guess, but it seems to make sense with the evidence. 

Another thing is that right after the test stock was released, the person who engineered it, left Kodak. So perhaps there is some correlation between that person leaving and the reason we haven't seen any new stock. 

Honestly, the current lineup is pretty good. If I were to develop a new stock, I would go about making something radically different, rather than simply another flavor of vision stock. Maybe some re-hash of the Kodachrome look? They tried with the new Ektachrome, but it kinda fell flat on its face. I think people are desperately looking for something to define their work and there just aren't many workable options. 

 

Ahhh, that's interesting.  If they really could get true 800/1000 with the grain of 500T they'd be on to something. 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

4 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

If I were to develop a new stock, I would go about making something radically different, rather than simply another flavor of vision stock.

One thing that I keep wondering about is a b&w stock with 3 or 4 or even more layers instead of just 2. If you have enough layers, in principle, you could possibly achieve 18-20 stops. What do you think?

[Tyler Purcell]

15 hours ago, William Tracy Babcock said:

Ahhh, that's interesting.  If they really could get true 800/1000 with the grain of 500T they'd be on to something. 

 

I think it worked at 800 ok, but is it worth changing the formula for everything? We wait to see if they ever do! 

[Tyler Purcell]

12 hours ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

One thing that I keep wondering about is a b&w stock with 3 or 4 or even more layers instead of just 2. If you have enough layers, in principle, you could possibly achieve 18-20 stops. What do you think?

More layers would be less sensitive AND potentially add a lot of grain. 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

On 6/22/2023 at 7:32 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

More layers would be less sensitive AND potentially add a lot of grain. 

Okay. But, Vision3 stocks have like 15 layers.

[Tyler Purcell]

19 hours ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

Okay. But, Vision3 stocks have like 15 layers.

Sure, but Kodak never developed black and white stocks like they did color. 

If they used T grain on black and white negative, perhaps that would allow them to up the sensitivity and increase dynamic range? It's a great question that I'm sure someone who has messed around with emulsion can help us understand. I have made my own emulsion before, but it was a school project, not really something viable. I just followed some instructions. 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

8 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I have made my own emulsion before, but it was a school project, not really something viable. I just followed some instructions. 

That's quite impressive. I like your work ethic.