Kodak Instant film

AgX · Nov 22, 2012

Prof_Pixel said:
Just before the Polaroid lawsuit was settled, Kodak was working on a slide film (really a 'lantern slide') and projector. It was peeled from the picture unit (like the Trimprint film) and there were plastic slide holders to hold the film. To the best of mu knowledge, it never hit the market (although there were external trade trials). Loosing the Polaroid lawsuit ended the product.

A year or so after leaving Kodak, I was invited to visit Polaroid. I had an hour (or so) discussion with a senior manager about to retire and we swapped stories about projects. When I mentioned the transparency film and projector, he went over to a cabinet and pulled out a small projector and asked "Like this?"; it turns out Polaroid also worked on such a product.

But Kodak made an instant slide film (photo in post #47 ). Which format had the intended one you are refering to?

Polaroid did made 35mm instant slide films (color an monochrome). What kind of slide material had you been shown?

Prof_Pixel · Nov 22, 2012

AgX said:
But Kodak made an instant slide film (photo in post #47 ). Which format had the intended one you are refering to?

It never really hit the US/Canada market because of the lawsuit loss - the hardware (projector and camera) was made in Germany and perhaps it did reach the market in Europe, IDK. BTW, the product was really designed to make lantern slide type slides of charts and such, rather than pictorial photography.

AgX said:
Polaroid did made 35mm instant slide films (color an monochrome). What kind of slide material had you been shown?

This was a instant print sized product - one shot at a time. Polaroid had made a larger sized B&W lantern slide instant material for years (I remember selling it in the late 1950's) based on the old B&W peel apart product.

Photo Engineer · Nov 22, 2012

Polaroid did make and sell a lantern slide material. I have several 2x3 slides here that I used in talks. I took photos of the computer screen. Polaroid and Kodak made "muffs" that fit on a camera and then over a video screen for taking photos. I had one of those in my office for quite some time to make photos of graphs and charts from good old Lotus! Kodak at that time made prints, but the Polaroid product made slides.

I believe I still have a dried up expired box of the Polaroid stuff here somewhere.

PE

lxdude · Nov 22, 2012

Prof_Pixel said:
Yup, the judge (in Boston) decided the case on the basis of a 'concept patent' - instant photography - and not on the actual technologies used. I had an acquaintance who was a Xerox patent lawyer, and he strongly supported the 'concept patent' approach.

I don't oppose the idea of a 'concept patent', to a degree. But Polaroid brought the concept to market in 1948! How the hell long should they have been protected?
How things have changed. Nowadays come up with a new concept and a product, and people in China are ripping it off in no time, and getting away with it, unless you fight them all with no help from Uncle Sam.

AgX · Nov 22, 2012

Actually it was not even Land/Polaroid who brought that concept to market.

The history behind the silver-halide-diffusion

1857 B. Lefévre
1898 R.D. Liesegang
1938 André Rott (Gevaert) B.P. 614,155 / 1939
1941 first commercial product ( “Transargo”, Gevaert)(two sheets)
1941 Edith Weyde (I.G. Farben /Agfa) D.R.P. 887,733 and US Pat. 2,875,052 (noble metals as nuclei)
4 mono-sheet processes (The receptive layer is positioned between the base and the negative; after development the obsolete negative layer is taken off.):
1942 air-reconnaissance film, Agfa
1942 “Veriflex”, Agfa
1947 “Diaversal”, Gevaert
1947(?) “Contargo”, Gevaert
1947 André Rott (Gevaert) US P. 2,665,986 1947 (where he describes silver-halide-diffusion yielding mono- and tri-chromatic positive images)
1947 Edwin H. Land (Polaroid) US P. 2,698,238 (lead sulphide, cadmium, lead and zinc salts as nuclei) this patent can be used as cooking book. In the Neblette, 7ed. Land describes a lot of the problems he had to overcome in precipitating the silver

Both, Edith Weyde from Agfa in Germany and André Rott from Gevaert in Belgium independently reinvented in a way a principle described even in the 19th century.

So both, Agfa and Gevaert, made products out of the ideas from their chemists. But with the exception of this reconnaissaance film only office instant copy materials. Strange enough both companies seem not to have envisaged more potential in the meaning of a consumer camera film. (Circumstances in Europe were discouraging too.)

It needed Edwin Land to do so.

Kokoro · Nov 22, 2012

I hope its okay to ask here?

My mother volunteers in a charity shop and they have an EK8 and its box and want to know how much it is worth.

Prof_Pixel · Nov 22, 2012

Kokoro said:
I hope its okay to ask here?

My mother volunteers in a charity shop and they have an EK8 and its box and want to know how much it is worth.

The EK8 was made in Germany and was the top of the line offering of the first generation of Kodak instant cameras; I don't believe it was sold in the US. Later, there were cameras (also folding cameras like the EK8 and also made in Germany) sold as the Kodamatic 9XX cameras; they were designed for the faster film and featured a fill-flash mode. Picture quality was very nice.

As for your question 'how much is an EK8 worth?', the answer is not very much. Some people may be interested in buying one to put on a shelf as a decoration. Since you say the box is included, you might start at $10 US and see what happens.

Kokoro · Nov 22, 2012

Prof_Pixel said:
As for your question 'how much is an EK8 worth?', the answer is not very much. Some people may be interested in buying one to put on a shelf as a decoration. Since you say the box is included, you might start at $10 US and see what happens.

Thanks. I will tell them.

Photo Engineer · Nov 22, 2012

The Edith Weyde work was considered a hallmark in instant imaging!

Land had many problems which he contracted out to EK for solution. Most people do not know this.

Land's concept patent in the lawsuit with EK was not his original peel apart but rather his color integral material sold as SX70. The patents and therefore "concept" were still valid at the time of trial. The original SX70 was made and coated by EK as Land could not make it in his own factory.

I was able to have a reasonably lengthy discussion with Land at a conference here in Rochester a few years before he died. I can't remember a single thing from that, but I do remember his presentation on glassless 3D imaging.

PE

JohnnieVan · Nov 23, 2012

Just an update from TIP they responded to my question with regards to manufacturing the 800/Ace film type from Fuji:

"Impossible Customer Service, Nov 22 16:31 (CET):
hello johnnie,
thank you for your reply and your suggestion.
we would love purchasing these production machineries but unfortunately we do not have the financial resources.
with kind regards,"

Is there now way possible to get funding in order to purchase the required machineries surely someone can quantify the market value and determine if the investment would be worthwhile? Until such time it seems there is no other alternative.

Thanks

wogster · Nov 23, 2012

Photo Engineer said:
Kodak did not produce a peel apart product. It was produced internally but never sold on the open market.

Kodak did produce Ektaflex C and R for prints. They were sold up until the end of the lawsuit with Polaroid.

I ask one question here. Was the Polaroid win good or bad for us all using hindsight? Was the GAF / Pavell lawsuit good or bad for us all? IMHO, all of them were bad for all concerned.

PE

The real question is, would Polaroid have been better served by offering to licence the patent to Kodak, say for 25¢ per unit, so that the Kodak film would have been slightly more expensive then the Polaroid films, would have made Instant film more common, would have helped both companies to some degree. I've long thought that when a company starts using it's patents as a revenue stream, stick a fork in it, it's done.

Prof_Pixel · Nov 23, 2012

wogster said:
The real question is, would Polaroid have been better served by offering to licence the patent to Kodak, say for 25¢ per unit, so that the Kodak film would have been slightly more expensive then the Polaroid films, would have made Instant film more common, would have helped both companies to some degree. I've long thought that when a company starts using it's patents as a revenue stream, stick a fork in it, it's done.

Kodak had worked out a settlement with Polaroid management, but Eddie Land vetoed it. Polaroid was paralyzed by fear of the rise of electronic imaging; they had more to loose than Kodak (at the time) because their business was based on instant imaging and electronic imaging offered that. They did produce some successful electronic imaging products (like film recorders), but although they developed several generations of digital cameras, they were afraid to bring them out until it was too late.

Photo Engineer · Nov 23, 2012

Referring back to the purchase of machines to pack film in a given format for instant cameras, you will find that you need a lot of money, space and trained operators. The coating machines must be different for each product as the coating layer and format is different. It is hard to describe these serious differences, but I can say that the Polaroid format at EK required 2 machines for pack assembly (a RAM and a FAM). The integral PR10 material was put together by an entirely different machine called a COMAM. I remember seeing dump trucks carrying away the parts of these machines as they were pushed out docking bays by heavy lifters in the building.

Was the decision good or bad? If EK, Polaroid and Fuji had stayed in the business of instant imaging there would have been a race for better and better camera products and more competition with digital. After all, digital gives you an instant image but an analog instant image is a print that you can hold, share and scan! And within a year of that court decision, if it had gone for Kodak, there would have been an ISO 3000 print material and a lantern slide material. To this day, digital has difficulty making true slides. The Dmax and contrast is beyond most printers.

PE

wogster · Nov 23, 2012

Prof_Pixel said:
Kodak had worked out a settlement with Polaroid management, but Eddie Land vetoed it. Polaroid was paralyzed by fear of the rise of electronic imaging; they had more to loose than Kodak (at the time) because their business was based on instant imaging and electronic imaging offered that. They did produce some successful electronic imaging products (like film recorders), but although they developed several generations of digital cameras, they were afraid to bring them out until it was too late.

You know, thinking about it, instant prints would have worked well with digital, a printer, pulls the film in from the pack, under a 3 colour LED array then through the rollers, spits it out, you peel it apart, and you have a long lasting print from your digital image.

I think both Polaroid and Kodak should have embraced digital, not by competing with it, in a market that was already owned by others, but by complementing it. How about this, you go to the photo store, for say $20 or so, you buy a special USB drive, you dump up to 36 images on it, put it in the enclosed mailer, and drop it in the mail. They go to Kodak, who prints them onto K25 film and mails you back 36 Kodachrome slides of your digital images. They then wipe the drives and repackage them for reuse.

Prof_Pixel · Nov 23, 2012

wogster said:
You know, thinking about it, instant prints would have worked well with digital, a printer, pulls the film in from the pack, under a 3 colour LED array then through the rollers, spits it out, you peel it apart, and you have a long lasting print from your digital image.

Actually, the dye releaser technology that Kodak used in its instant film and Ektaflex material is used by Fuji in its Pictrography digital printers.

AgX · Nov 23, 2012

wogster said:
How about this, you go to the photo store, for say $20 or so, you buy a special USB drive, you dump up to 36 images on it, put it in the enclosed mailer, and drop it in the mail. They go to Kodak, who prints them onto K25 film and mails you back 36 Kodachrome slides of your digital images. They then wipe the drives and repackage them for reuse.

Wasn't that the idea of the Photo-CD? Well,.. the other way round...

Kodak Instant film

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