Cheap color film by Ferrania?

[giovatony]

I just received 20 rolls of film at $1 per 24 exp. roll with free shipping via UPS.
10 rolls of ISO 200 and 10 rolls of ISO400 from Clark Color film and their name on the box.
The boxes are also marked made in Italy and finished in US and as far as I can determine Ferrania is the only film maker in Italy. I think they used to provide film for the Scotch brand and maybe Konica too.
Hopefully they are not going out of business anytime soon.
Maybe a forum member from Italy can offer more on this?
John

 

[bmattock]

I am not in Italy, but I have a little information that you might find helpful.

Ferrania is an Italian company, as you know, but it used to be owned by 3M of Minnesota in the USA. 3M also owned a film producing company from Oklahoma that had formerly been known as Dynacolor. I am told - but do not know - that there was also a factory in Rye, NY, which produced film and was sold strictly to Mitsubishi, which they may or may not have also sold to Konica. Ferrania/Dynacolor produced the 'Scotch' brand film (Scotch being a 3M company too).

At some point, 3M spun off Ferrania and gave them Dynacolor to go along with it. I believe they sold off the Rye, NY factory. So Ferrania is still around, producing film with the brand name of "Solaris." They are also the store brand of many grocery stores around the US - I just bought some Kroger film which is Ferrania.

Ferrania was the last remaining producer of 126 cartridge film, which it has recently discontinued. They still make 110 and 35mm color negative film in a variety of speeds. They make no B&W film.

Someone from Italy once told me on this forum that Ferrania had been technically bankrupt for years, but that the Italian government refused to let them close down - I do see in the news that the workers habitually sue for the right to work and to stop factory closings. Strange - but then, I'm not in Italy.

Hope that helps some.

 

[giovatony]

I am not in Italy, but I have a little information that you might find helpful.

Ferrania is an Italian company, as you know, but it used to be owned by 3M of Minnesota in the USA. 3M also owned a film producing company from Oklahoma that had formerly been known as Dynacolor. I am told - but do not know - that there was also a factory in Rye, NY, which produced film and was sold strictly to Mitsubishi, which they may or may not have also sold to Konica. Ferrania/Dynacolor produced the 'Scotch' brand film (Scotch being a 3M company too).

At some point, 3M spun off Ferrania and gave them Dynacolor to go along with it. I believe they sold off the Rye, NY factory. So Ferrania is still around, producing film with the brand name of "Solaris." They are also the store brand of many grocery stores around the US - I just bought some Kroger film which is Ferrania.

Ferrania was the last remaining producer of 126 cartridge film, which it has recently discontinued. They still make 110 and 35mm color negative film in a variety of speeds. They make no B&W film.

Someone from Italy once told me on this forum that Ferrania had been technically bankrupt for years, but that the Italian government refused to let them close down - I do see in the news that the workers habitually sue for the right to work and to stop factory closings. Strange - but then, I'm not in Italy.

Hope that helps some.

Interesting, Thanks for the additional info.
Yeah, I`ve used Kroger`s film before. It works fine . The Kroger grocery / drug store chains are out in the Indiana area where my daughter resides .

 

[marke]

Is this film available from a website?

Thanks.

 

[bmattock]

http://www.ferrania-store.com/servlet/StoreFront

 

[moving_electron]

The Aristacolor film at Freestyle Photo is reputed to be Ferrania.

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_main.php

Not as cheap as the purchase listed in the start of the thread though.

 

[giovatony]

Go to the Clark color lab website and request a free mailer. When mine arrived there was a coupon included for 200 and 400 speed film at $1.00 per roll. I bought 20 rolls but i don`t recall any limit and i`m not sure the offer will be repeated but their everyday price for 4 rolls is not much more anyway.
good luck,
John

 

[dmr]

Is this film available from a website?

In another thread (here, I think, may have been on APUG) I remarked that Kroger brand film (Kroger, Bakers, Smiths supermarkets here in the States) is Ferrania and was last week on sale for $4.84 for a 4-pack ($1.21 per roll) with the loyalty card. That's certainly in the range of web prices plus shipping.

I've tried it before, main reason I don't shoot more of it is that it's usually more expensive than I can get Fuji at Target'.

I go out west again next week, so I'm going to give it a good try again for just general-purpose snapshooting. I'll report back on how it looks.

 

[moving_electron]

dmr,
I looked at some pictures tagged with Ferrania on a site and the colors lowked very saturated. It was a nice effect in some shots buy definitely a different look that fuji or Kodak Portra.

What did you think of it when you shot it?

 

[dmr]

What did you think of it when you shot it?

Here's the photo I posted in the other thread ...

IMAO, more grainy and more contrasty than most other films.

Also, IMAO, the sky should appear more blue than it does (look at the reflections of the sky in the building) but that's probably scatter from the haze/smog.

 

[moving_electron]

I remember thinking that the sky in the pictures (bright sunny shots) were a bit turquoise -y.

I think there are some expired rolls of 12 for 50 cents a rolll at the photo lab. I think it was one of the brands mentioned above. (Konica?). I will have to give a few rolls a try for fun.

 

[timmyd18]

I noticed a curious product that's only 99cents a roll at Target- 12shot ISO100 Fujifilm.

I like shooting 100 and its hard to find these days at the grocery store. This is a nice roll for your new ebay purchase that you aren't quite sure is working yet. I use it in my pinhole camera that I made out of an old single use camera- it's easier to reload the smaller roll

 

[ZorkiKat]

.... and maybe Konica too.

Konica made their own film when they were still active in the film business. Like Ferrania, they also supplied "generic" colour film to private-label/ store brands.

 

[rogerchristian]

Ferrania and Agfa

Ferrania and Agfa

It appears Ferrania may have taken over the void left when Agfa went down. Agfa produced a lot of the private-label film for many years, including, as I understand it the C-41 replacement for Seattle Film Works and its successor(s).

It seemed there was no bottom line when buying Agfa-produced film. A rep once told me he sat in on a meeting with Agfa which concerned how to get market share. For some time the point was argued about how to do it, and according to him, he said "Why not give an extra 3 frames on a 24 roll?" There was some discussion about what it would cost for the 10% extra, and it was finally decided that it would cost 'nothing'. That is, according to the rep, why Agfa introduced the 12+3 and 24+3 rolls. BTW film is/was incredibly cheap to produce, so 3 extra frames made virtually no difference in the net cost of a roll.

 

[Mauro]

I am an Italian member, and I can confirm that Ferrania is still manufacturing films. They are located near Savona (Ligure coast), and their films are sold through large department stores at a cheap price.
In my opinion these films are quite good and their price is really interesting; I agree that they offer saturated colour, but it does not disturb I think.

 

[Paul Fierberg]

Just got a roll of Samsung 200 " Prime Color Film" marked made in Italy packaged in USA. Must be the same company.

 

[fgianni]

Someone from Italy once told me on this forum that Ferrania had been technically bankrupt for years, but that the Italian government refused to let them close down - I do see in the news that the workers habitually sue for the right to work and to stop factory closings. Strange - but then, I'm not in Italy.

Hope that helps some.

It used to happen quite often in Italy, however now Italy has to abide to very strict EU rules about market competition, so I don't think this sort of things can happen anymore.