Daniel;
I hate to tell you this, but this video and its translation from Dutch to English is posted here on APUG in several places. Sorry.
PE
IDK if this is the best place to put this post. It is intended to clarify some of Kodak's coating practices and place some products in better perspective.
I have said in the past in many posts that Kodak coats 42" wide with a 2" discardable edge (1" on each side of the web) in 5000 ft lengths. Well, I spent most of my time with paper coating for which this is true, but in film, I dealt with the Pilot lab which coated 21" wide film coatings.
However, the newest Kodak coating machine coats 54" wide and 6000 ft lengths. So, I have to stand kind of corrected. This increases the amount of film from a single master roll by quite a bit and also increases the cost of a master roll. Of course, paper coated in Colorado is coated over 70" wide.
So, with these corrections, you now have a more complete picture of the yields and costs.
Sorry about the ambiguity, but this was brought to my attention by an EK friend recently.
PE
Yes, digital film making is the real threat to us analog still photographers...EC
Henning;
Thanks. You are aware that Kodak has moved all film work back to Rochester and has sold the Colorado plant facilities to a Canadian company. Kodak rents time there to produce color paper, and that is being cut back as demand decreases. Oh, and the visitors must have misheard. Splitting is really called slitting at Kodak.Easy mistake.
PE
Henning;
I am aware of that. However, the R&D needed to get high stability dyes was mostly Kodak and Fuji. I wonder how well these others stand up on keeping?
PE
It is often said here on apug, but I think the threat is not so big.
Because of the following reasons:
1. Even if in 10 or 15 years most movies are made with digital equipment, the movie industry will still use film:
For long term storage. All 100% digital made movies are exposed on special archiv film for long term storage. Why? It is much more safe and about 5x- 10x cheaper than digital long term storage.
Film will be the leading media for archiving of movie film.
Fujifilm has recently won a scientific award for its new "Eterna" movie archiving film.
Both Simon Galley and Jerry Deeny (Fuji) had said: "There will always be a market for film". They know what they say.
2. Not all film manufacturers are in the movie film business. Only Kodak, Fuji, Agfa-Gevaert and partly Filmotec are producing movie film.
Ilford, Lucky, Foma, InovisCoat, Fotokemika, Tasma, Era, Shanghai are not in the movie film business.
Agfa-Gevaert has strong parts in aerial, surveillance, graphic and microfilm production. Probably they could do well without their movie print film production. They are not as dependant from movie film as Kodak is.
3. Ilford, Agfa-Gevaert, InovisCoat, Foma and Fotokemika have very flexible production lines. For example, all of them are coating film and paper on the same coating machines.
Last week I had a talk to a friend who is involved in the tests of the InovisCoat/Adox AP 400 (based on former APX 400). This film will probably have a first production run of only 3000m². That means very,very small runs are nowadays possible on this adapted/downscaled machinery.
Best regards,
Henning
This is a great thread and without the "conspiracy theory" tinge that taints most discussions about the future of film! Very encouraging and informative to boot.
Thanks for spreading the word
Hello Ron,
thanks for the update!
In addition: Kodak has invested a lot in his production infrastructure over the last years. Especially in making much smaller batches due to current demand, more "just in time".
There was a very interesting report about these modernised production methods in the DemocratChronicle on 4th January, 2009.
Journalists visited the Rochester plant and reported about the new production in Building 38.
I quote from this article: "....And the company remains steadfast that camera film will continue to be a part of its business, though admittedly increasingly a niche product.
"You come back in 10 years, there will be a film business here," said Joel T. Proegler, general manager of film capture and a vice president in Kodak's film, photofinishing and entertainment group. It'll be smaller. Maybe there will be a bigger space between innovations."......
Kodak switched a year ago from churning out large batches of film at a time to doing almost daily runs of small batches that are tied to consumer demand. The advantage is that the company carries far less inventory on hand, said operations manager Sue Sweet."
These informations correspond exactly with a report in the German film magazine "Schmalfilm" 2/2008. Chief Editor J. Lossau reported from an interview with Kodak CEO Perez, in which he said that Kodak has recently made some long term contracts with film customers (movie and foto film) for the next ten years. Film is safe for at least another ten years at Kodak, and probably for much more years to come.
Probably a very interesting report from the Kodak plant in Windsor near Denver:
http://www.wittner-kinotechnik.de/info/kodak/kodak-en.php
In German:
http://www.wittner-kinotechnik.de/info/kodak/kodak-de.php
It is about the the small format movie film production (Super 8 etc.). Kodak has now moved it from Windsor to Rochester, that means they have recently invested lots of money in this "niche in the niche" production.
Although Super 8 is considered to be "dead" for almost 30 years now by the doom and gloom sayers, these films were produced by Kodak every single day, not one or two small batches a year. Millions of feet of Super 8 film per year.
This view at Super 8, over 30 years after the introduction of consumer video cams, should us let look much more relaxed at the future of photo film, which is a much, much bigger market.
Best regards,
Henning
Hi Ron,
Color paper: AFAIK Kodak hast lost market share to the competitors, which are currently Fuji, DNP, Mitsubishi, InovisCoat.
Best regards,
Henning
Please go here: http://makingkodakfilm.com/ for an excellent book about Kodak's manufacturing processes.
The author will donate a portion of the sale price to APUG if ordered by an APUG member or subscriber and if APUG is mentioned in the order.
PE
... 3. Ilford, Agfa-Gevaert, InovisCoat, Foma and Fotokemika have very flexible production lines. For example, all of them are coating film and paper on the same coating machines.
Last week I had a talk to a friend who is involved in the tests of the InovisCoat/Adox AP 400 (based on former APX 400). This film will probably have a first production run of only 3000m². That means very,very small runs are nowadays possible on this adapted/downscaled machinery.
... Next, regarding the machines, they must be kept in a state of "threadedness". The machines must remain threaded as the threading operation is tedious.
This, and this alone, is the salvation of the film market for us unless some new and as yet undiscovered use emerges that demands astronomical amounts of film. (An unlikely expectation at best.)
Note that this (3000 m2) is only about 500 boxes of 100 sheets of 8x10. Or about 500 (give or take a lilttle) cases of roll film. (Assuming a yield of about .85. I have no idea what a slitting organizations real yield would be, but 85% seems like a reasonable guess.)....
MB
As for coating film and paper on the same machine, consider this. Film coating is benign, but paper coating (both FB and RC, but FB is far worse) create fluff made of paper fibers and baryta dust. After coating paper, the machine must be shut down and the room and machine must be cleaned before film coating can be resumed. This is why Kodak used 2 separate facilities and specially enclosed coating machines. It was to isolate the two products and then isolate the problem and confine it to the coating machine itself.
PE
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