Gast
:( According to the information I have, Polymax will no longer be manufactured from January 2006.
Questions.
- Is that correct?
- Are there any alternatives of comparable quality?
- How long can photographic paper be stored under optimal conditions?
Thanks
Bernd
cfb_de
Hello Bernd,
- Yes. This was already announced in early 2005.
- Yes. By quite a few manufacturers (okay, there’s one less today).
- That depends on the type of paper. MG paper in the freezer should be fine for a few years; fixed gradations containing cadmium (now banned by the EU) last over 40 years at room temperature, and those without cadmium at least five. Colour photographic paper deteriorates much more quickly; I wouldn’t keep that for more than two years.
Best regards,
Franz
MirkoBoeddecker
Hi Bernd,
It’s been in our catalogue under ‘Polymax’ for months now…
So you can stock up in good time if you’ve started a project :(
I keep saying it, but nobody believes me: the paper is waaaay too cheap for anyone to make a profit on it apart from the user, who effectively gets a tenner thrown in with every pack by Kodak and the retailer.
To answer your questions: in terms of quality – specifically emulsion consistency and durability – there’s nothing else in the world that has a reference point for Kodak.
No one produces these quantities anymore, and no one tests all the raw materials as thoroughly as Kodak did.
It’s simply no longer feasible. You can’t spend 50,000 dollars on testing and synthesising the raw materials (not an unusual sum by past standards) and then produce batches of 10,000 square metres. That means every square metre costs $5 just for preparing the production (which is roughly what you’ve just paid for the ready-packed end product...) but you haven’t even bought the base paper, the silver nitrate, the gelatin or the box yet. Let alone paid the electricity bill, the staff wages and the rent....
So what’s in store? We’ll see beautiful photographic paper that lets you take great pictures, but the quality will fluctuate wildly from batch to batch, and you’ll often find that some of it has already turned grey after just a year. Unfortunately, you only realise this once the year is up.
So you’ll have to test things more and more yourself and work with emulsion numbers rather than just the ‘paper name’.
Heilander users will probably have to turn the adjustment dial more and more often, and tried-and-tested settings from the last batch will only just serve as a rough guide for the next print on paper from a new batch.
And that brings us to your question about shelf life. I’d still grant Kodak paper the 5 years stated by Franz. Not any longer for all the others. 2–3 years maximum.
But that was the case in the past too, and wonderful works of art were created. The old techniques are simply making a comeback, and the good photographer will make use of them. They will go back to using fogging agents and bleaches. In the end, the results will probably be even better because you have to concentrate more; it’s just that the path will be a bit rockier than it was in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Best regards,
Mirko
MirkoBoeddecker
Incidentally, the paper has already been discontinued. Kodak is simply working through the remaining stock from the last batch.
They expect to be able to deliver by early 2006, but we’re already seeing significant delays and backlogs.
Incidentally, prices have been raised due to high demand and limited remaining stock.
We’ll have to adjust them on Monday.
The new prices are already listed in the online catalogue.
But it’s all just a drop in the ocean – a few euros per pack, which is negligible in percentage terms.
Mirko
Gast
What else is in store for us? Films that can only be enlarged three times at most, colour films with blue shadows and yellow highlights (colour cast)?
Someone here recently said that the materials are probably getting worse than they were in the USSR – and to be honest, I’ve come to believe that too.
Is it even fun anymore? To be honest, the digital snappers are laughing at us.
SamuliSchielke
Come on, don’t exaggerate, guest. Even digital photographers have to re-test their settings every time something changes with the camera, screen or printer. Otherwise, you won’t get good results. I’ve never had a problem with the enlargability of the films, and the person here in this forum who said the materials were worse than in the USSR was referring to manufacturers from the former USSR who are currently doing very badly or have gone out of business altogether. It’s a shame, of course, when product ranges and emulsion consistency decline, but let’s be honest, the market is simply too small for all the manufacturers that currently exist. If a few of them cease production and some others go bankrupt, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. That means the remaining producers will have a larger market share, so they can make a bit of a profit and we’ll still have film, paper and chemicals in the future. And when I look at the range of chemicals Wolfgang Moersch produces on a small scale (OK, he doesn’t make paper or film, of course), I honestly don’t have much cause for concern.
RomanJRohleder
Samuli,
>And when I look at the range of chemicals Wolfgang Moersch produces on a small scale (OK, he doesn’t make paper or film, of course), I’m honestly not too worried.
You’re missing something fundamental here – this isn’t about white wine on the Moselle.
Wolfgang M. doesn’t have a bottling plant in his cellar; he outsources the work to third parties, who prepare a developer, a fixer, a toner or chamomile tea according to his formula and bottle or bag it.
This requires a certain amount of investment and basic equipment to meet the technical requirements (purity of raw materials, water, weighing, mixing and bottling equipment...), staffing needs and health and safety regulations (apparently Foma recently had to stop powder packaging for this reason).
This third party could be, for example, Calbe, or Agfa in Vaihingen or Fuji-Hunt – they all work in such batch processes, including on a contract basis. And the odd one or two, not just in the photography sector but in medicine or the chemical industry in general, sometimes have capacity to outsource.
This approach is only possible because someone generates the basic demand – usually a large parent company with the necessary throughput and distribution network.
To put it plainly: without demand from the big players, it will be very difficult for someone like Wolfgang M, Mirko B or Mr S to survive in the market.
Regards,
Roman
PhilippReichmuth
Hello Roman,
>and when I look at the range of chemicals Wolfgang Moersch produces in
>small batches (OK, he doesn’t make paper or film, of course),
>I honestly don’t have much cause for concern.
Wolfgang M. doesn’t have a bottling plant in his basement; he outsources the work to third parties, who prepare a developer, a fixer, a toner or chamomile tea according to his formula and bottle or bag it.
However, having things mixed and bottled is only really worthwhile once you reach a certain volume, which with black-and-white chemicals is probably only achievable for a few exceptional products. Anything below that, you just have to do it yourself. It’s time-consuming, and therefore more expensive, but it works and is certainly done.
That’s the case in most industries – for small batches, there’s simply a critical threshold below which doing it yourself is the way to go. With black-and-white chemistry à la Wolfgang Moersch, this probably still works relatively well in a home basement; in mechanical engineering or microelectronics, it would be significantly more difficult. However, if the market is then willing to pay the corresponding prices, it can still be worthwhile, and the market is enriched by interesting products. I would view that positively.
MirkoBoeddecker
Of course, I was only talking about black-and-white Polymax paper.
The situation is different when it comes to colour films and photographic papers.
Millions of square metres of these are still being produced. This is by no means a niche market.
Georg has misinterpreted my answer.
It’s not that the analogue image quality is getting worse and can no longer compete with digital – it might even get better – it’s just that the path to getting there is becoming a bit more labour-intensive and rocky than before.
But the lazy ones will probably follow the call of the pixel-sprayers out of ‘convenience’ anyway.
We’re talking here about the product which, among black-and-white products, is still the most ‘mass-market’ of them all.
Now it’s had it.
What serious artist would enlarge their exhibition prints on Polymax PE paper?
That was a workhorse for moderate demands on image quality, such as wedding photos, reportage, advertising, etc.
Fast, standardised, consistent results, straightforward, cost-effective.
At the same time, a multitude of new specialised chemicals, speciality papers and speciality films are coming onto the market, manufactured under the new conditions of small-batch production (e.g. ADOX, Rollei, Moersch, etc.). The batches vary, but the result is by no means worse.
You just have to do a bit more testing yourself than before before you can get started.
This actually deepens one’s engagement with the subject and stimulates creativity.
I do not believe that this results in lower-quality analogue images – rather, better ones, because through experimentation one discovers new creative means of expression that the ultra-reliable standard products of large-scale industry have always ‘magically eliminated’.
Changes are currently taking place in the market, and we and the industry are adapting.
From the very beginning, FOTOIMPEX has focused less on mass producers and more on the smaller players in the market.
They’re all still here, with a full range of products.
We believe that the future in this new, changing market belongs to us and our partners.
Some people are taking a rather pessimistic view of things at the moment, against the backdrop of Agfa’s bankruptcy.
Agfa did not go bankrupt because there is no longer any demand for Agfa products, but because of mismanagement in the areas of cost accounting and financial control.
They seriously believed they could sell colour film for 65 cents and still cover their costs when selling in the millions.
Yet you could count on one hand what the cassette, the box, the plastic container, the support and the silver nitrate cost. And then there were 1,800 employees who also wanted their wages at the end of the month.
Somehow, it just didn’t add up, and for weeks on end after six months, no one knew why 270 million had actually gone missing.
Can you believe it! Just gone! Strange, strange... the things that happen...
Let’s wait and see. At the moment, there’s a lot of backroom dealing going on, and recently one company has been particularly vocal in its support for Agfa. It’s conceivable that they could put the cart before the horse and, using the machines that are just standing around anyway, start afresh on a small scale in the more lucrative niche markets with a small team.
If you’re prepared to pay 30% more than you do now, a film factory can survive.
Something like Ilford’s current prices plus ongoing inflation and an extra 5% annually.
At current ADOX and Foma price levels, things will only carry on for a few more weeks or months.
Best regards,
Mirko
PS I’ll also post the Agfa sales figures as a new thread.
skahde
Wolfgang M. doesn’t have a bottling plant in his basement; he outsources the work to third parties, who prepare a developer, a fixer, a toner or chamomile tea according to his recipe and bottle or bag it.
According to WM, his powdered chemicals were previously mixed by the detergent bottler just round the corner (though other suppliers proved to be more agreeable in the end). This doesn’t require any specialists from the photography industry, so we can relax.
Best regards,
Stefan
