
Film of Inside the Ilford Factory to See How B&W Film Is Made - throw0101a
https://petapixel.com/2019/07/16/short-film-takes-you-inside-the-ilford-factory-to-see-how-bw-film-is-made/
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cannam
Nice!

Ilford is obviously an old company, but it does also feel like a contemporary
idea - responding to the collapse of film for general use by becoming a
company with a very clear, singular niche: black-and-white photographic film
and processing materials and nothing else, with simple distinctive branding
and a focus on quality and continuity. I do hope they can keep it going, as
nobody else quite compares from the customer's point of view.

In a different field, there's a French company that has been restarting
production of classic formula audio tape, both reel-to-reel and cassette -
related I think to the old Pyral tape company - see
[https://www.recordingthemasters.com/](https://www.recordingthemasters.com/).
Both these things have an appealing physical quality, although in both cases
it's striking how much more manual work and chemical/plastic waste is involved
than in the typical digital replacement.

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jacobush
I am pretty certain Ilford will keep going. By all accounts, the industry is
over a hump and sales are picking up.

Regarding waste, I'm not entirely convinced it's as bad as it looks. Per image
taken, certainly. But the typical film shooter is not taking very many images
per year. And digital cameras have their own quite large environmental
footprint, although it's mostly a one time event, while the environmental
footprint from film is incremental.

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ghaff
>By all accounts, the industry is over a hump and sales are picking up.

At some level, that's true. Film sales have been modestly up the past few
years to the degree that some emulsions have even been put back into
production. So presumably any company that still has a viable business that
includes film will be able to keep on doing so for the time being.

But for context, film is at something like 2% of its peak before digital
started grabbing meaningful share.

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jacobush
Which when you think about it in absolute numbers, is still quite a bit. Kodak
made a _billion_ rolls of film a year and Fujifilm about the same. So that
means today about 50 million rolls of film are made each year.

It's not as it was, but it's not at artisan levels either.

Edit: peak film was 2004. That feels strangely close to me. I would have
guessed on gut instinct 1999.

But when I really think about it, it checks out - I held out on photography
between 2004 and 2008 because I didn't have a camera then. But I didn't want
to buy a film camera, that felt weird. On the other hand the digital cameras
were total crap. In 2008 I bought a compact digital camera which was...
passable. And not exactly cheap, $300 equivalent or so.

Today these images are potato quality. All mobile cameras are better. Most
film cameras are better.

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ghaff
I didn't get a point and shoot camera until sometime in the early 2000s and
didn't transition fully off of film until I got my full-frame EOS in 2006.
(And didn't get a smartphone until about 2009 when I got an iPhone 3GS which
was sort of their real breakout model.)

So, if anything, I'm a little surprised peak was as early as 2004 or so. But I
guess that was the point where casual snapshooters were really starting to
switch over to P&S digital in droves--which of course is where a lot of the
market volume is.

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jacobush
And now (through the grapevine) I hear the opposite is true - pro (and semi-
pro, as the momtographers) photographers make up the bulk market volume.

But the resurgence among happy amateurs, new-comers and those coming back to
film, has GOT to be a large chunk. I see 20 somethings go around with film
cameras this year!

Yep, I too count the 3GS as the first well-rounded (hehe) iPhone.

A full frame EOS digital body in 2006 was incredibly expensive to me, which I
would never have seriously considered. I mean, I could have afforded it, skip
on vacation or buy a cheaper car - but the price seemed completely alien and
outlandish to me.

On the other hand I splurged on three 32gb 3GS-s for family members, because
they seemed like the future.

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benjamta
What a great film! Ilford are a fantastic company, they have managed to
successfully ride out the rollercoaster the traditional film market has been
through over the last couple of decades.

Some years ago I was taken on a tour of their facility, I was struck by how
passionate about the product everyone I met there was. That passion seems to
ride through to their loyal user base, I hope Ilford remain strong.

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te_chris
Great :) I love HP5! Such a nice B&W film for a reasonable price.

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ghaff
At some point I switched from Tri-X to HP5 and used it for about 3 year before
I got out of doing B&W darkroom work. I was also a big fan of Ilford Gallerie
paper for any special prints during that period.

