The PXP and P3200 are still featured in the left-hand navigation frame with the same prominence as the other films.
If you don't know what Plus-X and TMAX 3200 films are by now - what are the odds you are going to Kodak's web site to find out?
Kodak's CEO has been telling us this for years now. Unfortunately, many here simply refuse to listen to him.
Colin is correct. It really does no good to bash Kodak. But it also does no good to praise them, either. Their long-term decision to get out of the photography market is absolute and unwavering. They - or he - see their future elsewhere. At this stage perhaps the best we can do regarding Kodak is to just give them an honestly sincere "Thanks for the memories..." At least until we reconvene this topic again in a few months for the next scheduled round.
So did anyone else notice that Kodak Plus-X film has now been relegated to also-ran status on Kodak's Professional Black & White Films webpage?
It's now listed way down at the bottom under the heading "Other Black and White Films" along with T-MAX P3200, and now merits only two lonely sentences of product information description. It's also conspicuously missing from the "Traditional" black & white films section of Kodak's online store - as is P3200 from the "T-Max" section.
I wonder why that is?
Maybe it's Kodak's way of trying to sell more of it?
Ken
I just confirmed that with Pete at Kodak Professional Products (Ext. 19). Kodak has also just discontinued TMX in 5x7, where 320TXP will be the only film available as a stock item.
It doesn't seem like the 10-sheet boxes of 8x10 were to blame, since 5x7 TMX continued to be packaged in 50-sheet boxes, to no apparent avail.
If you don't know what Plus-X and TMAX 3200 films are by now - what are the odds you are going to Kodak's web site to find out?
I think the 10-sheet boxes were indicative of a lack of faith on Kodak's part that there would continue to be a market for the film in 8x10.
I think they had the product volume under a microscope. If a box with 20% of the product volume isn't turning over 5 times as quickly - demand is on the decline.
Well I'm 56 years old and have known about it for 40+ years. And I'm currently in the process of enlarging some of my late father's Plus-X negatives (with BH MP sprocket holes) from the mid-1950s.
But if I was 27 years old - or 17 years old - and had grown up getting just about all of my information online, and had read a blog somewhere extolling the virtues of the current minor resurgence of film, and had seen the APUG site mentioned a few times, and came here out of curiosity, and saw Kodak films being prominently discussed and debated, and saw several members speaking highly of a certain film called Plus-X, then yes, my first inclination would probably be to click over to the Kodak website and...
...read these two sad, lonely product info sentences:
"When you want the crisp whites, even grays, and the density of true black to blossom, KODAK PROFESSIONAL PLUS-X 125 Film delivers.
"PLUS-X 125 Film offers a combination of sharpness and fine grain that makes it the ideal film for beautifully printable negatives in moderate-to-bright light."
That's it? After over half a century? Well, the baby's little feet are cute enough, but...
If Kodak really wants to increase long-term revenue from their film sales - and that's a whole different can of worms - they probably need to do a bit better than this.
I'm from the school of thought that says if you want the consumer to consume your products, you have to tell the consumer what those products are and why they deserve to be consumed.
Ken
This absolutely resonates with my personal sense of what may be going on at Kodak. I think you might have hit the nail on the head.
Ken
Kodak would, I am sure, would like nothing better than to wave a magic wand and make it 1986 all over again.
I do care but don't care much for your arrogance.
You don't really believe that the quality from the new Adox pan 400 will be comparable to Kodak's first rate Q&A do you?
Not bashing Adox and Mirko, i will most likely try to keep my now precious stock of TMY going as long as i can shooting Adox Pan 400 in the future.
Yeah, but why not on the right side with a graphic like the others? They even have room for two more boxes there.The PXP and P3200 are still featured in the left-hand navigation frame with the same prominence as the other films.
If you don't know what Plus-X and TMAX 3200 films are by now - what are the odds you are going to Kodak's web site to find out?
Sorry, but I see no surprise whatsoever in this announcement. No foot-shooting here at all. Just Kodak continuing to move toward its brave new world.
Go Kodak Packaging! (See here for an explanation in the section titled "A new company.")
Ken
Keep in mind that an interview like that isn't for us...
Keep in mind that an interview like that isn't for us, it's for investors, for Wall Street, the fund managers that hold Kodak stock. Those guys think film is a dead end, and if they see Kodak as making too much investment in film and not in stuff that will lead to future growth Kodak's stock price will go down. That is what is uppermost in Perez's mind.
Granted.
But at the same time it does serve to make Kodak's future plans a matter of public record for both investors and non-investors alike to see, including some non-investors who are also consumers of Kodak film products.
We need only to listen carefully to what Kodak is telling us to know where they are going. They are a publicly held company, so I do not believe they are lying to us. Nobody wants to go to jail.
Ken
Keep in mind that an interview like that isn't for us, it's for investors, for Wall Street, the fund managers that hold Kodak stock. Those guys think film is a dead end, and if they see Kodak as making too much investment in film and not in stuff that will lead to future growth Kodak's stock price will go down. That is what is uppermost in Perez's mind.
Let's not kid ourselves. Kodak thinks film is a dead end, too. For a company of that size, it probably is.
We seem to be enduring the death by a thousand cuts of the film business of both Fuji and Kodak. It's a terrible process to watch. But think of how many films and papers have vanished over the years, and we still have film photography.
-Laura
Yeah, but why not on the right side with a graphic like the others? They even have room for two more boxes there.
Well, they feature Tri-X, a widely known, legendary even, film- so your question makes no sense. People who know about Kodak films don't need to go to their website to find out about them- it's those who don't know about the films.
Grouping them under "Other Films" just makes them seem archaic or in some other way unsuitable to average users, and it also makes it look like Kodak doesn't really care about them. What's the point of not promoting them the same as the others? What's gained? It might make sense if the list of other films was of highly specialized films, or if it contained 10 or 20 emulsions, instead of 2.
http://store.kodak.com/store/ekcons...AL_Film/Black__White_Film/categoryID.40677500
On the Kodak website in the store they list some 35mm, 120, and 4X5 film. Just a partial page of film. On the main menu digital is on the top and film is way down the list as if it was nasty and had to be avoided as a first choice. I just can't come to terms with a company that brought generations up on it's products only to turn on them in arrogance. I'd give them an "F" for public relations.
We know that Kodak has been moving progressively to a digital focus for some time. This was a transformation that was begun under the previous CEO (Karp) in 2003.
Nobody wants to go to jail, true, but over-analyzing CEO sound bites is sometimes futile. CEOs do not go to jail for changing their minds, do they?
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