This happened in a single day:
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(...) we took corrective action and also reduced the emulsion cross-linking, which improved the maximum black level and added approx. 1.5 gradients in the high-key range.
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Everything produced in 2013 therefore has the old maximum gradient again
(...)
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Best regards,
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Mirko
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Then the other day this:
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However, the gradient has not changed. Nor has the speed. There were slight differences in the filtering at the high gradations, noticed by about 5 people in total, which varied depending on ageing and would have occurred anyway as ageing progressed
(...)
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With all due respect, Mirko: Who’s supposed to make head or tail
of this?
The paper was 1.5 gradients softer for a while, but the gradient never changed. Only the filtering did.
So for grade 5, should you just insert the 6.5 filter?
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But I’m not even concerned here with a gradient up or down.
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It’s about
the attitude that nobody will notice anyway, apart from a few oddballs. I find
that so misguided.
So why do you advertise with ‘the highest gradient on the market’ if it doesn’t matter anyway and only five people notice?
If ILFORD or FOMA tweak the emulsion and say nothing about it, that’s just as annoying, of course, but they aren’t based just round the corner here in Germany and don’t run their own forum where they post nice background stories about the manufacturing process, but keep changes to their own products—which might actually be quite beneficial for practitioners to know—to themselves, so as not to spook the horses that might be trotting merrily along.
It somehow reminds me of PW14. Under the ClassicArts and later ADOX labels, there seemed to be twice as many problems (both in terms of emulsion and surface defects) as under other names.
Could it be that they simply carried on selling merrily to let the horses gallop, whilst others had long since tightened the reins?
The “Exactly 5 Men Statement” would certainly lend credence to such a supposition.
Be that as it may.
As far as I’m concerned, a manufacturer that communicates changes would definitely be held in higher regard than one that operates according to the “nobody’ll notice anyway” approach.
It makes it easier to accept the odd restriction here and there, because you feel taken seriously.
It would be nice if that sort of perspective were to catch on with you lot as well.
I’m not keen on letting anything dampen my anticipation for the new Polywarmtone.
