Aside of Impossible (due to their low quality) no manufacturer at all is spending any money on improvement on user related film performance.
“No improvements are necessary.”
To my mind this comment says it all - the mistakes of the past are sure to be repeated...
Does it matter?
Historically, Eastman Kodak did their own distribution, so end users had a much more direct route to influencing the manufacturer. That hasn't been the case though for 20+ years (IIRC).
I think people are looking for a firmer commitment to the future of film. The CEO of Alaris has gone on record saying...
We will continue the film business as long as there's a profitable market out there. Film is still in demand. We're happy to provide this ... as long as it makes sense for us. And at the moment it makes sense for us.
No exacting inspiring or reassuring and certainly doesn't motivate customers to invest time and money into their products. Consequently, this sort of stance disconnects the confidence or loyalty client may have in the product lines. Simply providing a technically superior product at the moment isn't enough.
Not quite true. That is dependant on country.
In a case Kodak did even the majority of their sales via wholesalers.
Aside of Impossible (due to their low quality) no manufacturer at all is spending any money on improvement on user related film performance.
On a similar note, I went to stock up on TMAX 100 (135) yesterday only to be told that it was out of stock and unavailable from the distributor. It seems they are not able to keep up with demand.
Ilford have "seen the light" - why haven't Kodak?
Aside of Impossible (due to their low quality) no manufacturer at all is spending any money on improvement on user related film performance.
Because film is a core product to Ilford's existence. If Ilford stops making film, they disappear. Kodak Alaris can and will drop film and will simply keep on making their digital tripe.
Well, keep in mind the most recently reformulated, state of the art B&W negative film out there is Kodak's TMY-2. That's nice enough behaviour for me.
I thought that Adox needed to change CHS 100 from type I to II out of necessity cause the producing factory stopped but the type II is better and dearer?
Is Ilford introducing new films? They seem to have a fairly broad established line-up as it is.
I'm just glad I can still get Kodak film if I want it. It very easily could have gone the other way.
So, I really think it is important to differentiate "engagement" from the product offering. If you want to slam Kodak for not being excited about promoting film - ie preaching to the choir, that's fine I guess. But if you really think the products need improvement, you're no photographer.
I don't think the Apple case can be compared to Kodak's film business. Apple may have failed to innovate, but this was in the context of computing - a massive next generation wave. Analog photography is exactly the opposite. The vast majority of potential photographers will not be convinced to choose film over digital, no matter how many TMY-2 commercials Kodak decides to run during the superbowl, or how much R&D they dump into making TMax 100 even finer grained.
As for improvement, well, obviously anything can be improved if the investments are made, but that has to be justified by potential demand or you're sunk. If film was still the big thing, Kodak would obviously still be doing what they did all those years at KRL, funding massive R&D and putting out products we probably wouldn't even recognize. By now you might have an ISO 1600 film with finer grain than TMax 100, radically different chemicals, a wide selection of papers, etc. But you can't constantly pour money into innovation when the market for the product is tiny, and already well served. In that sense, again the car analogy is a red herring. Car companies innovate because everyone buys cars. Very few people buy film. Even fewer print negatives in a darkroom. In that context, no, improvements are not required.
Further, such improvements take time. The digital world moves too fast. Suppose Kodak introduced the sharpest, finest grained film ever, with an ISO of 3200. Yeah that's pretty cool for us on APUG. But high end digital cameras have already gone way past that kind of speed. Not to mention more and more people will likely continue to abandon the idea of the purpose-built camera altogether. They'll use their phones, or some wearable technology.
I get it. They seem to be disengaged in comparison to Ilford. But I still haven't seen anyone actually propose anything concrete and specific, and explain what they think the tangible impact might be in relation to the availability of Kodak's products. Everyone's just complaining the CEO guy isn't excited about film.
I asked it multiple times, first in threads here and later in email to Gabershagen. There was no response when Kodak's PR person participated here last year and Gabershagen's delegated response (from Alaris' film manager) was "for contractual and commercial reasons, we can't answer."...If there was a market then KA would have asked for IPR and finishing machines but I don't think they did.
No one has asked them that question?...
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?