Kodak Price Increase and Hiring Spree 2023: What Do You Want Kodak to Focus on Moving Forward?

removedacct1 · Jan 21, 2023

Rolleiflexible said:
My short wish list:

2. 120 Verichrome Pan

Try the new Kentmere in 120 rolls. It reminds me of Verichrome Pan.

MultiFormat Shooter · Jan 21, 2023

Scott J. said:
So feel free to dream...

3) Bring back Aerochrome - There's virtually zero chance of them actually doing this, but as an Aerochrome user, I'd love to see it, even if it was only made available as an infrequent special order every few years. The (re-)startup cost would probably be astronomical, but given what new-old-stock rolls and sheets go for online (~$250 per 120 roll!), I'd be curious to know what the company's break-even price would be. Maybe it's less than $250 per roll?

I agree! I would absolutely LOVE it if Kodak did this; I really enjoy infrared (especially color infrared) photography, of all types of subjects. Unfortunately, I also agree that there is very little (or less) chance of it happening. I would be happy if they "just" brought-out an ISO 400 Ektachome.

braxus · Jan 21, 2023

Ive been saying this for years, but bring back Panatomic X in 35mm and 120. Maybe even consider sheet film later on if it sells well. I even offered Kodak to be a beta tester for it, since I have old rolls of this stuff here I can compare it to. Plus scanners and film developing to help. As long at they don't reduce the silver so much on Pan X compared to the old. It would help keep the older look with the same amount of silver. Im not convinced Tri-X didn't take a hit on quality, when they reduced silver on it in early mid 2000s.

The other film, which should be easier to bring back, is Plus X in 35mm and 120.

With these two above films, it would round out the options as the traditional grain film trinity, with the third being Tri-X.

removedacct1 · Jan 21, 2023

How did this turn (yet again) into a thread dreaming about bringing back Panatomic-X?? Its never, ever going to happen, no matter how much you wish for it.

Don_ih · Jan 21, 2023

paulbarden said:
dreaming about bringing back Panatomic-X?? Its never, ever going to happen

Almost no one wants it, so it's a given it won't happen.

Radost · Jan 21, 2023

Wish List
TMAX 3200 120
100’ rolls of all film stocks.

braxus · Jan 21, 2023

paulbarden said:
How did this turn (yet again) into a thread dreaming about bringing back Panatomic-X?? Its never, ever going to happen, no matter how much you wish for it.

Well this is a wish list thread is it not? A thread to show to Kodak if they ever will read such a thing.

JParker · Jan 21, 2023

I wish that Kodak will be able to solve their supply problems, so that they finally can satisfy the current and future film demand.
That for years now it has been so difficult to get certain film types like 35mm color negative amateur film is a real problem.
And it makes no sense at all trying to offer new film types if you even cannot produce enough of the current film line. That would certainly increase the current capacity and production problems.

braxus · Jan 21, 2023

JParker said:
I wish that Kodak will be able to solve their supply problems, so that they finally can satisfy the current and future film demand.
That for years now it has been so difficult to get certain film types like 35mm color negative amateur film is a real problem.
And it makes no sense at all trying to offer new film types if you even cannot produce enough of the current film line. That would certainly increase the current capacity and production problems.

I agree. Hopefully with hiring 300 more workers, then can get a handle on supply problems, as long as they can get in the needed materials to do it.

Rolleiflexible · Jan 21, 2023

paulbarden said:
Try the new Kentmere in 120 rolls. It reminds me of Verichrome Pan.

I just bought some Fomapan 200 and I like the look but it curls when dry. How does the Kentmere 100 compare, if you know? And does it curl, or dry flat?

Sirius Glass · Jan 21, 2023

paulbarden said:
How did this turn (yet again) into a thread dreaming about bringing back Panatomic-X?? Its never, ever going to happen, no matter how much you wish for it.

paulbarden said:
Try the new Kentmere in 120 rolls. It reminds me of Verichrome Pan.

Did Panatomic-X and Verichrome Pan contain Cadium? If so, they are not coming back.

Kino · Jan 21, 2023

Rolleiflexible said:
I just bought some Fomapan 200 and I like the look but it curls when dry. How does the Kentmere 100 compare, if you know? And does it curl, or dry flat?

I find the Kentmere 400 dries MUCH more flat than the Foma. I assume the same base is used for Kentmere 100.

removedacct1 · Jan 21, 2023

Rolleiflexible said:
I just bought some Fomapan 200 and I like the look but it curls when dry. How does the Kentmere 100 compare, if you know? And does it curl, or dry flat?

The Kentmere in 120 roll format dries absolutely flat. Both 400 and 100 speeds.

Alan Edward Klein · Jan 21, 2023

MattKing said:
The reality is that their capital is limited. You raise prices to attract more capital - borrowed money - which permits you to hire more people, which permits you to make and sell more product which allows you to pay back borrowed money.

You weren't charging enough in the first place if you could raise prices to get capital. That means that your profit margins were not high enough in the first place. You were leaving money on the table with prices that were too low.

If your prices were correct and you reached maximum allowable profit margins, than raising prices would just lower sales reducing overall profit and foolish to do. So you keep prices and profit margins where they were at their highest based on demand, and just borrow the money, sell stock, or use retained profits to support expansion.

braxus · Jan 21, 2023

Sirius Glass said:
Did Panatomic-X and Verichrome Pan contain Cadium? If so, they are not coming back.

There is a question the cadmium may have been removed long before the end of production, possibly in the later 70s.

Agulliver · Jan 22, 2023

Don Heisz said:
If Kodak offered develop and scan for Super 8, there's no reason that it would be anywhere as high as $55 a roll. That's exorbitant if volume is even slightly above minimum.

Nah it's a very realistic price for dev and scan of 8mm or super 8 film. The worldwide market is very small these days. There is no high volume, even if Kodak handled worldwide customers in one facility.

Have you ever tried processing cine film? I do it a few times per year. It's not exactly as fun as still film, but I do it to save the £35 processing charge the cheapest lab I can find in the UK charges. It's no cheaper to send to Andec in Berlin, who are the biggest cine film lab in Europe and who have been operating for many years.

Kodak currently has little money to play with so they do need to raise prices to raise the money to invest in those 300 workers and any new/relaunched products.

The obvious hole in Kodak's portfolio is slower speed B&W traditional grain film. Though Panatomic-X has already been discounted by those who know better than I.

Don_ih · Jan 22, 2023

Agulliver said:
ah it's a very realistic price for dev and scan of 8mm or super 8 film. The worldwide market is very small these days. There is no high volume, even if Kodak handled worldwide customers in one facility.

The point of what I originally said was that they could actually push that product if they were willing to support it. More people would shoot super8, even if just for the "coolness" of it, if it was obvious how to get it developed and scanned. But $100 for 3 minutes of super8 footage makes people look for phone filters pretty quickly.

Agulliver said:
Kodak currently has little money to play with so they do need to raise prices to raise the money to invest in those 300 workers and any new/relaunched products.

You can't raise prices to hire employees. You can only raise prices if the market will allow it and/or it's necessary. You hire employees to fulfill the demands for your products - demands which exist at the current price - that you can't fulfill with your current workforce. Raising prices is not a way to raise money, since it will also cause some people to stop buying your product (they'll buy something else).

koraks · Jan 22, 2023

Agulliver said:
invest in those 300 workers

Staff are opex, not capex. As such, you don't 'invest' in staff in the sense of salaries - although arguably expenses in training etc. can be seen as an investment, but the lion's share of staff expenses is still in salaries. As a result, the following statement is also problematic:

Don Heisz said:
You can't raise prices to hire employees.

Why not? Raising prices means improving profitability of a product, and how the company benefits from that improvement is an entirely different matter. It can be used to grow, to satisfy investors, to invest in R&D or a host of other reasons. Since increased prices are supposed to increase revenue, a relationship between product price (revenue) and staff (operational expenses) isn't far fetched at all.

Don Heisz said:
Raising prices is not a way to raise money

If that were the case, companies would never raise prices

Part of the problem is that terminology like 'raising money' and 'investing in' are used informally and this results in misunderstandings and misrepresentations of what might be happening. Emphasis on might, because we still don't have anyone responding here who's proven to be aware of the actual decision making rationales. And then there's the issue that even if you know what's being discussed in the boardroom, can still be framed in several ways depending on who does the interpretation and the intended audience. The exact same decision can be explained totally different by an R&D manager to their team vs. a CFO to investors. Guess what, they're probably both right to boot!

Don_ih · Jan 22, 2023

koraks said:
Why not?

For the reasons I stated. Demand exists at a current price point and you can't expect that to remain the case if the price is raised. The product has to be profitable enough at it's current price to pay new employees if the greater amount of product is sold that the new employees produce, or you run the risk of not selling the product and not being able to keep your employees.

Don Heisz said:
Raising prices is not a way to raise money, since it will also cause some people to stop buying your product

koraks said:
If that were the case, companies would never raise prices

Don Heisz said:
You can only raise prices if the market will allow it and/or it's necessary.

When you raise prices without market support, you increase the possibility of being undercut by your competitors and selling less product. Raising prices as a response to inflation is something your competitors will also have to do, so you can reasonably expect to retain your customers. Raising your price as a response to increased demand is also reasonable, since you have relative assurance all your product will sell (assuming you don't raise the price too much). Increasing production as a response to increased demand is very risky, especially if it involves investment in new infrastructure. Kodak is lucky that they only need to hire people and buy materials to up their production. You can always let people go when the demand dries up. They already found out what happens when demand dries up and you have unused infrastructure. I would assume they can't predict when demand will dry up, but they are probably fairly certain that it will.

koraks · Jan 22, 2023

Don Heisz said:
When you raise prices without market support, you increase the possibility of being undercut by your competitors and selling less product.

But this is an oligopoly at best and for certain products a monopoly. Argumentations relying on basic economic theory are shaky in a case like this.

Don Heisz said:
Raising prices as a response to inflation is something your competitors will also have to do, so you can reasonably expect to retain your customers. Raising your price as a response to increased demand is also reasonable, since you have relative assurance all your product will sell (assuming you don't raise the price too much).

Both are happening and both arguments are likely considered by Kodak; how they are viewed/weighed and what the rationales are beyond these obvious ones, we can only guess.

Don Heisz said:
Increasing production as a response to increased demand is very risky

Not doing so is not so much risky, but a 100% guaranteed missing out on revenue. So in the face of increasing demand, production is increased. Whether this involves new infrastructure, is a guess. We don't know. Hiring employees, especially under US labor laws, is not such an investment as it's opex, not capex. Bluntly put: hire them today, ditch them tomorrow if necessary (no, this is not a recommendation, ethical viewpoint etc.)

On top of that, there's the price elasticity of a product which may allow for increasing prices without substantial decrease in demand - or put more accurately: an increase in price can very well sustain an increased revenue. The argumentation you're putting forth that raising prices makes an implicit assumption about this price elasticity, while in reality, the odds that you actually know this elasticity are next to zero.

We could argue on this very long, but please see my closing remarks in my previous post. They capture why I feel it's not very useful to do this. I mean, I can see why others may find it entertaining to pursue this further, but I've been over this kind of stuff so often that I find it rather tedious especially since the outcome is often pretty much the same: there's just no telling from the outside of the company, and it's usually bloody difficult to tell much from the inside as well in all honesty.

Don_ih · Jan 22, 2023

koraks said:
But this is an oligopoly at best and for certain products a monopoly.

Not exactly, Their real competition - what put them into bankruptcy and what will eventually put them out of business altogether - is digital. If they price too high, people will use digital, instead.

koraks said:
The argumentation you're putting forth that raising prices makes an implicit assumption about this price elasticity, while in reality, the odds that you actually know this elasticity are next to zero.

I don't need to know it. This isn't about minor variability in pricing. But if you want to get into sticky ideas like that, you can also include the retailers who want to make a certain profit from a product that may not continue to carry it if they think the increased cost to them will price it out of range of their customers, leaving them with expired (devalued) stock.

koraks said:
please see my closing remarks in my previous post

I was responding to your general assertions that a company can raise prices to hire employees and raise money. Those are just bad reasons to raise prices - that's all I'm saying. As for what happens in Kodak's boardroom - I don't care. If they choose to raise prices to increase their staff, they may end up eating their own foot. Don't forget that digital gets better and cheaper every day. (By "better" I mean "more capable to give your desired result".)

Andrew O'Neill · Jan 22, 2023

Sirius Glass said:
Did Panatomic-X and Verichrome Pan contain Cadium? If so, they are not coming back.

Panatomic-X did contain Cadmium. Kodak didn't bother to reformulate Pan-X without Cadmium, instead introducing faster, finer, T-grained films. So, bye bye Pan-X.

Alan Edward Klein · Jan 22, 2023

koraks said:
But this is an oligopoly at best and for certain products a monopoly. Argumentations relying on basic economic theory are shaky in a case like this.

Both are happening and both arguments are likely considered by Kodak; how they are viewed/weighed and what the rationales are beyond these obvious ones, we can only guess.

Not doing so is not so much risky, but a 100% guaranteed missing out on revenue. So in the face of increasing demand, production is increased. Whether this involves new infrastructure, is a guess. We don't know. Hiring employees, especially under US labor laws, is not such an investment as it's opex, not capex. Bluntly put: hire them today, ditch them tomorrow if necessary (no, this is not a recommendation, ethical viewpoint etc.)

On top of that, there's the price elasticity of a product which may allow for increasing prices without substantial decrease in demand - or put more accurately: an increase in price can very well sustain an increased revenue. The argumentation you're putting forth that raising prices makes an implicit assumption about this price elasticity, while in reality, the odds that you actually know this elasticity are next to zero.

We could argue on this very long, but please see my closing remarks in my previous post. They capture why I feel it's not very useful to do this. I mean, I can see why others may find it entertaining to pursue this further, but I've been over this kind of stuff so often that I find it rather tedious especially since the outcome is often pretty much the same: there's just no telling from the outside of the company, and it's usually bloody difficult to tell much from the inside as well in all honesty.

Kodak is not an oligopoly or monopoly. As posters here have argued, they easily change to films that are cheaper. And digital photography is a very attractive option, especially as the prices in the film market increase generally. Kodak and other film manufacturers take huge chances when raising prices. I'd say it's mostly inflation, the lower value of money, and the higher cost of materials, shipping, and existing labor that's pushing prices higher, as well as higher demand.

As Don and I argued, raising prices beyond what demand allows, is very risky and will force buyers elsewhere. As you say, there may be some slack to raise, but higher demand allows them to do that. When I ran a service business, it was higher demand that allowed me, forced me, to hire more people. I didn't hire the people first. Kodak seems to be in that good place now which is great for them and great for us knowing there is a good likelihood that film will be produced for us in the foreseeable future.

If they're using additional labor to increase shifts for more production, that means income will be almost immediate and will pay for the increase in labor. It's not like they're investing in new plant construction that will take two years to complete and come online. Then they would need heavy, long-term investment capital.

faberryman · Jan 22, 2023

Don Heisz said:
Not exactly, Their real competition - what put them into bankruptcy and what will eventually put them out of business altogether - is digital. If they price too high, people will use digital, instead.

Perhaps this explains the latest trend toward vintage digital cameras. It seems like film sort of loses its coolness factor when a roll runs $20-$30 with processing and scanning. Does Kendall Jenner even use a film camera anymore? Isn't TikTok videos. Hasn't Instagram moved from stills to reels? Is anyone under 60 on Facebook? It would be interesting to see Kodak's projected price/demand curve.

Here's a question: Can nostalgia get old, and, if so, can you be nostalgic about nostalgia. Regarding nostalgia, as one newly minted film enthusiast put it: "I'm using the same camera as Ansel Adams and Jacques Cousteau." Hard to argue with that.

faberryman · Jan 22, 2023

I don't think we need any new products. Maybe just consistently provide existing products.

Kodak Price Increase and Hiring Spree 2023: What Do You Want Kodak to Focus on Moving Forward?

removedacct1

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Kodak Price Increase and Hiring Spree 2023: What Do You Want Kodak to Focus on Moving Forward?

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