Eastman Park Micrographics Inc. (EPM) closes its operations

fs999 · Jan 11, 2023

Eastman Park Micrographics Inc. (EPM) closes its operations on January 1st.

Eastman Park Micrographics (EPM) was formed in April 2011 upon the purchase of the micrographic business from Eastman Kodak Company. The purchase included the worldwide customer base for equipment, media and service, exclusive worldwide distribution rights for Kodak-manufactured microfilm and ongoing rights to manufacture and sell former branded Kodak micrographics equipment. In January 2013, EPM and the Agfa-Gevaert Group signed a Worldwide Master Supply Agreement for Imagelink® Microfilm Products to enhance the supply of micrographic media to our worldwide customers.

In November 2022, EPM announced its intention to close its operations at the end of 2022.

I hope Agfa-Gevaert will find another supplier for the Agfa Copex Rapid (HDP and AHU) known as Adox CMS 20 or Spur Ultra R 800 and Agfa Copex Rapid or Spur DSX.

Guivd · Jan 11, 2023

Sad, thank you for the information

Henning Serger · Jan 11, 2023

fs999 said:
I hope Agfa-Gevaert will find another supplier for the Agfa Copex Rapid (HDP and AHU) known as Adox CMS 20 or Spur Ultra R 800 and Agfa Copex Rapid or Spur DSX.

It's the other way round: Agfa-Gevaert has been a manufacturer of films offered / distributed by EMP.

Best regards,
Henning

Alan Edward Klein · Jan 11, 2023

I remember going to the library to do research. They would have microfiche projectors with film pictures of old newspapers and reference material all photographed and place on film and indexed to search for. But now, everything is scanned into a computer for viewing on a computer monitor. It's all in the "cloud". It's another area where film has been superseded.

cmacd123 · Jan 11, 2023

As someone who spent years with a stiff neck from photogarphing documents on a Kodak MRD-2 and and a Bell and Howell Minolta microfilmer. and using a bell and howell inserter to put tiny film frams in Microfische jackets so they could be made into working file microfiche, I somewho find this very sad. I suspect that all that work I did was probably scanned to digital and the original film destroyed long ago.

Alan Edward Klein · Jan 11, 2023

cmacd123 said:
As someone who spent years with a stiff neck from photogarphing documents on a Kodak MRD-2 and and a Bell and Howell Minolta microfilmer. and using a bell and howell inserter to put tiny film frams in Microfische jackets so they could be made into working file microfiche, I somewho find this very sad. I suspect that all that work I did was probably scanned to digital and the original film destroyed long ago.

Had you not microfilmed it, there would have been nothing to digitize. Be happy.

fs999 · Jan 12, 2023

Henning Serger said:
It's the other way round: Agfa-Gevaert has been a manufacturer of films offered / distributed by EMP.

Sorry I meant vendor.

cmacd123 · Jan 12, 2023

Henning Serger said:
It's the other way round: Agfa-Gevaert has been a manufacturer of films offered / distributed by EMP.

and they agreed to ONLY sell them to EMP, dropping selling directly under the AGFA name if I rember. It is hard to say if they will resume making that class of film available. even as an old Microfilm machine runner, I do acknowledge that the market for microfilm as microfilm is proably vanishingly small. and the market for diverting copex for still pictorial Photography is even smaller. (to give you ideas of the Volume, where I worked we were expected to shoot between 2 and 4 rolls of 16mm by 215 feet film a day. {the film was thin Polyester base so 215 feet fit on what one would think of as a 100ft plastic spool. } each roll about 4000 exposures. so that is the area of 400ft of 35mm film.

Microfilm used as microfilm is generally not perforated

Arcadia4 · Jan 13, 2023

Yes will be interesting to see if Agfa re-markets their micro films back under their own name - as per the article below its suggested Agfa only tied up with EPM because their own distribution network wasn't that strong. Fujifilm are the other major supplier. There seems to be still a market for long term archival storage of information, which avoids the risk of data being lost due to software migration over time and historically data storage failure (although the cloud perhaps partially tackles that problem) although physical form also has advantages for high security data. Although clearly doubts about how long the market might last for.

Fuji launched its latest micro films as recently as 2015

A New Microfilm? What Was Fujifilm Thinking? – Genus

In May this year Fujifilm Inc. of America, officially announced the arrival of a new Fujifilm microfilm for the US market. The new Fujifilm is compatible with all 16mm raster image recorders, and comes in both 16mm x 30.5m (100ft) and 16mm x 65m (215ft) versions. The launch of a brand new...

www.genusit.com

Henning Serger · Jan 13, 2023

Arcadia4 said:
Yes will be interesting to see if Agfa re-markets their micro films back under their own name - as per the article below its suggested Agfa only tied up with EPM because their own distribution network wasn't that strong. Fujifilm are the other major supplier. There seems to be still a market for long term archival storage of information, which avoids the risk of data being lost due to software migration over time and historically data storage failure (although the cloud perhaps partially tackles that problem) although physical form also has advantages for high security data. Although clearly doubts about how long the market might last for.

Fuji launched its latest micro films as recently as 2015

A New Microfilm? What Was Fujifilm Thinking? – Genus

In May this year Fujifilm Inc. of America, officially announced the arrival of a new Fujifilm microfilm for the US market. The new Fujifilm is compatible with all 16mm raster image recorders, and comes in both 16mm x 30.5m (100ft) and 16mm x 65m (215ft) versions. The launch of a brand new...

www.genusit.com

Yes, indeed, there is a market for long term archival storage of information on microfilm. Pictures, documents, business data (e.g. bank data).
For example the German government is archiving pictures and documents of "high national and cultural importance" on microfilm under the surface in an old mine (the "Barbarastollen"), which has been specially rebuild with perfect conditions for long term storage of microfilm.
It is a huge archive with new pictures and documents continually coming in. It is the biggest archive of that kind in Europe.

I've used microfilm / microfiche at my first job in the car industry. And I am using it as a photographer for decades. Really amazing, fascinating material with unique performance.
Fingers crossed that Agfa can re-organize the distribution.

Best regards,
Henning

Eastman Park Micrographics Inc. (EPM) closes its operations

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency