Kodak Clarification

John McCallum said:

Perhaps jstraw, you might be feeling belittled as a modest customer of Kodaks' because as you publicly state :
"I last set foot in a darkroom in 1995 and last shot film in 2001." :-O

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This is extremely low, give that his next paragraph says:

In 2006, upon becoming elligible for free tuition at my place of employment, I elected to take a beginning photography class in order to re-habituate myself to darkroom procedures. This rekindled interest in the darkroom equipment I had gathering dust in my basement. Several weeks into the semester, I began planning and then constructing the new darkroom. It was innaugurated before Thanksgiving.

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How about some minimal standards, John?

John McCallum said:

Perhaps jstraw, you might be feeling belittled as a modest customer of Kodaks' because as you publicly state :
"I last set foot in a darkroom in 1995 and last shot film in 2001." :-O

Filmis4Ever makes a good point. And further, if there's one way to hasten the loss of a superb range of materials that Kodak still manufacture for their modest customers, it would be to garnish a following to badmouth them to the largest online group of users. no?

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I don't there's anything unusual about being an APUGer that's returning to analog photography after being away from it.

I'm not apologetic for the time I spent working in an environment where the workflow evolved towards digital imaging. Now that I'm once again making photographs solely for my own pleasure, I'm embracing the craft of traditional photographic processes and make no excuses for the continued use of digital photography when it's the best tool for a task.

I don't think I've ever badmouthed Kodak...and most of what is described as badmouthing or doom and gloom on APUG is clearly driven by the fear of...and the desire to prevent...the future loss of more Kodak products. Regardless of tone, I have no doubt that anyone from Kodak that reads APUG would understand that people here care that Kodak continues to supply darkroom products.

I too saw the comment about "Radical Fringe". I have also seen the ads that Kodak is running over on Photo Net for Portra film no less. This is interesting to me as a member of both forums.

I would like to point out above that what I was trying to get across to all of us, (myself included because I have been blind to this) is that there is power in money, but there is also power in numbers. We buy collectively a lot of film even though it is not much individually.

Another comment made on another thread was that we formulate a petition to Kodak. I'm thinking that in terms of buying power, if we get enough signatures that will gain the attention of Kodak.

I think we should all consider the possibilities in this.

PE

Photo Engineer said:

Another comment made on another thread was that we formulate a petition to Kodak. I'm thinking that in terms of buying power, if we get enough signatures that will gain the attention of Kodak.

I think we should all consider the possibilities in this.

PE

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It's an interesting idea, especially if besides the name there is a mention of the yearly film consumption of each person. At least this would give some ballpark statistics.

Yet, one must accept the National Geographic Kodachrome Acid Test. Perhaps someone with the numbers will say: "very kind of you gents, but that's 15mins of film production for us." Knowledge isn't always fun.

Photo Engineer said:

Another comment made on another thread was that we formulate a petition to Kodak. I'm thinking that in terms of buying power, if we get enough signatures that will gain the attention of Kodak.

I think we should all consider the possibilities in this.

PE

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I think that is a good idea.

CP

mhv said:

It's an interesting idea, especially if besides the name there is a mention of the yearly film consumption of each person. At least this would give some ballpark statistics.

Yet, one must accept the National Geographic Kodachrome Acid Test. Perhaps someone with the numbers will say: "very kind of you gents, but that's 15mins of film production for us." Knowledge isn't always fun.

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I agree in essence with what you say, but Kodak did not sneer at National Geographic. After all, $1M is a lot of money no matter how long it takes you to make the product it represents.

PE

I'm certainly up for signing a petition. While not all of it is Kodak product, I have purchased about 300 rolls of film in the last 4 months, and...about 200 sheets of 4x5 Kodak EPP, not to mention a few hundred sheets of Polaroid for testing. So I am doing my part.

ron--I'm a gov't photographer (one of several in the system I work for) and for the most part, the only ones left shooting film and using darkrooms are in the archives. although I'm in a museum, the stance we have in regards to film & paper is largely personal, in that we're "old timers". I don't see this changing anytime soon. otoh--these people, most likely, will never pop up on a forum like this. I hear more about the others through work contacts and dealing with the few support techs still left. the consensus is that the remaining market are people either without the funding to switch over completely to digital, or the stubborn old-timers.

every year, our system sends out contracts for bids. for photo materials, it's almost 99% kodak. for years, we couldn't even get other products, simply because the vendors bid so low on kodak, that written justifications were needed to get other materials off contract. we never saved any money , when kodak was 80% off. to this day--E6 is still cheaper than the hazmat fees.

I've seen the contract amounts--and for kodak, the year before they quit offering paper, the bids were for ten grand pack amounts in glossy & matte, in about I guess a little over a half dozen sizes. I figured then, it was about 350 thousand sheets of poly IV. For the life of me, I don't know who is using all that--but I do know the figured for our lab, and the archives. in one week last month, another staffer ran over a 1000 sheets of poly IV. that same person processed almost 250 rolls of film in that period as well. I know-- I run the process control on the deeptank...that's a lot of film for one person in one-month. there was a time, 2 years ago, when I shot more 4x5 film in one year at work, than ten years before. we shot over 4000 sheets of chrome film that year, and more in b/w. again--that's basically one person output. To me, it's a sizeable amount. To the market, it's nothing. Especially when years ago, you had the furniture market for example, all shooting 8x10 and larger in huge amounts using b/w film as the proofing material. Those days are over.

on our end, we use more 4x5 than anything. a lot of TMX and EPN. There was a post here, bemoaning the lack of improvements in the past twenty years for kodak products. I have been working as a photographer for that period of time--almost all of it using kodak products. I didn't need them improved. They worked just fine for me.

I really don't know what more we could have done as consumers. I was pretty shocked when they quit making their paper--I always felt we had ordered so much, and had continued to do so, that it must have accounted for something, but then I felt the same way about ilford and their processing machines, and we've never fully recovered after that. my feeling was that if these companies would have supported the labs more, then the impetus to stick with paper would have been greater. then again, I understand why they did that--the money just wasn't there. I don't blame them--but when I read posts about how "we" as professionals need to do more. I don't get it. I've done my part as a consumer of kodak materials, and continue to do so. If they still made poly IV, there wouldn't be any white boxes in our lab.

Ron, good idea. Since the heyday of Nat Geographic using slide fim, I imagine they are likely to be receptive a large group approaching them now.

KT I've experienced similarly to you. You think you're doing everything right, buying lots, staying loyal to the supplier. They have a sales rep who regularly says and maybe does nice things. Then things change for the supplier and suddenly you realise your purchasing is not as influencial with them you thought.
But there are usually alternatives. In a past life my company purchased what I thought was significant amounts of key material from a very large multi national. One day our sales rep told us the price would be going up to an amount we couldn't afford. The supplier was getting better prices by exporting and decided we should be competitive with that. After extensive searching found a very small alternative with whom we enjoyed a lasting relationship (about 8 years and still going I believe). We became their best customer and they proved to be flexible, caring and surprisingly all our prices actually went back to what they were.

Kodak are reinventing themselves as the smaller supplier for a new market (a reality). Whether they continue ownership of the plant or not, there is no doubt they will be interested in preserving the loyalty in their existing customers. When a company consolidates lto that extent, with the intention of continuing to trade they look very carefully to where the best (and least cost) sales markets will be. Perhaps they found that at pnet.

TXP is a relatively small part of my stock supplies, but I'd personally be devastated if it dissapeared.

sanderx1 said:

This is extremely low, give that his next paragraph says:
How about some minimal standards, John?

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It's generally wise to know where someone is really speaking from sanderx1. Given what is evident, I wasn't enticed to learn more at the time. Given ridicule of a young bright lad who's out to change the world for the better of film users, I'm still not.

Kodak has said there will be a major product announcement this Thursday and the results of a meeting with shareholders on Friday.

PE

Photo Engineer said:

Kodak has said there will be a major product announcement this Thursday and the results of a meeting with shareholders on Friday.

PE

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Do you have reason to believe that this announcement has to do with analog photography?

Not knowing how far along the current batch of analog products are in the R&D cycle, no.

I'm more curious about the reaction of the shareholders myself.

PE

Photo Engineer said:

I'm more curious about the reaction of the shareholders myself.

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Been one since I was 16. Kodak's been good to me.

Regards, Art.