Kodak Axes Digicams, but keeps film

CGW · Feb 12, 2012

Henning Serger said:
O.k., your opinion is that this 'low-fidelity' film shooter group of about two million people is not worth to be looked at. They are peanuts in your eyes.

Kodak, Foma, Fuji, UEI, Freestyle, B&H, Adorama, Firstcall, Maco, Fotoimpex and some dozen other companies worldwide offer lots of products and services for this group.
At least they don't share your opinion. They know the numbers, they satisfy the demand.

Regards,
Henning

Not sure you grasp the impact of the professional shift to digital over the past decade. Their enormous consumption of film materials kept the quality pro labs afloat for the rest of us. Amateurs shooting plastic cameras and buying and developing a few rolls a year won't even come close to restoring the demand for film and related services. Pro labs die because their scale of operation is overkill for the trickle of business--chemistry costs alone aren't often even met by current volume. Somehow I don't see Dianas and Holgas riding to the rescue.

Henning Serger · Feb 12, 2012

Aristophanes said:
I am not seeing 91 million.

Why are you intentionally refering to the wrong post? Sorry, that is a very bad discussion culture. Please stop it.

The 91 million number has nothing to do with the market of low-fidelity film shooters (Holga, Superheadz, Lomo etc.).

I've clearly explained in my other post that the 91 millions is the number of film based cameras which was sold by the member companies of the CIPA in the period from 2000 to 2010.
As not all camera manufactuers are members of the CIPA (e.g. some European and all Chinese manufacturers) this number is even lower than the actually sold cameras.

You said that one problem for photo film manufacturing is a lack of film cameras.
I said it is definitely not, because there is indeed a huge excess of film based cameras out there.
Much much more cameras than film shooters.
The film manufacturers have to face severe challenges, no doubt about it at all, no one here is denying that. But a lack of film cameras is simply not existing.

It's more the other way round: At no time in photographic history it was so easy and affordable to get the best film based cameras. I know lots of young photographers who get into shooting film because of very affordable (even for pupils and students) excellent film cameras.
A DSLR was too expensive for them, instead they took one or two of the film camera legends and started to shoot film.

Regards,
Henning

Roger Cole · Feb 12, 2012

pentaxuser said:
Roger Cole said:

Suit yourselves of course but I DO have people on ignore on virtually ever forum I'm on (the previously mentioned FADU is, so far, an exception - they do seem to be a very pleasant bunch) but not for disagreeing with me.QUOTE]

That's my experience of FADU also, Roger. Once unpleasantness creeps into a site it is very difficult to restore the previous atmosphere, unfortunately

pentaxuser

Click to expand...

It works both ways too, which can also be fortunate. Pleasant behavior breeds pleasant behavior. I'm not prone to going off on people severly and unprovoked but I just last night went back to FADU to try to edit one of my posts. I hadn't been too bad or anything, just someone suggested that rotary processing was far inferior to normal inversion. That's not been my experience at all and I really love my Jobo, so I had first typed "nonsense!" followed by my comments, then edited before posting to "uh, I'm trying to be nice here..." and my comments. Then later I thought "no need to have even said that, just offer my experience with the Jobo.." so I tried to go back and change it.

There isn't enough civility in the world today. I'm not one of those American anglophiles who think everything is better in the old country (that would be Ireland for me, several generations ago, anyway) but it does seem civility is more valued or at least more common on your side of the pond.

I also did some experimenting here and found that something about APUG isn't recognized by FfVb so I can't use that even if I wanted to do so. I just get "No one to ignore." I also found that ignoring someone here does NOT leave their post visible as a "post has been hidden because xxx is on your ignore list" with a link to click. The posts are gone, but quoted material remains.

Aristophanes · Feb 12, 2012

Henning Serger said:
O.k., your opinion is that this 'low-fidelity' film shooter group of about two million people is not worth to be looked at. They are peanuts in your eyes.

Kodak, Foma, Fuji, UEI, Freestyle, B&H, Adorama, Firstcall, Maco, Fotoimpex and some dozen other companies worldwide offer lots of products and services for this group.
At least they don't share your opinion. They know the numbers, they satisfy the demand.

They shoot too few rolls of film to make a difference.

The affordability of roll and cartridge film was based on tens of millions shooting hundreds of millions of rolls per year. Billions, actually.

If Lomo was making a difference labs would not be closing. Local processing is closing everywhere.

Aristophanes · Feb 12, 2012

Henning Serger said:
Why are you intentionally refering to the wrong post? Sorry, that is a very bad discussion culture. Please stop it.

The 91 million number has nothing to do with the market of low-fidelity film shooters (Holga, Superheadz, Lomo etc.).

I've clearly explained in my other post that the 91 millions is the number of film based cameras which was sold by the member companies of the CIPA in the period from 2000 to 2010.
As not all camera manufactuers are members of the CIPA (e.g. some European and all Chinese manufacturers) this number is even lower than the actually sold cameras.

You said that one problem for photo film manufacturing is a lack of film cameras.
I said it is definitely not, because there is indeed a huge excess of film based cameras out there.
Much much more cameras than film shooters.
The film manufacturers have to face severe challenges, no doubt about it at all, no one here is denying that. But a lack of film cameras is simply not existing.

It's more the other way round: At no time in photographic history it was so easy and affordable to get the best film based cameras. I know lots of young photographers who get into shooting film because of very affordable (even for pupils and students) excellent film cameras.
A DSLR was too expensive for them, instead they took one or two of the film camera legends and started to shoot film.

Regards,
Henning

The capital cost to buy into film has dropped, but the operational costs have risen substantially, and will continue to do so. The cost equivalence still favours digital because of computing ubiquity and utility vs. the dedicated processing structure of film. Kodak is raising prices to capture that lost demand.

The lack of film cameras is not affecting the consumer market...yet, although repair is a major issue as you now add a risk uncertainty to that capital cost that was not there before. Ever send a Yashica to Mark Hama? There goes your cost advantage right there.

Where the lack of a corresponding camera manufacturing input will kill film is on the investor/creditor dynamic. Money for future earnings relies on future customers for the product. If they do not see that and believe you are only servicing salvage customers, credit and investment will disappear, and very quickly. This is exactly what is happening to Kodak. Before you have consumption you need investment. Kodak is seeing disinvestment.

Rudeofus · Feb 12, 2012

CGW said:
Not sure you grasp the impact of the professional shift to digital over the past decade. Their enormous consumption of film materials kept the quality pro labs afloat for the rest of us. Amateurs shooting plastic cameras and buying and developing a few rolls a year won't even come close to restoring the demand for film and related services. Pro labs die because their scale of operation is overkill for the trickle of business--chemistry costs alone aren't often even met by current volume. Somehow I don't see Dianas and Holgas riding to the rescue.

No analog camera type or new hipster scheme whatsoever will restore the analog film market to the levels of 1999, and nobody has claimed this here. Viability of film as a product doesn't require 1999's sales volumes. Pro labs die by the dozen because the tsunami of digital images created every day thins out to a tiny trickle of images which ever get printed, not because Holga owners don't shoot enough film. In the inglorious old days getting 36 prints from a roll drove the sales volume, not the roll of film or development. And most digital printing is done at cut throat (for the printer, not the consumer) prices which pro labs are not set up to compete with.

Aristophanes said:
The capital cost to buy into film has dropped, but the operational costs have risen substantially, and will continue to do so. The cost equivalence still favours digital because of computing ubiquity and utility vs. the dedicated processing structure of film. Kodak is raising prices to capture that lost demand.

Given the ubiquity of cell phones with builtin cameras and the precipitous fall in price of used digital equipment I don't see too many folks who shoot analog because a digicam is too expensive. If I look at the small analog crowd in our local photo club, most have a digicam or DSLR but get more satisfaction out of film, same thing seems to be the case here on APUG. When you go to larger formats, though, analog does have a price advantage.

Aristophanes said:
Where the lack of a corresponding camera manufacturing input will kill film is on the investor/creditor dynamic. Money for future earnings relies on future customers for the product. If they do not see that and believe you are only servicing salvage customers, credit and investment will disappear, and very quickly. This is exactly what is happening to Kodak. Before you have consumption you need investment. Kodak is seeing disinvestment.

Given your analyses and statements companies like Ilford or Lomo can't exist and Impossible is impossible, yet they all thrive. I seriously doubt anyone here really knows and understands the "investor/creditor dynamic" when it comes to photographic film, I certainly don't but also suggest it may be very different from paper machines.

michaelbsc · Feb 12, 2012

Aristophanes said:
....Money for future earnings relies on future customers for the product. If they do not see that and believe you are only servicing salvage customers, credit and investment will disappear, and very quickly. This is exactly what is happening to Kodak. Before you have consumption you need investment. Kodak is seeing disinvestment.

I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept to grasp. Kodak is *NOT* in a boutique market. They are/were a serious industrial player. We, as a hobby market, offer a substantial boutique market along the same lines that the other things hanging on the pegs at Michael's or AC Moore's offers.

But we're used to riding on the coat tails of a thriving industry that's now dying.

In a way we're like the millions of cars driving up and down I-95 every day for free. Who pays that bill? Why you did. The price for driving on I-95 is disguised in the selling price of shipping your major appliance and furniture over the highway, or the other do-hickey you bought at the widget store last weekend that got shipped by truck. And if trucking went under, you'd pay to drive.

Likewise, if our benefactor that really pays the true cost to keep film going vanishes (commercial users), then film prices go up. Will we pay $25/roll for Tri-X and double our usage? If so Kodak's revenue column will look good. But that's unlikely.

I don't like to hear anything Aristophanes is saying any more than the next guy. And I'm tired of it too. But that doesn't mean he's not speaking the truth. The banks really don't care what we think, and they don't care about film or Kodak. In fact banks don't care about any of the widgets that any of their customers make. They care about the financials. Why, because the bank's owners, the shareholders tell them to care about the financials. Who are the shareholders? In large part probably your retirement fund. Want to live broke in your old age so you can have film?

Is Aristophanes a prophet from god? No.

Will he be wrong about something in his predictions? Yes, depending on how specific he gets. But the overall trend is right.

What, exactly,will he be wrong about? I don't know; my crystal ball isn't any better than yours.

I live on a barrier island. It's like looking at the beach just before a hurricane blows in. I can predict that a lot of houses will get damaged. I can predict that the ones in the worst shape will "most likely" sustain the most damage and the ones in the best shape will probably fare the best. But you can't say for sure that a wave won't crash some floating projectile right through the best house on the beach missing the hovel next door. But there's going to be damage. Aristophanes is saying Kodak is the beach, and declining film sales is the hurricane. And this is a big storm. There's going to be damage.

I didn't start saving glass window panes 10 years ago because I thought film would last until I died, and my hair is already pretty gray. I've been pleasantly surprised, and I really hope that I can leave those window panes to someone else who will need them when I do finally die. (No, no. That freezer full of 8x10 is not a hoard. I am rescuing it from the hoarders. Sirius taught me how to do that.)

MB

michaelbsc · Feb 12, 2012

Rudeofus said:
Given your analyses and statements companies like Ilford or Lomo can't exist and Impossible is impossible, yet they all thrive. I seriously doubt anyone here really knows and understands the "investor/creditor dynamic" when it comes to photographic film, I certainly don't but also suggest it may be very different from paper machines.

Lomo/Impossible are very, very much a boutique market. Which is extremely different than Kodak. The Ilford you refer to pretty well straddles the line, and since the old Ilford (a point many folks seem to forget is that the "new" Ilford is really Harman Technology Ltd.) completely fell apart as very early casualty of exactly the same market forces we're talking about, the point is self-evident. No Ilford could not and did not survive. End of story. Thank you for proving the point.

Thankfully Simon and crew were able to rescue a jewel from the wreckage and we have Harman Technology Ltd which markets the brand Ilford.

ambaker · Feb 12, 2012

It seems to me that there are actually two discussions intertwined here. The survival of film, and the survival of Kodak.

It may not be that either depends on the other. In truth I doubt that this is the case. I believe the question to be, can Kodak survive in film? I certainly hope so. I like Kodak film, and usually shoot Kodak film. Are there others that are "better"? I'll leave that to the "experts"... I prefer Kodak. Not based on personal testing, not based on patriotism, not based on anything but perhaps a comfortable association, and a lifetime of seeing those red and yellow boxes. Perhaps too many years of Kodak moments and advertising have made me incapable of unbiased judgement.

But then what I do feel that I do see clearly is just this. The single most important deciding factor will be, does the management feel that it is worth the expenditure and effort required to restructure to the point that they can meet their monetary targets? That will be the sole decider of the future. They will put their restructuring dollars where they feel they will get the best returns. It is, after all, their job to do so.

Hopefully continuation in the film business will be viable for them...

---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=36.790782,-90.481010

Ian Grant · Feb 12, 2012

A point missed is there's a very boyant market for film cameras the glut of them is over and prices are rising whether on Ebay, camera stores, sales on forums or camera fairs etc.

The last few camera fairs I've been to there have been a lot of young people often students buying film cameras from 120 folders to higher end 35mm SLRs and MF equipment, and a surprisingly high prportion of girls. Photography was once mainly a male dominated profession and hobby but thats now changed completely.

We have people only half in the know saying filmsales are down while at least 3 manufacturers have stated that film sales are up in the past year. Perhaps some of that misconception is because in the case of Kodak cine film sales are down while still film sales are up.

Perhaps it's the Lomo movement that's spurring new converts to film then with their appetite wetted they want better quality.

We still have new film cameras being introduced so the doom & gloom merchants need to think a little harder about what's really going on. After all who'd have expected Ilford to sell out the first production run of their new pinhole camera in such a short time.

Ian

zsas · Feb 12, 2012

TypeO

I think someone was wondering if Kodak sold disposable cameras, I went to the pharmacy today and saw a few types still avail (this pharmacy is new also), if I am imagining that someone was wondering this, sorry, this tread is way long and I couldn't find the person's query...

CGW · Feb 12, 2012

zsas said:
I think someone was wondering if Kodak sold disposable cameras, I went to the pharmacy today and saw a few types still avail (this pharmacy is new also), if I am imagining that someone was wondering this, sorry, this tread is way long and I couldn't find the person's query...

They're all over dollar stores in the Toronto area--right next to the Maxell cassettes and VHS tapes! Kodak flash one shots loaded with ISO800 for 2 bucks--bargain!

tomalophicon · Feb 12, 2012

you guys are lucky. I can't find tapes to copy my CDs to so I can listen to them in my car, which only has a casette deck.

Steve Smith · Feb 12, 2012

michaelbsc said:
In a way we're like the millions of cars driving up and down I-95 every day for free. Who pays that bill? Why you did. The price for driving on I-95 is disguised in the selling price of shipping your major appliance and furniture over the highway, or the other do-hickey you bought at the widget store last weekend that got shipped by truck. And if trucking went under, you'd pay to drive.

Can you explain this to us non-Americans?

Steve.

CGW · Feb 12, 2012

Rudeofus said:
No analog camera type or new hipster scheme whatsoever will restore the analog film market to the levels of 1999, and nobody has claimed this here. Viability of film as a product doesn't require 1999's sales volumes. Pro labs die by the dozen because the tsunami of digital images created every day thins out to a tiny trickle of images which ever get printed, not because Holga owners don't shoot enough film. In the inglorious old days getting 36 prints from a roll drove the sales volume, not the roll of film or development. And most digital printing is done at cut throat (for the printer, not the consumer) prices which pro labs are not set up to compete with.

Given the ubiquity of cell phones with builtin cameras and the precipitous fall in price of used digital equipment I don't see too many folks who shoot analog because a digicam is too expensive. If I look at the small analog crowd in our local photo club, most have a digicam or DSLR but get more satisfaction out of film, same thing seems to be the case here on APUG. When you go to larger formats, though, analog does have a price advantage.

Given your analyses and statements companies like Ilford or Lomo can't exist and Impossible is impossible, yet they all thrive. I seriously doubt anyone here really knows and understands the "investor/creditor dynamic" when it comes to photographic film, I certainly don't but also suggest it may be very different from paper machines.

Pro labs die because pros stopped shooting film years ago--it's simple. If you ever saw the sheer volume of film materials a busy lab handled a decade ago, you "get" why they're dying or dead. Quality printing survives--largely due to pro demand.

Any camera club I've been around dropped film en masse 8-10 years ago--most ended slide competitions 6-8 years ago. Frankly know no one who regularly or solely shoots film in these groups any longer.

Harmon will hang on. Impossible? Haven't heard raves from friends who've shot it. Lomo? C'mon.

Rudeofus · Feb 12, 2012

CGW said:
Pro labs die because pros stopped shooting film years ago--it's simple. If you ever saw the sheer volume of film materials a busy lab handled a decade ago, you "get" why they're dying or dead. Quality printing survives--largely due to pro demand.

Who cares about the amount of film material if the real income always came from the prints. If your favorite pro lab went out of business recently, it was not because of the decline in film processing five or seven years ago.

CGW said:
Any camera club I've been around dropped film en masse 8-10 years ago--most ended slide competitions 6-8 years ago. Frankly know no one who regularly or solely shoots film in these groups any longer.

You probably doomed&gloomed them long enough so they won't talk to you about shooting film

CGW said:
Harmon will hang on. Impossible? Haven't heard raves from friends who've shot it. Lomo? C'mon.

Lomo stuff is sold to hipsters, and hipsters like stuff before it is cool. By the time you start looking for a Holga camera, Lomo is dead. Sorry, you couldn't find anything against Hennings statements about the market success of Lomo, so you resort to C'mon-ing them. Nice try, but sorry: fail.

michaelbsc said:
The Ilford you refer to pretty well straddles the line, and since the old Ilford (a point many folks seem to forget is that the "new" Ilford is really Harman Technology Ltd.) completely fell apart as very early casualty of exactly the same market forces we're talking about, the point is self-evident. No Ilford could not and did not survive. End of story. Thank you for proving the point.

Thankfully Simon and crew were able to rescue a jewel from the wreckage and we have Harman Technology Ltd which markets the brand Ilford.

Thanks for retelling the story of Ilford/Harman. I brought the example of Ilford/Harman exactly because they were a company in dire straits in a declining market yet were resurrected and are still around producing a wide range of films, paper and chems. Their existence is proof that there is financing available in such a market, despite Aristophanes' endlessly repeated claims that such a thing is impossible.

tomalophicon · Feb 12, 2012

What a lame thread.

CGW · Feb 12, 2012

Rudeofus said:
Who cares about the amount of film material if the real income always came from the prints. If your favorite pro lab went out of business recently, it was not because of the decline in film processing five or seven years ago.

You probably doomed&gloomed them long enough so they won't talk to you about shooting film

Lomo stuff is sold to hipsters, and hipsters like stuff before it is cool. By the time you start looking for a Holga camera, Lomo is dead. Sorry, you couldn't find anything against Hennings statements about the market success of Lomo, so you resort to C'mon-ing them. Nice try, but sorry: fail.

Thanks for retelling the story of Ilford/Harman. I brought the example of Ilford/Harman exactly because they were a company in dire straits in a declining market yet were resurrected and are still around producing a wide range of films, paper and chems. Their existence is proof that there is financing available in such a market, despite Aristophanes' endlessly repeated claims that such a thing is impossible.

Suspect you never saw how a high volume pro lab looked or worked; had you, you'd know they didn't do much 24/36 dev/print schlock. Pro labs made money off film service in my part of planet.

Henning had no data apart Lomo's global job postings for shop help and some gross and out-of-date CIPA stats. When pressed he couldn't really document his arguments with much beyond anecdotes. Holgas and Dianas aren't the answer to falling demand for film.

Kodak's woes overshadow Ilford's. What's not to get?

CGW · Feb 12, 2012

tomalophicon said:
What a lame thread.

Tiresome, isn't it?

PKM-25 · Feb 12, 2012

I think there are a lot of valid if not both enthusiastic and sobering points being made here, but it seems to becoming a drug addict level of re-hashing the re-hashed. There are facts, conjecture, emotions, ignore buttons, it runs the gamut.

I know where I go from here, I move forward with film as one of the mediums I choose for my career. I make investments that both feed the makers of analog products on a regular basis and yet always have at least ten years worth of everything I need on hand to create my work. But where does everyone else go? What is going to be gained from incessantly grinding the ashes of the dead horse to a sub-atomic form? If film is doomed, where does that leave some of us who want the opposite to occur?

No, we can not all ignore the possibility that Kodak may not be making film in a year or so, but until that is the new reality...why are we posting literally hundreds of responses a week to this topic? What do naysayers get out of it...?...honestly?

With all due respect to CGW and Aristophanes, you are putting your precious time into this topic, being well read by most. What should we film users do with this information you are giving us and what do you get out of remaining resolute in making your points stick?

What are we to do with all of this now?

michaelbsc · Feb 12, 2012

Steve Smith said:
Can you explain this to us non-Americans?

Steve.

OK. Here's the quick overview of how US highway funding works.

First, for those who have never been here, there is a giant grid of "Super Highways" (although a lot them are so super) that criss-cross the US mainland. This didn't come free. A lot of money has been dumped into it over the past 60-70 years. But most of it doesn't come from local tolls. Most of it comes from central government Department of Transportation funding. But there is a lot of local matching funding required as well.

So much of the federal funding is collected through things like excise taxes on sales of tires (or tyres for some of you), or gasoline taxes, or other items required for vehicles. Much of the local funding (the state level funding) comes from state permits for the transportation industry. Each truckload must purchase a permit for use of a state's highways depending on weight class and bunch of other stuff that doesn't make much sense to people who don't work in the industry. (And a lot of people who do work in the industry say it doesn't make much sense.)

Anyway, all this money invisibly funnels into federal and state hands to pay for highway construction, so that people who just drive ordinary passenger cars perceive that the roads magically appear by pixie dust sprinkled by Tinkerbell at night. It never occurs to them that the cost of the highway is actually embedded into the price of the icebox they bought last year or the new underwear they bought last month. They think it comes from "rich people" that the government shakes down on tax day. Little do they realize that the "rich people" are running the government, and it is us that are getting the shake down every day.

But this isn't the lounge, so I'll back off that. If you want more we can move to the lounge and I can swing from a chandelier.

MB

Photo Engineer · Feb 12, 2012

Michael;

For those who prefer "tyres" to "tires" they will also prefer "petrol" for "gasoline"!

If yer gonna do it, do it all the way!

PE

Aristophanes · Feb 12, 2012

michaelbsc said:
I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept to grasp. Kodak is *NOT* in a boutique market. They are/were a serious industrial player. We, as a hobby market, offer a substantial boutique market along the same lines that the other things hanging on the pegs at Michael's or AC Moore's offers.

But we're used to riding on the coat tails of a thriving industry that's now dying.

In a way we're like the millions of cars driving up and down I-95 every day for free. Who pays that bill? Why you did. The price for driving on I-95 is disguised in the selling price of shipping your major appliance and furniture over the highway, or the other do-hickey you bought at the widget store last weekend that got shipped by truck. And if trucking went under, you'd pay to drive.

Likewise, if our benefactor that really pays the true cost to keep film going vanishes (commercial users), then film prices go up. Will we pay $25/roll for Tri-X and double our usage? If so Kodak's revenue column will look good. But that's unlikely.

I don't like to hear anything Aristophanes is saying any more than the next guy. And I'm tired of it too. But that doesn't mean he's not speaking the truth. The banks really don't care what we think, and they don't care about film or Kodak. In fact banks don't care about any of the widgets that any of their customers make. They care about the financials. Why, because the bank's owners, the shareholders tell them to care about the financials. Who are the shareholders? In large part probably your retirement fund. Want to live broke in your old age so you can have film?

Is Aristophanes a prophet from god? No.

Will he be wrong about something in his predictions? Yes, depending on how specific he gets. But the overall trend is right.

What, exactly,will he be wrong about? I don't know; my crystal ball isn't any better than yours.

I live on a barrier island. It's like looking at the beach just before a hurricane blows in. I can predict that a lot of houses will get damaged. I can predict that the ones in the worst shape will "most likely" sustain the most damage and the ones in the best shape will probably fare the best. But you can't say for sure that a wave won't crash some floating projectile right through the best house on the beach missing the hovel next door. But there's going to be damage. Aristophanes is saying Kodak is the beach, and declining film sales is the hurricane. And this is a big storm. There's going to be damage.

I didn't start saving glass window panes 10 years ago because I thought film would last until I died, and my hair is already pretty gray. I've been pleasantly surprised, and I really hope that I can leave those window panes to someone else who will need them when I do finally die. (No, no. That freezer full of 8x10 is not a hoard. I am rescuing it from the hoarders. Sirius taught me how to do that.)

MB

Hah!

The original Aristophanes mocked the Olympian gods!

I read financials and financial markets for a living. Film is an industrial product requiring significant volume to justify manufacture. That volume is slipping, so says Kodak.

Is there market space for film? Yes. Outside Kodak. I freely admit that's me reading the entrails.

But the bigger picture is one of credit and investment. Ilford went bankrupt and so did Agfa. Now Kodak. New investments in film are needed not just to buy the assets, but to keep the lights on! These financial troubles will increase prices as the creditors demand more compensation from the current (not future) sales. Translation: they'll get their pound of flesh now and sell what's left. You will pay for it.

Notice how Kodak is under a trustee administrator and restructuring specialist and within 30 days of that appointment film prices are pumped up? Film is already at a severe disadvantage versus digital when it comes to cost/shot efficiencies. This makes it worse...by design.

Basic Econ: if the supplier ramps up the price they are going to lose customers. They are going to produce less and charge more and this will reduce the demand for film. No new film cameras reduces the demand; no new cinema cameras reduces the demand, and so on.

You solve this by re-creating the demand amongst for core markets and severely rationalizing the supply chain and infrastructure, from camera manufacture to lab processing. I don't see Kodak doing that. Someone else has to. Kodak's core emulsion people are thinking like an industrial giant. They need to think like....like....Leica (who were rescued by a Bavarian forestry magnate in a private capital burst of small industrial philanthropy).

And, if Kodak goes and closes their film supply, they take a huge amount of volume buying across the industry with them. When #1 goes down, everyone who issues credit (including distributors) will be right on top of #2-#5, especially if some of those from above have shaky credit history and their core market appears to be in the same predicament as Kodak's. On another thread someone mentioned that Ilford cannot afford based on declining volumes to fix their 220 roll machine. Only Fuji will be relatively immune.

This inability to re-capitalize is the real problem for film. I think Kodak film needs to do what happened to Ilford: go private. If they cannot, then the fallout for the industry is going to be a credit crunch.

Toffle · Feb 12, 2012

Photo Engineer said:
Michael;

For those who prefer "tyres" to "tires" they will also prefer "petrol" for "gasoline"!

If yer gonna do it, do it all the way!

PE

They also drive on the wrong side of the road.

michaelbsc · Feb 12, 2012

Aristophanes said:
I think Kodak film needs to do what happened to Ilford: go private. If they cannot, then the fallout for the industry is going to be a credit crunch.

The circumstances for Kodak's line is far different than it was for Ilford's line and for Polaroid's line. I don't think there's a possibility for anyone besides an "industrial philanthropist" to take it private. The production capacity is too large. And it's in a place with too much ecological liability.

Hope I'm wrong.

Kodak Axes Digicams, but keeps film

Privacy & Transparency

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