Kodak will no longer produce any colour reversal still films

[removed account4]

From the discontiuance notice released yesterday,

.....This does not affect KODAK PROFESSIONAL Color Negative Films or KODAK PROFESSIONAL Black and White Films which remain a viable part of the KODAK PROFESSIONAL Film portfolio......

I would never believe what Kodak says from now on, never!!! Only a month or so ago, they said they would continue engaging films, and made an annoucment to us users not to worry about Kodak's films future, at least for a while. And then, they axed all their slides. I'm not saying that they should keep all their slides, but they should keep at least one of them, just for a little longer. It's a total disgrace! No one would surprise even if they axed all their Color Negatives or B&W next month!

i was upset too when they told me in person ( a vp from what he told me he was ) that kodak had no plans on eliminating
anything in their analog portfolio ... closing down the paper mills in south america was just consolidation of one of their divisions ...
and then 2 weeks later they eliminated their black/white papers &c ...


and whether or not they came out immediately and said they were going to eliminate products from their analog portfolio ( even 8 years ago )
doesn't really matter anymore to me. they know a lot of people rely on their products - color, back+white ... and i believe they are trying to do their best
to keep their analog production line alive as much as possible.

i was upset, but now i just shrug my shoulders.
they are in bankruptcy ... at least they have admitted they are struggling, and having trouble making ends meet.
with most of the people in the world switching to a different medium to make their photographs, i never expected them to make it this far ...

it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years ...

 

[zsas]

I am starting to think Kodak is not going to divest the film business anymore. My reasoning is that if they wanted to do so, they would have sold the film div with all it's attributes so the new investors can make a go at making production runs that reflect current market needs. They wouldn't kill lines (ie chromes for still) if they were actively shoppping it around. But someone could argue that in order to divest the need to cut the low hanging fruit to make it marketable. I think they are going to keep film.

 

[Hatchetman]

I am starting to think Kodak is not going to divest the film business anymore.

That was my thought as well. I was hoping film would be spun off to somebody that had a strategic vision. Guess not.

 

[stavrosk]

they would have sold the film div with all it's attributes so the new investors can make a go at making production runs that reflect current market needs.

But they are saying there is no demand for slide film.
Who would want to buy this division?
How can you be so sure that they did not already try it?
It is so annoying when people just suppose they know everything.

 

[Hatchetman]

But they are saying there is no demand for slide film.
Who would want to buy this division?
How can you be so sure that they did not already try it?
It is so annoying when people just suppose they know everything.

Slide film is not a "division," it is part and parcel of their film operations. Your latter statement I concur with.

 

[keithwms]

Happily shooting astia and provia in all sizes, from 120, quickoad 4x5, to 8x10... Of course, just now somebody will say: you can't do that! the sky is falling! it's all over! no! you can't be happy! you can't, you shouldn't, you... aaaaaaaa........

Hmm, I think I'll buy another 8x10 box of astia.

 

[wildbill]

Happily shooting astia and provia in all sizes, from 120, quickoad 4x5, to 8x10... Of course, just now somebody will say: you can't do that! the sky is falling! it's all over! no! you can't be happy! you can't, you shouldn't, you... aaaaaaaa........

Hmm, I think I'll buy another 8x10 box of astia.

from where? japan? fuji killed 8x10 astia here.

 

[keithwms]

Yep from Japan Exposures. If anybody wants to join in a bulk purchase just let me know- you can save on shipping.

Like I said many times in the case of LF Polaroid and in my Kodak blog post, at some point a person has to ask what the final shot will be worth, and the answer is priceless. One can thus reasonably surmise that the cost of the material in a year or so will be somewhere between current price and infinity and hedge one's bets accordingly. The value of the output certainly isn't going down, so the cost fo the materials will, of course, go up. It's up to individuals to decide how to play that. For me the case is very strong to keep buying and shooting; if the cost of the material exceeds the value I think I can place on a frame, then I will sell the material. But we're not anywhere close to that yet, with slide.

I haven't relied on Kodak for anything for, oh, a couple years now. Sorry folks but they have been publically euthanizing their film products for years now.

 

[zsas]

Just making a guess folks nothing more, I don't pretend to know anything!

 

[DWThomas]

I indeed still own a slide projector. And I have some mixed memories of family slide shows as an "event." I would be urged to display the latest output from my trusty Argus C3, and in the midst of it, amongst some oohs and ahs hear my great uncle Frank snoring in the background.

I gradually switched to prints circa 1970. I think part of it was the print film and technology had improved, but also there have been lifestyle changes. Having something you could pass around without the formality of converting a room to a theater simplified a portion of our busy lives. Today, there are far fewer family get-togethers, we just put stuff on the web.

 

[Hatchetman]

I just bid on a Pradovit 250 slide projector on Ebay. I'm a little worried I'm going to win.

 

[keithwms]

I could use a good 6X7 projector...

 

[ME Super]

ME Super wrote:
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 responds:
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...

I will have to do that. The main reason I shoot slides is that I like to project them in a dark room. They look so much better on a real slide projector than they do in digital. Plus my daughter says they're pretty and my son loves them too. Shoot, maybe I should change my moniker to "E6 Curmudgeon"

 

[Aristophanes]

Slide film pushed camera development.

AE, bracketing, phase detect AF, matrix metering, and so on to make up for the lack of exposure latitude. These were features required by pros who were the drivers of slide film use.

The shame is that a late 90's to early-2000's SLR is the optimum slide film capture device. The number of keepers goes way up with these. Many advanced P&S's were also very good. Another shame is that slide film scans very well.

Kodak and Fuji marketed slide films extensively, and even upped the effort when digital came out, especially in photo magazines targeted at the pro and nearly-pro markets. It was a losing battle, mostly because of costs. As the qualitative differences between digital and slide film narrowed, the cost delta widened, making professional digital systems the better economic choice. Marketing cannot overcome that delta. Without pros the market pretty much collapsed.

 

[railwayman3]

Slide film pushed camera development.

AE, bracketing, phase detect AF, matrix metering, and so on to make up for the lack of exposure latitude. These were features required by pros who were the drivers of slide film use.

In my work experience of dealing with pros. most of them used manual equipment, e.g. Hasselblad, Rollei and other MF, or LF Linhofs, etc. The extras which you mention were mainly directed at the advanced amateur...developments marketed to those who liked to have the latest gizmos to impress their friends. Rather like the massive digital cameras with lenses like elephants trunks which some like to sport these days. (along with their huge SUV's which never go futher off-road than the supermarket car park.....)

 

[Ian Grant]

Have to agree having worked in photograpghy professionally since the early 1970's I've never seen a pro use a camera with "AE, bracketing, phase detect AF, matrix metering, and so on to make up for the lack of exposure latitude." until the switch to digital camers where unfortunately the major manufacturers insist on adding too many deatures.

Ian

 

[Aristophanes]

In my work experience of dealing with pros. most of them used manual equipment, e.g. Hasselblad, Rollei and other MF, or LF Linhofs, etc. The extras which you mention were mainly directed at the advanced amateur...developments marketed to those who liked to have the latest gizmos to impress their friends. Rather like the massive digital cameras with lenses like elephants trunks which some like to sport these days. (along with their huge SUV's which never go futher off-road than the supermarket car park.....)

I was thinking mostly of the journalist photographers who were the bulk of the market as the employer covered the costs of equipment and processing. Think sports photography, Time, Life, National Geographic (with an enormous selection of Kodachrome slides shot on 135) etc. The Olympics and all those Canon sewer pipes hooked to 35mm. The local newspaper. The photo scrum. The paparazzi. Wedding photogs in my experience were 50/50 135 and 120, usually both.

The icon of a "photo event" is the banks of pro photogs lined up with auto gear, taking shots from the hip or elevated without even looking through the VF. Auto exposure and fast advance were designed for that market and were top tier Nikon and Canon product all the way. They were never designed for the "advanced amateur" in development save to bulk the market and margins. It was the newsrooms that demanded those products, and they paid big $$$ for them.

These commercial entities devoured film, and as glossy publications thrived, they used slide film more and more, with the camera tech adapting to their needs. I was at Mt. Ventoux as the Tour de France climbed up the slope and in retrospect, of the thousands of pro photogs there, I bet more than 100,000 film shots were blasted in the space of 2 hours by only journalists, and that's just of the final ascent. All you could hear in the background as each group ascended was the whir of the motor drives. MF studio photogs save in some fashion shoots never even came close to that volume. How much was slide film I don't know, but I saw an awful lot of Kodachrome and Velvia auto-loaded.

 

[frdrx]

Okay, screw Ektachrome. All I need is Ektar and a print film like Vericolor 5072. O bugger, seems that I'll have to stick with Fujichrome like I've done for so many years now.

 

[keithwms]

seems that I'll have to stick with Fujichrome like I've done for so many years now.

+1

 

[railwayman3]

Certainly the long-lens 35mm was the camera for sports and action and the other uses which you mention, and these are the photographers which everyone sees and thinks of from their visibilty on TV coverage. A bank of 20-30 photographers can soon look like "thousands" in these circumstances. Photographers for magazines such as the Nat Geographic certainly used many pictures, but it is basically only one magazine.

I could argue that, for every one of those, there were many less visible photographers using manual cameras....studios, portraiture, advertising, product photography, commercial, industrial, police, pathology and medical (the ones which I personally dealt with), in every city in the land.

I'm not arguing, it is a matter of opinion and personal experience, but I think it is too easy to present things as a "fact" to support one's own views, rather than as a suggestion or
discussion point.

 

[Aristophanes]

Certainly the long-lens 35mm was the camera for sports and action and the other uses which you mention, and these are the photographers which everyone sees and thinks of from their visibilty on TV coverage. A bank of 20-30 photographers can soon look like "thousands" in these circumstances. Photographers for magazines such as the Nat Geographic certainly used many pictures, but it is basically only one magazine.

I could argue that, for every one of those, there were many less visible photographers using manual cameras....studios, portraiture, advertising, product photography, commercial, industrial, police, pathology and medical (the ones which I personally dealt with), in every city in the land.

I'm not arguing, it is a matter of opinion and personal experience, but I think it is too easy to present things as a "fact" to support one's own views, rather than as a suggestion or discussion point.

I was just trying to point out that top-tier Canon and Nikon cameras were equipped with advanced features in order to capitalize on the very lucrative pro photojournalist market where the employer paid for everything but demand the shot. The publishing market was huge. My hometown paper in a city of 600,000 back in the 1980's had something like 16 staff photogs and their own full featured lab. Their archive has an uncounted # of slides and negatives. And there were 2 papers plus a weekly alternative and some more regional offerings.

Pro cameras were not developed for the "prosumer" but for the real "pro" as the product marketing states accurately. Yes, prosumers rode the coattails, but did not drive development. More than that, Canon subsidized photojournalists and Nikon involved them in product development. They were extensively used in ad campaigns (YouTube) where the pro photog becomes a celebrity in his own way (always a guy) and uses the advanced features; that's called downselling (aka pimping in adspeak). That still doesn't mean the feature was developed for prosumers; it just means they take a pro feature and shove it down a price point to buff up margins. It's still done today in many product categories (autos, golf clubs).

A lot of this was tied to the increased use of positive film. Kodak and Fuji loved things like bracketing because it meant more shots. It became part of their financial profile for the product. Positive film's narrow latitude pushed exposure accuracy into the camera on a more automated basis, spurring the # of shots per opportunity. Excellent for biz if you sell film. The perfect positive reinforcement feedback loop driving margins. It's a business model unto itself and part of the synergy between the camera makers and the film manufacturers.

That's all broken now.

 

[CGW]

In my work experience of dealing with pros. most of them used manual equipment, e.g. Hasselblad, Rollei and other MF, or LF Linhofs, etc. The extras which you mention were mainly directed at the advanced amateur...developments marketed to those who liked to have the latest gizmos to impress their friends. Rather like the massive digital cameras with lenses like elephants trunks which some like to sport these days. (along with their huge SUV's which never go futher off-road than the supermarket car park.....)

Uncertain whether latent sour grapes, angst or isolation explains this view. It's wide of the mark. Though there was no shortage "gizmos" for amateurs 10-15 years ago, Canon and Nikon pro level bodies and lenses weren't targeted at punters. Few of them could afford the stuff. Something like the F5 or late run EOS pro bodies carried features that made them adaptable to the owners' needs, not least being AF and metering/flash systems suited to the spontaneity of sports/nature/PJ shooting.

 

[railwayman3]

al

Uncertain whether latent sour grapes, angst or isolation explains this view. It's wide of the mark. Though there was no shortage "gizmos" for amateurs 10-15 years ago, Canon and Nikon pro level bodies and lenses weren't targeted at punters. Few of them could afford the stuff. Something like the F5 or late run EOS pro bodies carried features that made them adaptable to the owners' needs, not least being AF and metering/flash systems suited to the spontaneity of sports/nature/PJ shooting.

No need for rudeness. I have, and enjoy using regularly, all the photo equipment I need for my requirements (which doesn't involve posing or impressing anyone). (For that matter, I also have the cars which I need and enjoy, and actually have no interest in them beyond reliability and fitness for purpose). I don't know what you mean by isolation...I've just sent out invitations for 284 guests for my wedding later in the year. Life's good, and, come to that, I wonder why I'm bothering being here... I thought it was to have friendly (and perhaps provocative) discussions with similar open-minded analog enthusiasts.

 

[CGW]

al

No need for rudeness. I have, and enjoy using regularly, all the photo equipment I need for my requirements (which doesn't involve posing or impressing anyone). (For that matter, I also have the cars which I need and enjoy, and actually have no interest in them beyond reliability and fitness for purpose). I don't know what you mean by isolation...I've just sent out invitations for 284 guests for my wedding later in the year. Life's good, and, come to that, I wonder why I'm bothering being here... I thought it was to have friendly (and perhaps provocative) discussions with similar open-minded analog enthusiasts.

You were slinging around a pretty big tar brush for someone so supposedly so "friendly."

 

[railwayman3]

You were slinging around a pretty big tar brush for someone so supposedly so "friendly."

I'll give you the last word then...I'm getting the impression you're so deep into putting forward your own inflexible views, that you can't distinguish when something is said "tongue in cheek". Or did I touch a nerve somewhere.....