Kodak announcement

gnashings said:

I hate to say this - because I think that a film market with many players is better for all of us - but does anyone think that perhaps there was a boardroom meeting at Big Yellow that went a little like this:
"Uhm, Mr Perez... what is this?"
To which he naswered:
"A roll of Kodak film, of course...why?"
"Do you know where it came from?"
"Uhm, our factories?"
"Yes, but more specifically ... A STORE SHELF, you idiot! As long as we make film, and sell film and related products STOP PISSING OFF THE CUSTOMERS..."

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LOL
I'd like to attend the board meeting when that happens

I just layed hands on 2 100 sheet boxes of TRI-X expired in 2000 but kept in the freezer or all those years , almost for free (tried, tested and approved).
Even when film is dead, we can ressurect it without sci-fi methods, just by taking it out of the freezer

G

Photo Engineer said:

... 9 out of 10 professionals use digital cameras, but 2/3rds of them still use film for a portion of their work and that one half of US households still use film.

Kodak says that although film will never dominate the market, it will likely never disappear and that it will continue to be a smaller, viable and prfitable business well into the future.
PE

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She has discovered the Gunpowder!

Cheers


André

Good point, Argus!

I am in no panic. There are things that cause concern - but overall, no panic at all. I have already seen a shift in public opinions with people NOT involved in photography - digital is not going anywhere, but it is certainly not getting any more prestigious. Mark my words, people will start to see film as a status symbol and they will want it for their special pictures - so the pros who ejected all their film gear will probably regret it. But, this is getting a little to soapy, so I will stop here.

Peter.

Over the hill

jovo said:

Though I'm over 50, it's nice to know my choices are those of 'the younger people'. Now I wonder what else we have in common??

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Me too John, and probably a large percentage of APUG members are in that category, dos this mean that we will be forced to give up using film because of our decrepitude, and the danger of people of our advanced years messing about with photochemistry in dark rooms, will the Kodak Digital Capture Police send it's agents round to our homes to impound our equipment in the middle of the night, forcing us to replace it with digital ? I hope not.

<EDIT>Here's a link to a copy of the press release in full, which promotes their new formulation of Portra 800, their disposable cameras, reduced static-attraction of Kodak 35mm films and a new packaging system: http://www.photographyblog.com/index.php/weblog/comments/kodak_portra_800_film/

Having now read the whole thing it does seem to be a deafeningly loud fanfare and banging of drums (from Kodak, not PE (for whom I have great respect) - no criticism implied or intended!) compared to the actual substance of the article. That's probably more to do with the PR bods than the corporation though!

Anything traditional-friendly coming out of Kodak these days is extremely welcome, and Hellyar's comments are good to hear. I do, however, have to note that her current job-title is "President, Film and Photofinishing Group"... ...so she's not exactly going to echo Perez's "film is gone" comments, which must have undermined her more than slightly.

To clarify, I'm not doomsaying or Kodak-bashing here, and I do welcome the comments in the press release.

...but I'm not hanging up the bunting yet either.<END EDIT>

In the end words don't matter only actions.
Ilford has shown their support of film with actions.
Fuji has shown their support of film with actions.
And the other smaller companies are still delivering and fighting to survive.

What is Kodak doing?

arigram said:

In the end words don't matter only actions.
Ilford has shown their support of film with actions.
Fuji has shown their support of film with actions.
And the other smaller companies are still delivering and fighting to survive.

What is Kodak doing?

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Right now they are offering you a wider range of film than the other two companies combined.

Right now they are providing me, as a cinematographer, with more genuine support than the other two companies combined (well, that's a bit below the belt, because Ilford abandoned the movie film market and they never really tried anyway).

By the way, what are the actions being taken by Fuji and Ilford?

Best,
Helen

It has been interesting to see how one interview has caused such a flurry of woe. Unless I am mistaken (and lord knows that is possible) all of the different threads, and much of the negative reaction can all be tied back to one interview Perez gave prior to PMA to the NYT, back in January. Now what he said was plain bad judgement, IMO, but this interview seems to have been picked up by almost everyone and it appears that Perez continues the bad PR, but from what I can tell reading a dozen or so of these reviews, it is the same interview over and over.

So, maybe it is the people reporting this that have decided that Kodak is doing film anylonger, and not Kodak. I would think if Kodak has anyone reading all the press that is out there they would have to be in damage controll and THAT is where I think they have failed.

A side view of this, read Adams "Letters and Images" and you can see back in 'the day' that Adams also liked to pick on Kodak (even though he did take $ from them). Funny, how some things do not change.

Photomc - Is the NYT interview also the same one as shown in the Financial Times (the timescale looks about the same)? See Dead Link Removed, currently third article down. Honest question, not sniping.

Speaking purely for myself, Perez's comments alone wouldn't influence me on their own. However combined with Kodak's recent discontinuation of their B&W paper and Tech Pan, they carry more weight.

Again, just my personal opinion.

Frank, understand what you mean...not taken the wrong way at all

As to the NYT and FT, could not decide if it which one came first or if it was from one of those "group" interviews. I have no problem at all with the way people have reacted to this, my point was only that perhaps Kodak should take notice and try a bit of damage control (Perez comments, coupled with recent changes - can only hurt their business). On the other hand, we should consider that those reporting this probably do not even own a any camera except the one in their cell phone.

Now, as to what Kodaks core "film" business is...heck if I know. PE might be able to give some insight on that. Did read one other report that DID say that Kodak's film business (ie motion picture film) would still be going strong.

Like you said Frank, just my opinion....it would be sooooo much easier if Kodak could release something that could clam the waters a bit.

Helen B said:

Right now they are offering ... what are the actions being taken by Fuji and Ilford?

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They are offering what they have, yet unlike Ilford, Fuji, Rollei and others they are not introducing any new profucts in the market or have announced that they plan to do so. Kodak is a mamoth corporation, much bigger than the others and so ofcourse they have a great product catalog. But they are reducing it day by day.
Selling what they have doesn't mean anything in the long run. One day they mights just cease to produce just like they did with their BW paper.
R&D tells me "support" not just simple availabillity which is diminishing anyway.
That's part of the reason that film people feel that their film deparment sales are just financing their digital future.

Ari,

Kodak is actually doing R&D and introducing new films, I am middle of the road on the press release, but Kodak has introduced new stuff as of late, in the matter of discontinuing stuff, if there is not much demand, then it does not make sense to continue to offer the product, and yes we are a large group of people here, but in the whole scope of things, a small part of the business, I am just glad to hear finally them say a couple of positive things about the future of their film products.

Dave

What stuff has Kodak introduced? I am intrigued as I must have missed them.
Call me cynical but I live in a country that hot air speaches and no actual results in the norm...

Kodak has introduced a whole line of motion picture films, some even in Super-8, which is a format that many thought would soon be abandoned with the discontinuation of Kodachrome 40 and all Super-8 sound film, and the new 800 speed color neg still film announced in a recent press release seems like it may be the first application of the new technology in motion picture films to still films.

There are actually 3 releases.

The first was for the 800 speed film, the second was what prompted my original post here, and is a pre-release of the comments due today at PMA. Those comments today at PMA are the 3rd release and will just expand on what we already know about Mary Jane Hellyar's statement. BTW, she spent a year as president of one of the digital units moving from film to digital back to film recently. She and her husband both work for Kodak and are very competent technical people. She knows what she is doing.

Kodak continues research and development at a reduced scale on conventional films, but you must remember that film is a mature science and it takes a lot more effort to yield even a small advance. The 800 speed film was a difficult endavor.

Now, as to product lines. Lets assume that production is 1 mile of paper / roll, and that 1 roll uses one vat of emulsion melt and takes 1 day to produce. If that emulsion must be made at 100 x the melt size, that means that they have 99 more batches of emulsion to use for that product. They therefore have to sell that 1 mile of paper before those 99 remaining batches of emulsion go bad. What if it takes them 2 years to sell 1 mile of paper and the exipry date is 2 years. Then when the last box goes out the door, it is expired.

OTOH, some products coat daily and sell that 1 mile each day. The first product I described above could be a B&W paper and the second I describe could be a color paper for example.

Now, you may say scale it down. Ok, if they do that they have to re-engineer the emulsion to work at smaller scale. It isn't like making a large automobile engine and a small one. Chemistry doesn't work like that. So, they re-engineer a product that doesn't sell?

There are those of you out there who trivialize this whole thing. I spent 15 years working on up and down scaling emulsions. It is not trivial and is very expensive. I can just as easily take pot-shots at anyone's profession if I don't know anything about it, but I run the risk of being very very wrong. Take it from me, Kodak is trying to cope with serious problems to keep us all supplied with conventional photographic products.

PE

Photo Engineer said:

Take it from me, Kodak is trying to cope with serious problems to keep us all supplied with conventional photographic products.

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:confused: !

André