I have always been a collector of books, and I have always been interested in how things are made. I am especially fascinated with large industrial manufacturing processes. Photography is also more than a fascination for me, it has become my prime interest. I have little interest in the chemistry and mechanics beyond knowing how to make things work, yet I am still fascinated with how things are made. I ran across an interesting book a while back, put it on my list of things I needed to check out, and promptly forgot all about it. Typical for me, but thankfully I did remember the book and ordered a copy.
If you were ever curious as to how photographic film is manufactured, then I can highly recommend a great book on how Kodak makes film. “Making KODAK Film; The Illustrated Story of State-of-the-Art Photographic Film Manufacturing” by Robert L. Shanebrook, is a book I can suggest to answer the majority of your questions about what goes into manufacturing film. I will quote from the author’s web site;
Information in the book
The book was compiled based on my personal experience plus the input from Kodak experts. Kodak provided access to Kodak Park and assigned experts to the project. Typically the experts explained the operation to me and then accompanied me as I photographed. After I retired I spent over forty days photographing in Kodak Park and many more days in discussion.
In addition, I was aided by input from 24 Kodak retirees. In most cases the retirees were the predecessors of the current Kodak experts that helped me. I also utilized the advice of ten experts from outside Kodak. To insure accuracy the manuscript was reviewed by many of the people that provided information used in the book.
I am grateful to over ninety people who helped me with the book.
Author
Bob Shanebrook graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology and worked at Eastman Kodak Company for 35 years before retiring in 2003. At Kodak he worked as a commercial photographer, researcher, product development engineer, film manufacturing manager, and for over twenty years was a Worldwide Product-Line Manager for Kodak Professional Films. He was involved in nearly all aspects of Kodak’s black-and-white and professional film business.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the art and craft of film manufacturing. For me this was a slow read since the book is mostly photographs. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, with some of these machines, it may be more like ten thousand.
Mr Shanebrook has self published this book and I can recommend it is a good one. . . two thumbs up from me. A great read if you are interested in just how complex the film in your camera is to produce. More information and how to order a copy from the author can be found HERE.
JB
Information in the book