More Kodak

esanford said:

Let's get back on point here... Kodak was a film company....

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Yes, companies change and evolve over time, otherwise they cease to exist. Sometimes it is a good change, sometimes not. For example, Toyota started out in business making sewing machines and Honda made piston rings (before they made motorcycles), BMW made airplanes.

One of the good things I see is the rise of companies that produce products like Efke, Kentmere, etc. And I don't see Fuji abandoning Velvia anytime soon (in fact they have two more Velvia like films that are only sold in Japan).

roteague said:

Yes, companies change and evolve over time, otherwise they cease to exist. Sometimes it is a good change, sometimes not. For example, Toyota started out in business making sewing machines and Honda made piston rings (before they made motorcycles), BMW made airplanes.

One of the good things I see is the rise of companies that produce products like Efke, Kentmere, etc. And I don't see Fuji abandoning Velvia anytime soon (in fact they have two more Velvia like films that are only sold in Japan).

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I agree wholeheartedly with your point! We as serious photographic professionals, artists, hobbyists, etc... find it very difficult to stomach things like Kodak ceasing to make the products that we've grown to depend upon... Unfortunately, the world changes... In business like nature, the change can be brutal and unforgiving... But, you know what they say, big trees fall and rot in the forest so little trees can grow. Fuji, Efke, and Kentmere have a unique opportunity to take up the space that Kodak is vacating....

Amongst the wanderings in this thread is the again repeated claim that Ilford make Fuji's black & white films. I think it's general knowledge that Ilford certainly provide the emulsion for Fuji's chromogenic film which is very similar to XP2 Super and maybe they actually manufacture it in the UK too. But as to the non-chromogenic films I'm not convinced. The one I'm most familiar with, Neopan 400, which I've used off and on since the late 1980's is nothing like any Ilford film. Also its plastic canister is a Fuji type one and the box states made in Japan. Fuji also made (and maybe still do) an instant pack film in black & white & I've never seen it suggested that Ilford manufacture instant films. I drop this in because it demonstrates that Fuji have the technology & knowledge to manufacture black & white materials themselves.

From one of our news agents under a photograph:
"A neglected vending machine for Kodak film in Beijing reflects the diminished prospects for the US photography giant which is cutting jobs in China as well as USA and Canada, Friday 26 August 2005. Kodak invested heavily in China buying interests in Chinese film manufacturers and establishing a chain of more than 5000 minilabs around the country but is now suffering here as elsewhere as consumers choose digital cameras in preference to silver based film technology. As many as 450 jobs in Xiamen are to be cut. EPA/Adrian Bradshaw"

Todays Rochester newspaper headlined and detailed that story.

You know, it seems to me that Kodak is not abandoning conventional and becoming a digital company, but rather that the customers are abandoning conventional and forcing Kodak into becoming predominantly a digital company. To give them some credit, Kodak tried to stay as much in conventional photography as possible, but were unable to maintain this thrust due to market forces.

Conventional sales have fallen over 30% within a year for Kodak. Just think what a blow this is to Ilford, Agfa, Ferrania and Fuji. They are all smaller than Kodak in market share. They are in a struggle for their lives, and only Fuji is really 'going digital' to any extent. For Ilford, a drop of 30% in the overall market was catastrophic, as the change was mostly in B&W products followed by Transparency films.

PE

Brac said:

Amongst the wanderings in this thread is the again repeated claim that Ilford make Fuji's black & white films. I think it's general knowledge that Ilford certainly provide the emulsion for Fuji's chromogenic film which is very similar to XP2 Super and maybe they actually manufacture it in the UK too. But as to the non-chromogenic films I'm not convinced. The one I'm most familiar with, Neopan 400, which I've used off and on since the late 1980's is nothing like any Ilford film. Also its plastic canister is a Fuji type one and the box states made in Japan. Fuji also made (and maybe still do) an instant pack film in black & white & I've never seen it suggested that Ilford manufacture instant films. I drop this in because it demonstrates that Fuji have the technology & knowledge to manufacture black & white materials themselves.

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I have got to concur with this serious doubt. I use Acros, Delta 100 and FP4 in 4x5" sheets and I can assure you, the Acros is very different from either Ilford product. Both in terms of base, grain and if you still have any doubt, try reciprocity failure to see HOW different they are. I doubt Ilford is making Acros only for Fuji and not themselves...

About photographic manufacturing industries going digital and many suffering from it...

It could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. How long ago was it that I last saw an advertisment for film camera, or film, in the popular media? I can't tell you, for it was such a long while ago. The last trade show here (sort of like the Australian version of the PMA) Kodak had a large stand but not a roll of film in sight even though it was the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the epoch-making Tri-X. Why's that? No one wants to use film, they said; of course if they're telling everyone that "film is dead", refusing to promote the use of film, then they would do a great job doing themselves in. Vicious cycle, but I do think that the industry itself has just as much to blame.

The important question regarding product ability is: will there be anyone left who can make black and white film at a reasonable cost and reasonable quality? If not, then shooters will have to adopt alternative light sensitive processes to continue analog photography. Making plastic film is too difficult for me to do.

Typography was killed by digital, but a few boutique places still do it--because the technology is not to difficult to duplicate. What is most worrisome is that digital is not a human readable information format whereas film is. Even a caveman would be able to see a picture in a frame of 16mm film without knowing anything about the technology which created it.

Seele, I agrree 100% and I've been saying so for years. Kodak had the influence and power to beat back digi easily. Instead they jumped ship to play catch-up as a second rate marketer of asian junk.

I've always imagined an ad... Picture a modern family opening a box in their attic. They find negatives from their family that are over 50 years old. They have them printed and displayed on their "family wall" with pride... Jump to year 2050, family opens box in attic. They find a collection of flash cards and CD's. They shrudge their shoulders and toss them in the vaporisor.... "Film is Forever"...

May be too late now?

Rich:

Expanding on your idea... Do the commercial split screen with 2 different families, the first segment basically the same, both families getting prints made. Future segment, one family finds a box of negatives, gets em printed, enjoys them on the wall, other family finds the flash cards/cds, etc. and throws them out.

-Mike

It may be interesting to you to note that Kodak stopped advertizing Kodachrome film in about 1990, I believe for the winter Olympics. At that time, it shared billing with Ektachrome rather than having its own prime ad.

Even at that early date, it was becoming very hard to sell Kodachrome film, in spite of the enthusiasm among a hard core of enthusiasts. At the present time, reversal film of all kinds is undergoing the most severe decline in sales, seconded only by B&W film and paper. This is a major factor in the problems at Agfa and Ilford, both of which tried gamely to stay in the analog film and paper business.

No matter what fiscal plans you make in a business, if the majority of your customers abandon your products for whatever reason, as is the case across the board in the analog film industry, you have to change that plan.

Kodak did not 'jump ship' on their own. The ship foundered because of the storm, and the ship began to sink. In fact, the entire fleet is going down or foundering, and so all of the conventional photographic companies management are trying to decide what to do next.

I must say here that I am an avid analog photographer with lots of cameras in just about every format. However, count the number of members and users here and on other photo enthusiast sites. Now, multiply by 1000 or even 10,000 and ask yourself if that represents even a fraction of the nearly 1 billion consumers out there. Can the tail wag the dog? Can we enthusiasts support conventional photography?

I don't purport to have an answer to that question BTW. My only recourse is to begin plans to make my own films and papers for B&W, and hope that I can at least supply myself for art's sake. The bad part about this is that as production of the films and papers cuts back, production of paper support, film support, and chemicals also cut back and therefore even if we had 'real' formulas it would be nearly impossible to duplicate existing products.

Someday, I may even try to make color.

An interesting side note though is that current RC paper support for conventional products still outstrips digital paper support by 10:1 according to my sources. But, the sales of one is going down by 35% / year and the other is going up by the same amount.

PE