More Rochester news about Kodak

It's not Perez who decided the strategy, he just looks after the tactics.

Martin has it right.

PE

Well I ordered 30 rolls of new Portra 400 for myself. Now if everyone on APUG could just order 30 rolls of Kodak film all at the same time..

Designing some FB ads to get more young people over to film. Opening a film processing service (C-41/E-6 with dip n dunk) and online film shop with very good Aus prices to get more film moving locally.. had a thing for free processing promotion of a roll for 10 people. Going to try and run monthly prmotional film give aways including free processing of those rolls.

Maybe if everyone can do their bit...

Athiril said:

Maybe if everyone can do their bit...

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So far in 2011 I have purchased 42 rolls of 120, 10 rolls of 35mm and a bulk roll of 35mm. All in yellow boxes. I'm not done buying yet.

Just a brief reminder to everyone here: As Ron has stated in the past, Kodak makes most of its film business with the movie film industry, whereas the photographic film most of us use barely matters both in quantity and in profit. While photographic film use has stabilized or even slightly risen as of lately (according to some press statements), it's the rapid decline in movie film use which makes Kodak's film division less and less profitable.

So it doesn't matter if people publicly announce that they will buy dozens of rolls of whatever film, except for them personally, if they want to stock a life time supply before that film disappears from the market. The only thing which could possibly save these films in the long run would be someone taking over the know how from Kodak and downscaling their operations by a factor of 10 or 20.

Rudeofus said:

So it doesn't matter if people publicly announce that they will buy dozens of rolls of whatever film, except for them personally, if they want to stock a life time supply before that film disappears from the market. The only thing which could possibly save these films in the long run would be someone taking over the know how from Kodak and downscaling their operations by a factor of 10 or 20.

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The most concise and cogent two sentences on the topic I have yet read...

Ken

So far in 2011 I have purchased 42 rolls of 120, 10 rolls of 35mm and a bulk roll of 35mm. All in yellow boxes. I'm not done buying yet

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It is like turning off the lights in the city for one minute to protest enviromental pollution

Ken Nadvornick said:

The most concise and cogent two sentences on the topic I have yet read...

Ken

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On some things we agree.

Steve

Sirius Glass said:

On some things we agree.

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(On probably more than you realize.)

The Kodak board - using Mr. Perez as their public hatchetman - has made a largely irreparable mess of things. Their early digital arrogance toward the other analog manufacturers has now given way to a fortress mentality. The wolves, if not quite at the door, are at the very least gathering out by the curbside lighting torches and preparing to ring the doorbell.

But what of poor old George?

Who among us today has the intestinal fortitude to seek him out and tell him that his triumphantly glorius finality was sorely misplaced? That his work was actually not really quite done. That he truly should have waited longer?

Almost exactly to the day 79 years longer.

Ken

Lousy quality prints killed film, the kind you get for 6 cents on Tuesdays. People don`t know what a good print is supposed to look like.

Digital was supposed to save that. Sorry. Same people who made poor prints from film now make poor prints from digital. They don`t understand process control.

So images reside on computers etc and are a mystery to most. The technology is out there to get simply dutiful prints from film or digital for sure, people simply do not know how to access it. They do understand 6 cents on Tuesday. Then they give up.

Kodak might survive if they went back into the processing business, send your files over the internet, and get back prints. Snap Fish, MPIX, and others do ok with this model.

I have a local pro lab that uses ROES order entry. It is modified FTP program. Drag your file from the FTP staging area into a box formatted by your choice to 8x10, 4x6, 5x7, Zoom, crop, move the image around, hit enter. No sharpening required.. They have a $50,000.00 RIP from Kodak that does all the rest.
Pictures are exactly as you sent. AiProlab.com.

The problem is people only know 6 cents on Tuesday.

If you want, just hand them a roll of C41. They do all the rest. Same great results.

My wifes cousin is a radiologist and he hates his digital camera. With film he dropped it off, picked up and threw away the ones he did not like. I can not convince him to look at the pic on a screen and cull the bad. People get stuck in a rut. All his work comes over the net and he looks at dig x-ray all day long so he knows how to do it. Many use computers all day and do not want to do it for recreation too. Another thing to overcome.

Some advertising would be good, as opposed to none.

I recently showed off a slide show of my last O/S trip to work colleagues.

Apart from the gasps at the presence of the image on the screen, the most often repeated comment was "can you still get film?"

Seems to me there would be many people out there that would fetch their old Olympus Zoom from the back of the draw if they new they could still get a roll of film for it...

they do advertise for new-line of products ...

unfortunately not the things their already established, now dwindling customer base uses.
they probably figure it is a waste of money to advertise for products that most
people have abandoned, and only a few " elitist luddites " use. and don't want to deal
with the bad-vibes if there actually is a huge surge in use, and then a huge surge of ticked off people
all tweeting and facebook walling " i bought film but can't process it ... a little help here "

i think if they were to advertise their traditional products they should have done this 10 years ago
or ... never stopped doing it. seems a little late now.

I have also been asked if film is still available, numerous times. People see me carrying a camera and are surprised to hear film is still available. Twice people have said they would rather use their P&S film camera than replace the failed digital they now have, and were happy to hear that the local CVS or MalWart has print film.

The last couple years, every time someone saw the Kodachrome box end on the back of my camera, they'd be impressed and figure I was some kind of Pro. Even more when it was my Bronica w/35mm pano back. Most didn't know much about Kodachrome, but they knew it was special. The media attention surrounding K64's discontinuation made it into something special, and turned those who used it into knowing veterans. I got no flack at all, only questions. I didn't once have to employ my digital device.

Tough to fight the nature of our consumer culture. People think film is gone because that is how most stuff goes. There is a planned obsolescence with all sorts of devices, and the newest and latest is constantly being pushed. The reality that much actually does stick around and remain available is lost on most people who do not have a special interest that particular technology. We are told in so many ways that a thing has been superseded and so we think it has. When I use my old toaster at home I'm half surprised that guests don't say "can you still get bread for that?". It's a insidious pattern that is filling our land and oceans with mountains of trash.

When I am out and about with my cameras, especialy my folders and Rolleis people often want to talk about them, and the conservation often gets around to can you still get film, or do you have problems getting film, and often as soon as they find out it is they say they wish they had known,they would not have got they PAS digital or in some cases the digital slr, they prefer film, but the camera salesman told them film was either no longer available, or so hard to get, and in one or two cases folk I have known hve dumped the all singing all dancing digital wonders and got the much loved film cameras out again,Richard

Ronald Moravec said:

Kodak might survive if they went back into the processing business, send your files over the internet, and get back prints. Snap Fish, MPIX, and others do ok with this model.

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They do offer this service; it's on their web site. It's fifteen cents, not six, but hey. And the other companies buy supplies from Kodak, so Kodak makes money either way.