On Aug 7, 2007, at 8:45 AM, Steve Desjardins wrote: > OK, just how hard is it to produce B&W film? I know to produce as > much > as Kodak or Fuji used to involves enormous QC issues. I can make beer > in my kitchen whereas Budweiser needs fancy techniques to make 12% of > the beer on the planet. So how hard would it be for a small > company to > put a B&W emulsion on a polymer base? Not a lot of fancy chemicals > involved, although there would be some EPA issues. I can't say for > sure, but I bet a small specialty company could make film for a higher > cost. With a global market available, it should still be a going > concern. This is the point below: just a specialty market, not > mainstream photography.
That's exactly what Maco is doing. They've built a new mini-factory to produce film and photo paper in realistic quantities for today's market. Ilford have done pretty much the same by downsizing their factory at Mobberly and reducing staff to reasonable levels. Sure, it's a small market, but with the "big boys" gone there is a nice pie to be cut up among two or three competitors. Bob -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
