PhilippReichmuth
Hello,
I’ve just developed a roll of Fomapan 100 KB film and was puzzled when winding it up, because in the dark the start of the film felt as though it had torn at the side. After taking it out, I realised that the film had been patched up with sticky tape at the factory. At the start, someone had stuck on a piece about 6 cm long, and the residue of the film had a circular hole right at the beginning, as if made by a hole punch. The whole section had also been exposed to light at some point. This creative manufacturing method at Foma cost me two shots, though not great ones.
Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?
Philipp
cfb_de
Hi Philipp,
Nah, not me yet. I bought the 100-metre roll of KB film back in ‘Eastern’ Central Europe and reel it myself.
But I’m sure you’ve kept your copy safe and could send it back to the seller.
Mirko might then have a bit of a rough night’s sleep :-) Though he doesn’t really deserve it, the poor sod. With his surplus staff, he’s basically running the best job centre in Greater Berlin. Other shops manage with the boss and two other assistants. That’s why I think it’s good that things aren’t quite so cut-throat here in this shop.
Best regards,
Franz
Gast
Hi Franz,
But surely you’ve kept your copy safe and could send it back to the seller. Mirko might then have a bit of a sleepless night :-)
Nah, I’m not going to go to all that trouble just for a single film from the Eastern Bloc. I just wanted to ask around to see if this is a common occurrence that we should expect?
Philipp
cfb_de
Hello Philipp,
That’s certainly not something you’d ‘expect’ to happen. No manufacturer can afford to do that in Western markets. Certainly not Foma – they want to survive within the EU and are currently going all out on quality. They’ve been certified for quite some time now and are giving the competition a run for their money.
I’ve never been let down by Foma products so far. That includes Fomapan-100 sold by the metre, such as sheet films, various papers and direct advice at the factory.
This evening I took a few 40x50 prints on Variant-III. As usual: everything’s fine.
Best regards,
Franz
MirkoBoeddecker
Phillip, Franz,
Of course, that doesn’t happen very often. I’ve never even heard of it.
The only thing I can imagine is that a 600-metre roll broke during perforation and the worker then taped it back together and ‘forgot’ to note the exact length on the film roll, or that for some reason two 300-metre rolls were wound together to make a 600-metre roll.
The packaging process is then semi-automatic, and the packer (or packers) wouldn’t notice it unless they were specifically looking for it (logical – the roll is in the light-tight compartment inside the machine ;-)
But this sort of thing is extremely rare – it would be far too labour-intensive to be constantly taping films together. The process usually works like this: small rolls of film are made from green rolls, not the other way round. In fact, nothing is glued together anywhere in the production chain of a 35mm film.
So even if the above scenario were to occur more frequently and the packer made a mistake every time, that would be one in 375 films – a 1 in 14,250 chance that one frame is affected, given there are 38 frames per film.
Did you buy the film in the Czech Republic or from us?
If you bought it from us, please send it in – you’ll get new films. I’d very much like to show them this, because given the hole and so on, I believe that quality assurance will be able to find the culprit.
Best regards,
Mirko
PhilippReichmuth
Hi Mirko,
I bought that from you, but it was quite a while ago. I’ll pop it in a bag one of these days and send it to Berlin. A new film would be nice, but it’s not essential, as the postage would cost more than the broken film is worth.
Will the cassette and the glued and cleaned pieces be enough? The outer packaging has long since gone the way of all things earthly.
Philipp
MirkoBoeddecker
Hi Phillip,
That’s enough. You should just be able to make out the word ‘Fomapan’ somewhere.
It’s just a packaging issue, not a problem with the emulsion.
Thanks!
Best regards,
Mirko
