Category: Valley Hi

the flat spot of progress

Harman Phoenix Unmasked

Posted on Posted in labnotes, overnight notes, The Negative, Valley Hi

MAR 8,2024 UPDATE: The march shipments have arrived. Same film, or so it seems; same price. The allotments have increased. Two sample points:

  • A: large seller– December product less than 2K rolls; this shipment over 2K rolls available
  • B: small retail shop– December product 300 rolls; this, march shipment, 1K rolls available.

They may have worked on coating/drying procedures; the making of foundation supplies. They haven’t received much adverse comment, in fact, most of the onliners seem pleased.

the maskless returns. A new phase of color film — flashing back to the middle of last century.

Shooting the Moon — not a moon-shot, rather, it means aiming for something you don’t intend to hit; your reason could be a signal, gesture to investors, an effort at proving, or testing yourself. You do something to see how others react.

2022 Numbers. Not a great business.

Consider you are in a shrinking market, you may have maxed out your customer growth. Your standard item is a dominant in this shrinking market, even so, newer companies seem to have great multiples of growth in both top and bottom line. These folks are tapping into a younger group having more expendable funds. They don’t print in a darkroom. Your the dominant darkroom vendor, but this is to an aging population — a population with reducing need. They just don’t shoot, nor print as much as just 5 years ago. This isn’t the analog rebound group.

Analog rebound is among the 35mm 35 year old photographers. They may shoot film, but they send it to a lab to soup and scan. Some of them have process only, these are the ones with a camera-scan setup. Camera-scan has become a dominant imaging platform in just a decade. In 2013, talking about it was segregated on the Forum boards — it was ‘HYBRID’ — a bastard not suited for inheritance in the Church of Photography.

The December rumor holds that Harman will produce another Phoenix for shipment March, 2024. They can easily make film. Will they alter, by how much, a rev. 2? Will this remain a film-for-scanning.

Are they prepared to make a color paper if(when) FujiFilm drops *Archive. Three labs that produced large RA-4 prints in the US have closed their wide-format Poliettronica [https://webionaire.com/2022/06/26/ra-4-big-lab-printing/ ] lines; switching to ‘dry-lab’ printing for their display clients.

Sensitivity Isn’t Output

Spectral sensitivity curves depict the film’s “shooting” conditions. Its response to the colors depicted. The manufacturer tells you the color of the testing light used. The Spectral Dye-Density curves represent the absorption of the dyes formed after processing. These are used for adjusting the system used for making prints(or scans.) Sensitivity is used during camera setup and use. Dye-Density is used during output. Without this DD curve, you don’t know what the emulsion is expected to produce. Harman doesn’t publish this with “December 23” Phoenix.

What Next

effect of DIR upon color emulsion. neutralizing secondary absorptions of the M and C image dyes

CC:: colored coupler | UC:: uncolored coupler

DIR: Development Inhibitor Releasing compound. An example of a well regarded DIR is 1-phenyl-5-mecapto-tetrazole. This can be imagewise generated and eliminated from the coupling postion during dye formation. DIRs have been patented which enhance sharpness, reduce ‘graininness’, and, via interlayer interimage effects, produce color correction.

[color coupling and masking can be separated]

DIR compounds are disclosed in “Developer Inhibitor-Releasing (DIR) Couplers for Color Photography,” C. R. Barr, J. R. Thirtle and P. W. Vittum in Photographic

Terms:

  • block dye: theoretical dye having equal absorption of light at each wavelength within a given continuous range of wavelengths and no absorption at all other wavelengths of interest. [Giorgianni]
  • calibration: procedure of correcting for ay deviation from a standard. [Giorgianni]
  • coupler: an organic compound which reacts with oxidized developing agent to form a dye.[Giorgianni]
  • cross-talk: transfer of information from one color channel to another.[Giorgianni]
  • interlayer effects: chemical reactions that take place among the various layers of a photographic medium. …used for color signal processing.[Giorgianni]

foundations of emulsion making.

Factor X 05

Posted on Posted in da net, the fora, Valley Hi

In getting from nothing to something, you travel through else,and else, and else again. How do you do this; how difficult is the travel; are some travels easier? A conjecture of success, by which I mean, being as known as you wish.

Can you get someone interested enough to sustain their interest?

Determining the Contrast

Natural ability makes doing X easier. The factor I’m considering isn’t physical, rather it is

You can’t teach someone to be 7 foot, but you can improve being 7 foot. 

some other set – an X set. Let’s use Steve Jobs as an example of it — he is a 5, the top end of the scale. Most people are 0 on this scale. They aren’t even certain there is such a thing. They mistake X for something else rather than the cluster it is. The 5’s, on the other hand don’t understand why everyone doesn’t know how to do X, and are infuriated when their surrounding 3 & 4’s don’t get more results. This X set is psychological ability. 

In order to succeed at having others assist you, you will share characteristics of the con man. People will be wary of this. But the nature of X is such that you have resilience without being destructive. Many think this means being competitive. It is not. This ability sets out similarities not differences. Successful others will be trustful of you, rather than being wary.

In asking you are giving – not giving in;  not giving up – Those who have will share because they know they aren’t being tricked. You are prepared to give and share, not give and take.

It Goes Wrong

The followup fails because you failed to start off correctly. Further, you can’t correct your actions. You don’t have resilience that is reliable. It isn’t the asking, it is the follow up. Your follow up, not theirs.

Trade Show Effect

I am a reticent attendee of trade shows. In my far past, I attended for training, and, for a few years, I attended to sell. This was my retouching equipment and supplies. It was never easy, but it was the cheapest way to demonstrate to the novice, to convert the mis-informed. Mostly it was to connect with existing customers. Maintain their allegiance. Follow up was key to new accounts. That was the hardest part — who, in what way, with what frequency. When to stop spending this follow up time with this prospect.

The Difficulty:

Determining those people who occupy your time to their selfish ends. Those people who are just killing time, yours and theirs.

I was aware of that caution, so, along with my innate self reliance, I’d find reasons to ‘move on’ to other prospects. One such case, I’d presented to a regional director. Seemed promising, but after a few months I put his card into the ‘annual’ file. But my persistence hadn’t been offensive, just not productive. He remembered and contacted me. In those 6 years he had left _company_, opened a paper box maker, then an outdoor advertising company. He wanted my coating system in that operation, but I’d closed up, moving on to other things. He had persisted. He had remembered. I hadn’t.

 

The prompt for this post was forum activity over the upcoming Fotofest in Houston.

next: Origin Of This Post