Kodak will no longer produce any colour reversal still films

[David A. Goldfarb]

Sorry to see the disappearance of competing E-6 films, but I think Fuji's been winning in this game for years now, even if it was based on Kodak's innovation.

A 35mm slide still looks better than digital projection.

 

[CGW]

Kinda odd when you consider Fuji is still making a new MF camera and have recently released another with a shorter focal length. So what gives there?

Maybe an overdeveloped sense of whimsy? Since they make their own sensors, maybe they'll hack it to become a 40-60 megapixel folder? Just look at the X10, X100, and X-Pro 1.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Thread title updated.

 

[PeteZ8]

How has digital replaced slide projection? I still can't find (or afford) a digital projector that can match the resolution of a 35mm slide.

I'm not too concerned about Kodak dropping reversal film. I've always preferred Velvia 50 over Ektachrome. Kodachrome was a real loss; I'm not so concerned about Ektachrome.

How will this affect cine films?

Through social networking. No longer is there a need to use food and alcohol to entice your friends and family into sitting in a dark room so they can be bored to death by ones vacation photos. They're up on Facebook long before the vacation is even over, and people can now ignore them from the comfort of their own computer screen.

The sad fact is, although slides are truly amazing items, their expense and complexity has driven them out of the modern mainstream market. Pro's shoot digital. Super compact digital cameras and camera phones that don't constantly get in the way are the de riguer for family snaps. Slide film's only last hope are the artists that desire slide film for a particular aesthetic but that alone may not be enough to support a market for long, and as digital becomes better and better and more and more young photographers come into the hobby, that market will likely continue to shrink until it is below critical mass to be self sustaining.

Seeing a company who's financial management is decided more by bankruptcy lawyers than artists decide to kill what is most likely a barely profitable product is not surprising in the least. A product with high capital investment and low return can quickly turn into a liability. Better to quit while you're ahead.

 

[Roger Cole]

Ugh. I don't shoot much slide film now but when I do I prefer E100G since Fuji dropped Astia. If Fuji would bring back Astia the reversal world would be ok again. Well if we also had Ilfochrome. Yeesh.

 

[jeff.blackwell]

From the perspective of the overall world of photography, I'm sorry to see it go, but I don't find it surprising. My own slide shooting started tapering off 30 years ago.

My most recent attempts at transparencies have run into "local" processing taking two weeks or more, and in some cases, evidence of less than careful handling, and I don't use enough to even consider doing it myself. I do have a few rolls of Provia here yet, but they aren't being consumed very rapidly.

"The only thing constant is change."

Dave -
I don't know who you use for E6 processing, but I've been satisfied with Colourworks in Wilmington.

 

[jeff.blackwell]

Ugh. I don't shoot much slide film now but when I do I prefer E100G since Fuji dropped Astia. If Fuji would bring back Astia the reversal world would be ok again. Well if we also had Ilfochrome. Yeesh.

I would kill, KILL I SAY, for fresh Astia, especially in sheet film.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yes Ian, I'm aware of Champion. I was using the term spinoff loosely. They spun off their chemisty to Champion,
which seems to be doing just fine. But another annoyance with the doomsayers - what makes you think E6 only
applies to projector slides? Do you think that every landscape photographer using 4x5 is going to switch to a
thirty grand fragile digital back that will be software-obsolete in five years and not deliver half the quality?
And there are still serious editing advantages to slapping a nice big chrome down on a lightbox rather than
guessing about it on a screen. I'm hardly naive about this. Digital is killing off certain film applications, but
digital is also killing off digital at a far more rapid pace. How often can you afford to replace your gear? Amateur
digital cameras will be made extinct by cell phones, then these will be exterminated by something else soon enough. It's just how the consumer electronics industry keeps alive. Constant obsolescence. But you can go down to any pawnshop and probably find a reasonably usable 35mm film camera for fifty bucks with the probability that some kind of film will still be made for it twenty years from now. I've heard these end of the world scenarios several times before when several popular film of paper products disappeared around the same
time. We all have our favorites. I hate to see Kodachrome, E100G, and Cibachrome go. But they had a great run.
And I have no intentions of giving up a color darkroom. No need to.

 

[MattKing]

Yes Ian, I'm aware of Champion. I was using the term spinoff loosely. They spun off their chemisty to Champion,
which seems to be doing just fine.

Champion is listed as one of Kodak's biggest unpaid, unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy filing. And creditors are amazingly vulnerable in a bankruptcy.

Sorry to sound like a couple of eastern Canadians.

 

[Araakii]

I don't shoot Kodak E6 normally but I will shoot some before it's all gone.

 

[Araakii]

Ugh. I don't shoot much slide film now but when I do I prefer E100G since Fuji dropped Astia. If Fuji would bring back Astia the reversal world would be ok again. Well if we also had Ilfochrome. Yeesh.

I see Astia 120 readily available at Adorama.

 

[Hatchetman]

If Fuji would bring back Astia the reversal world would be ok again. Well if we also had Ilfochrome. Yeesh.

And Agfa Scala.

 

[Ian Grant]

Champion is listed as one of Kodak's biggest unpaid, unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy filing. And creditors are amazingly vulnerable in a bankruptcy.

Sorry to sound like a couple of eastern Canadians.

Champion will be hit quite hard in all this and to think they ditched former customers to take on this contract.

About 8 years ago the company I was working for were approached by Kodak to take over their silver recovery (in the UK), the investment needed was too high to meet Kodaks requirements and there was no guarantee of it being a viable proposition. Essentially they wanted everything done their way without taking any risks themselves.

Ian

 

[tim elder]

I'm not surprised but it's disappointing. I haven't shot color slide film in years in a still camera but I do shoot Ektachrome 100D in Super 8mm and would love to be able to continue shooting it and projecting it. I checked Kodak's web site to see if there was any information about Ektachrome 100D in Super 8mm and couldn't find any. I filled out their online form to request information about 100D Super 8mm availability and will post again if I hear any news.

I'm never quite sure where Fuji stands on product availability. Do they still make sheet E-6 film? It would be a shame if there were no options left for transparency sheet film users.

-Tim

 

[clayne]

Through social networking. No longer is there a need to use food and alcohol to entice your friends and family into sitting in a dark room so they can be bored to death by ones vacation photos. They're up on Facebook long before the vacation is even over, and people can now ignore them from the comfort of their own computer screen.

Yet with all of this new-found technology and incredibly shortened speed of delivery, photography has never been at a lower level of signal:noise then ever before - and, btw, the signal ain't so hot either. In general the "art" of photography is receiving a quality beat-down due to both massive over-consumption and massive over-production of imagery. The heavy majority of which is mediocre.

Remove limitations, receive crap.

 

[ChipMcD]

Dave -
I don't know who you use for E6 processing, but I've been satisfied with Colourworks in Wilmington.

I can second that. I was in there earlier this week, and they are still running E-6 3 days per week. They do a nice job. They told me that they are getting film from up and down the East Coast. Even as E-6 tapers off, I expect that there will be a few labs out there. It just may become a mail business, rather than a drop off business. We lost one major E-6 lab in Wilmington a few years back, and Colourworks is the last lab standing here.

 

[jp498]

Back in the day (1990's) I'd use slide film when I wanted color images the lab wouldn't butcher through their automated printing like they do with c41. slides were very wysiwyg as long as they were exposed properly. It was never consumer friendly. I bet most slide film in the 1990's was bought by serious photographers who wanted results rather than travelers wanting to make slideshows. I didn't have any problem acquiring used projectors and slide trays cheaply in the 1990s, so it was a weak market then for the casual consumer.

Digital provides this wysiwyg experience, right down to proper exposure. And there's no turn around time.

Now that scanning is probably the most common "next step" in the work flow, computers can handle negatives almost as easily as positives. Slides were never printed super literal anyways. They look good as is, but would usually end up a little different with the contrast of a cibachrome or the changes from an internegative, or the changes from the computer scanning. They mostly never got to be appreciated as a unique high quality original image.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Champion may be marketing chemicals under more than one label, and if Kodak cannot keep up its end of the relationship, they can go it alone. But they no doubt benefit from the recognizable Kodak label as well as the Kodak distribution system. I'd imagine they'll try to work things out rather than run up the white flage to Fuji-Hunt in the significant RA4 category. But I'm more concerned about specialty developers like HC-110 and TMRS.
These aren't easy to duplicate in the specifics. Sometimes similar is not similar enough. I really don't know how
diversified Champion is, and hope they don't have to get restructured also due to a domino effect. Let's just say,
I stockpiled some extra developer too!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Slides were in fact a big deal, and pro photographers sometimes staked both their reputations and their fees on winning pro-level slide shows. And shooting them wouldn't let you be sloppy with exp
like digital and amateur neg film did. An ole time slide show still looks a lot more impressive than a
computr screen image, esp with the right subject matter. Shooting chromes for printing per se is
a more advanced skill. But technology doesn't always improve things. Perhaps the best color shows
ever were back when three lantern projectors were aligned side by side with tricolor black and white
sheet film images in them.

 

[railwayman3]

The other brands are under the same pressure of declining demand.

It's an industry-wide problem. From Fuji's perspective this may not be a good thing because they are now seen as the sole source for tying their brand to the E6 product in constant demand decline. If they cannot find enough customers, then Fuji will get the "killed it" tag.

Kodak cannot afford to invest in fickle customers. It has a fiscal duty to its shareholders (now creditors) and it often makes sense in business to walk away from products and customers that do not serve the bottom line.

Both Kodak and Fuji appear to be helpless in stemming the drop in film demand. That's why I hope some Hollywood connected private equity will pick up the market and consolidate.

When I said that, given Kodak's untruths and lack of customer interest, consumers would turn to other brands, I was thinking of remaining products with "Kodak" branding, not just film.

Kodak is now seen as a failed company....if there was no more film and I had to to go digital, and Kodak brought out the finest and most advanced digital camera system in the world, I wouldn't buy it. I'd see Nikon, Leica, etc., as the way to go...more chance that they'll still be around, and the gear wouldn't go the way of APS, disc, 126, and all the other Kodak mistakes. What retailer would want to try to sell "Kodak" products right now, not even their Chinese-made batteries!

 

[ME Super]

Sadly when slide film is gone, my presentations will probably largely go d*****l. Notice I didn't say capture... I've scanned some negatives I shot last spring and the detail in them is quite good, even when viewed on a computer screen. Guess I'll have to start saving up a few bucks for that other kind of projector that really stinks.

 

[PKM-25]

Sadly when slide film is gone, my presentations will probably largely go d*****l. Notice I didn't say capture... I've scanned some negatives I shot last spring and the detail in them is quite good, even when viewed on a computer screen. Guess I'll have to start saving up a few bucks for that other kind of projector that really stinks.

Don't be sad, be smart and prepare, try to come up with plans that lay out what you need to do in 5 year blocks, that is what I did with Kodachrome and it payed off, I shot over 35,000 Kodachromes in a span of less than 5 years, no crying, no regrets, just amazing images...

 

[PKM-25]

By the way, in looking for a rare enlarging lens, I was talking to the owner of a very good lab in the state where I live about E6, he literally just wrote back one minute ago and said the following:

"Right now E-6 is doing very well. We process for other labs around the country so our daily runs are fairly consistent. As long as we can buy juice and Refrema parts we'll keep on with it. We use Fuji chemistry."

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

"Right now E-6 is doing very well..."

And I'm certain there are a couple of posters around here itching to tell him he doesn't have a clue as to what he's talking about...

Ken

 

[CGW]

"We use Fuji chemistry."

Several lab owners here in Toronto have mentioned that Fujifilm.ca reps aren't optimistic about Fuji's commitment to photo chemistry. Whether it's true or just a shill for new equipment--who knows?