Buy buy buy--bye-bye!
So, BUY FILM, from RETAILERS...and shoot it...and buy chemicals...and paper....and, you get the picture. The fundamental problem here is quite simply that demand is low. I cannot see it going anywhere but further down big picture-wise, so it is up to we little guys to buy buy buy to fill the gap left by professionals who have abandoned film.
Buy Kodak paper? Surely you jest!
Seriously though, the relatively puny amount of of Kodak film and developer that consumers buy is simply going to hasten the inevitable.
I switched to Ilford products several years ago, and purchase--almost exclusively--their film and paper. Bye-bye to Kodak products, because I can't count on those products to be there tomorrow.
Ilford isn't trying to be everything to everybody, as Kodak is. And this is not a denunciation of Kodak, or to disparage their fine products; it is simply a hard evaluation of the facts, as I see them, concerning product supply from Kodak.
Ilford has returned to their core business, namely B&W paper, film, chemicals and sundries, directly related to B&W photography, with a smattering of technical and scientific products. They ceased production of motion picture film, aerial film (did they ever even make aerial film?), as well as certain products manufactured by Kentmere, when they acquired Kentmere.
For me, when I buy buy buy, it is Ilford products. Sorry, but for me, Kodak is a dead end street. Kindly don't bother giving me the "if-we-all-bought-Kodak-the-supply-would be-assured" baloney. The professional market, which was the lifeblood of Kodak, is gone, replaced by digital. Newspapers no longer buy mountains of Tri-X and 2475 Recording Film; catalogue houses no longer buy entire master rolls of Ektachrome for studio shoots. When aerial goes digital, when the motion picture industry converts to pure digital, when my dentist's office uses digital X-rays, that will probably be the end of silver halide products from Kodak.
Perhaps some of their flagship products, like Tri-X, or some of their colour products will continue to be marketed. Who knows, they may even sub-contract the manufacturing to another company, depending on expected volumes, et cetera. PE, does that sound possible?
One final note: like most people today, I rarely write paper cheques any more. Just about the only cheques we write are to our church, as presents to our grandkids, or odd purchases, such as when my wife pays for her Avon products. My bank manager told me that until relatively recently, all Canadian banks cleared their own cheques. Check volumes are now so low, that cheque clearing in Canada is done by a company, based in Montreal, which is co-owned by the seven largest Canadian banks. Does anybody think that world wide silver halide manufacturing might follow the same or a similar path?
