Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/08/15

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Ilford Film & Developer
From: D Khong <dkhong@pacific.net.sg>
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 06:17:06 +0000

At 05:54 PM 14/8/98 -0600, you wrote:
>>> Well, I am an Ilford fanatic, too, but they are both part of a rather
>>> large
>>> corporate conglomerate, and they produce a number of colour products,
>>> including Ilfochrome and Ilfocolor products.
>>>
>>
>>I'm convieniently forgetting that for the time being, so that I can kid
>>myself that I'm favouring the underdog... ;-)
>
>IMHO Ilford is the underdawg it two respects only: (1) they are not as well
>known as 'yellow box' and (2) they are British, or at least European and
>are thus perhaps inferior by some folks standards.
>
>I've used quite a bit of both and prefer Ilford film, chemicals, and paper
>to their Kodak equivalents.  In respect to performance I consider them
>superior.
>
>

The underdog perception of Ilford is slowly changing.  They are coming up
with liquid chemicals which are so easy to just dilute and use and I see no
point in going back to Kodak's DA-163 and Unifix since I discovered Ilford
Multigrade developer and Rapid Fixer.  Weighing out those powder chemicals
were such a pain since I use only a small quanitity each time I darken the
darkroom.

IMO, Kodak is likely to lose more of the market share.  I can see that
their marketing departments are quite insensitive to the changing consumer
trends and demands in this part of the world.  At a time when there is so
much concern about photo chemicals damaging the environment, I cannot find
a box of XTOL where I am staying and I have to rely on friends in the US to
help ship me packs of XTOL for my personal use.   Is there an Ilford
equivalent to XTOL?

Dan K.