Ilford move secures black-and-white future

<a href="http://www.apug.org/forums/showthread.php?t=13516">SOURCE</a>

<p>

----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>

NEWS RELEASE<br>

Title: Ilford move secures black-and-white future<br>

Date: 9 March 2005<br>

----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>

It's good news at last for black-and-white photographers - following

last month's management buyout, Ilford Photo says that not only will

it continue its current range of monochrome products, it also plans to

reintroduce abandoned lines.<p>

 

According to managing director Phil Harris, the company will retain

all existing film lines except SFX200, as well as all existing papers

and liquid chemistry. Dry chemistry products, warmtone developers and

a number of abandoned papers will be reintroduced over the next few

months, and the company hopes to enter new markets such as glass plate

coating.<p>

 

Harris explained: 'The current item list was generated by the

receivers for maximum efficiency, so we will reintroduce old lists.

For example, we are the only company in the world that can coat glass

plates, so while it would not be a big part of our business, we want

to consider it. We are committed to black-and-white.'<p>

 

Ilford Photos was created last month after Ilford Imaging Group's UK

arm completed a management buy-out. The team acquired the

manufacturing and sales and distribution of the Mobberley plant and,

according to Harris, will retain the 380 staff now employed there.<p>

 

Ilford went into receivership in September 2004, at which point the

Mobberley workforce was slashed in half. Ilford Imaging Group's Swiss,

French, Australian and US businesses are all up for sale, while its

German and Italian arms have gone into receivership.<p>

 

The new company can only use the Ilford brand for its silver-based

black-and-white products, and is not allowed to compete with the Swiss

branch's inkjet business using the Ilford name. It is also contracted

to provide coating for the Swiss branch's inkjet business for the next

two years, unless this arm ceases to produce inkjets after it is sold.

However, Ilford Photos has established a secondary brand named after

the company's original founder - Harman Technology - to allow it to

expand into other areas.<p>

 

Harris explained: 'The core technology at Mobberley can coat very thin

high quality layers that has many non-imaging applications - for

example, medical uses. We anticipate that could become up to 20% of

our business, under the Harman brand.'<p>

 

Harris was optimistic about the future, despite Ilford's difficulties

over the past year. He said: 'Ilford Photo is profitable and solvent.<p>

 

The receiver had to decide whether to keep the company trading or not,

but we had such great support from our customers that the business

came back up off the floor. Black-and-white has been declining by 5-7%

per year, and last year it declined by 20-30%. I think next year it

will be the same, then the decline will flatten out as we reach the

core market of fine art, student and specialist black-and-white

photographers. We plan to be the last man standing in black-and-white

imaging.'<p>

 

Source: ? Incisive Media Investments Ltd 2004

Good news, thanks Michael

They are thinking about coating glass plates, but they won't re-introduce their 220

films??

Ilford... PLEASE introduce a contact printing paper so we have more than Kodak AZO to work with. Grades 1-4 would be excellent but many of us would make do with 1-3 or 2-4 if it could be done. Even just 2 and 3 would be welcome.

 

PLEASE!

To the idiot who wrote the program that runs this forum. What is with 'correcting' the punctuation on a post or not allowing one to post? I put three exclamation marks on the PLEASE and your asinine program wouldn't accept it. It stated "one exclamation mark is sufficient. Go back & correct it."

No, ONE exclamation is NOT sufficient, that is why I put THREE. Go soak your head.

very encouraging news..(exclaimation point 3x)

"Go soak your head"

 

I thought you would have at least put one exclamation point at the end of this......:)

Andrew, one dot would have been enough there. Good news, by the way. I hope that PAN 400 comes back to the market here. Although it is not labeled "professional", I liked it more than HP5+. It had a very wide latitude.

 

By the way, Ilford says that PAN 100 and PAN 400 are "not generally distributed and sold worldwide, they are only made available in selected markets". Does someone know what the "selected markets" are, or how they choose these markets?

Watch what you say we could get the guy who moderates the Leica forum, posts and MEMBERS could be deleted without warning.

No one should ever need more than one exclamation mark ! ! ! !

Pixel abuse!

This is certainly great news. Hopefully this news won't precede another round of "Ilford is abandoning B&W products" rumors like last time they said they were keeping their B&W lines. Now if we can only get Agfa to do the same, Ilford and Agfa films are my favorite.

Cheers,

Marc

Dear Bill,

 

You heard wrong. Everything except SFX stays. Try Maco Cube 400c as a substitute for SFX: like SFX it's a traffic control film.

 

The MBO finally came off at 11pm the night before PMA. I have met the whole of the new board (at Focus in Birmingham, the UK's premier show). Half of them have a background in R+D. They are not beholden to venture capitalists; they are not trying to inflate the business to sell it; all they want to do is make film and paper and earn an honest living. They have a 20 year lease and reckon that in 20 years' time they will be the only significant B+W manufacturer left so that they will be able to renew the lease and continue.

 

I thought everyone already knew all this or I'd have posted more info long ago.

 

Yes, they are considering plates (probably FP4) but they will be expensive. Not much hope of a contact printing paper because the market is too small: Kentmere dropped their 'gaslight' paper a couple of years ago.

 

But they are prepared to coat/cut ANYTHING if they have enough orders. Get enough like-minded people together and they will coat/cut a contact paper...

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

Give me Delta 400 in 4x5 and I'll be a happy man.

There is apparently a company in Russia coating glass plates, but Ilford, that is unreal! I just bought a 9x12 plate camera so it would be interesting to revive the old plates vs film debate, see whether it has merit.

Dear Mike,

 

It has considerable merit. Plates are flat, film (in the absence of special treatment such as a vacuum back) isn't. Result, assuming the film/plate register is identical with the GG register (far from invariably the case): lots more sharpness.

 

Put it this way: if I can possibly afford to shoot plates instead of film, especially in 4x5 inch/9x12cm, there's no contest.

 

Can they do Delta 3200 plates? I'll ask them....

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

Dear J. Robinson,

 

I fully take your point about someone who thinks his grammar is better than mine -- it invariably isn't -- but I'd equally suggest that even one exclamation mark (known in copy-taking as a screamer or dog's cock) is often too many. Often, omitting it altogether results in more impact. For example, ending with

 

Please.

 

(lower case after the initial letter, no screamers)

 

sounds to me like a more sincere and heartfelt plea than caps and three screamers. One is a genuine plea. The other is somebody shouting at you, the kind of crazy from whom you move away if you happen inadvertently to sit next to them on a bus.

 

I'm not suggesting you are the kind of person who screams and drools on buses but I am suggesting that you might be a little more temperate in your description of those who conduct an almost entirely admirable rearguard campaign against unnecessary or incompetent punctuation. Assuming, of course, that they know what they are doing, which is far from always the case.

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

My apologies to those who are offended by the professional journalistic term for exclamation marks but I thought the education outweighed the offence.

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

Not at all, thanks for that Roger. Everyday I learn something new.