ADOX NC17

TiMo · 2012-04-23T10:19:41+00:00

Hallo Mirko, ich habe gerade etwas auf der Adoxseite herumgestöbert und bin über die alten Colornegativfilme gestolpert. Den NC17 konnte man wohl auch selbe...

TiMo

Hi Mirko, I’ve just been having a browse on the Adox website and came across the old colour negative films. Apparently, you could develop the NC17 yourself. My question for Mirko is whether he’s ever had anything to do with them and whether the formulas and equipment for them still exist. I’m equally interested in the C15. I’d also be curious to know what the colours of these films looked like. Are there any old photographs of them in the ADOX archives? If you have a moment, I’d appreciate a reply. Best regards, Tim

MirkoBoeddecker

Hello Tim, In terms of image quality, ADOX didn’t differ significantly from the films produced by Agfa, Kodak and Ilford at the time (yes, the British had their own colour films back then too). From today’s perspective, one would say the colours were very natural but undersaturated/subtle. The formulas are still available from Ilford, for example, but that’s of no use to anyone. Of the 300 listed ingredients, only four (water, silver nitrate, potassium bromide, gelatin) can still be bought. The rest would have to be manufactured from scratch, and that’s where the rub lies. Rumour has it that ADOX went under because of this. Maintaining their own system was so costly, and Agfa, through the Kodak colour coupler licence, had won the battle for the laboratories alongside Kodak. ADOX was isolated, and dye synthesis was so expensive that the sales volumes (millions of units, not the tiny quantities of today) no longer allowed the amateur film division to continue. B&W was caught up in this at the time. Best regards, Mirko

TiMo

Thanks for the history lesson, Mirko. It never ceases to amaze me just how much work goes into making a film like that.

MirkoBoeddecker

It’s not that complicated. Manufacturing an Intel Pentium Dual-Core is more complicated. First subsidising two solar factories in Frankfurt/Oder and then letting them go bust is also more complicated and more expensive. It’s a question of sales volume, price and market potential. Best regards, Mirko

AchimBauer

Hello Tim and Mirko, What an interesting story! It reminds me that my father used to be away on installation jobs a lot, and once he visited a graphic arts workshop where he saw the staff scraping the emulsion off the glass plates (in repro work, the plates were often several metres by several metres in size – you can still see such cameras at the Technik Museum Speyer) when the exposures hadn’t turned out, so that the glass plates could be reused. But if it’s so complicated to produce emulsions, how did they get hold of theirs? From today’s perspective, it would have been almost impossible to make them in-house. Or was it all sourced from Agfa, Kodak, 3M (Scotch, Solaris – the latter still has a website in Japan, but whether Solaris is actually what it claims to be, who knows?), Sakura, Konica, etc.? Regards, Achim

TiMo

It’s not that complicated. Manufacturing an Intel Pentium Dual-Core is more complicated.

Hi Mirko, I was referring less to the process itself and more to the many ingredients and the lack of availability. Cheers, Tim