Sad news from Kodak - HIE, EPN, EPR

Terence said:

Perhaps because none of us believed their protestations that they weren't discontinuing it when the EIR was discontinued. They have lied like dogs before. The writing was on the wall. It seemed all but a certainty to me.

I am hardly Mr Doom & Gloom, but if Kodak wonders why many folks here are or are becoming anti-Kodak, they need look no further. "We're NOT discontinuing HIE." "No wait, we ARE cancelling HIE." They are destroying what little level of trust I still had in them. For once, they had seemed to be communicating with people to correct a rumor, only to say a few months later that the rumor was true.

I use very few of their products now. I will now throw my small amount of business to someone who at last makes the effort to even APPEAR to want my business and loyalty.

I haven't used HIE in a wile, but like others here, I have a few rolls in the freezer along with a 70mm roll of 2424. I'll use it sparingly, and figure out how to better make use of the Efke film. Ilford SFX in 120 has already been my favorite film for years, but not for the extreme IR look.

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Nine months ago Kodak said "they had not discontinued HIE".

They never stated "we will not discontinue HIE".

Hardly a subtle distinction if care was taken to read their statement at face value.

It's a shame the film will no longer be made but I fail to see where they lied to anybody.

B&H still shows HIE in stock. It seems to me that's a pretty clear indication about the lack of demand for this unique film product. Perhaps the pipe has a way to go before it is really empty.

I knew this was coming which is why I've been experimenting with HIE in the past few weeks. I just didn't expect the ax to fall so soon.

amuderick said:

B&H still shows HIE in stock. It seems to me that's a pretty clear indication about the lack of demand for this unique film product. Perhaps the pipe has a way to go before it is really empty.

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Perhaps the supply pipeline might indeed have another month or so; there could always be another shipment coming to B&H. All I know is that as of this morning, B&H showed at least 999 rolls in stock. Now, 12 hours later, that number is down to 848 rolls. Apparently, someone(s) bought a lot of HIE today.

If anyone here bought some, I'm curious what the expiration date is.

aldevo said:

Nine months ago Kodak said "they had not discontinued HIE".

They never stated "we will not discontinue HIE".

Hardly a subtle distinction if care was taken to read their statement at face value.

It's a shame the film will no longer be made but I fail to see where they lied to anybody.

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Which is why I said the writing was on the wall. Their use of "weasel words" in their denial was so weak, it seemed obvious to me HIE was going the way of the dodo.

The direct quote from their PR people was, "Kodak will continue to sell the KODAK High Speed Infrared Film/HIE and you can continue to order this from your dealers. KODAK EKTACHROME Professional Infrared EIR Film/ESTAR Base is being discontinued due to low volume. Stocks remain, and we expect this film will continue to be available for several months."

In my business, that's called being a lying sack of manure. The timeline was the same for EIR and HIE, but they made a distinction between the two. Anyone want to take a bet on when the last coating was? Dollar to a donut it was before that statement in April.

B&Wpositive said:

Perhaps the supply pipeline might indeed have another month or so; there could always be another shipment coming to B&H. All I know is that as of this morning, B&H showed at least 999 rolls in stock. Now, 12 hours later, that number is down to 848 rolls. Apparently, someone(s) bought a lot of HIE today.

If anyone here bought some, I'm curious what the expiration date is.

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How do you view the amount in stock at B&H ? This page is all I see on HIE and it has no Qty listed.

The message on Kodak's website says that they are manufacturing until the end of December. I think they probably have been doing approx. one production run per month. The expiry date is usually about 1 year after it is produced.

I wonder if Kodak would be open to the idea of manufacturing some of the bulk 150ft rolls in their final production run. (They stopped doing the bulk rolls in 2002). If enough people on APUG expressed an interest then perhaps we could reach the minimum order quantity to initiate a production run.

regards
Peter

Or 70mm rolls, even better.

PeterB said:

The message on Kodak's website says that they are manufacturing until the end of December. I think they probably have been doing approx. one production run per month. The expiry date is usually about 1 year after it is produced.


regards
Peter

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Where do you see that Kodak is "manufacturing" until the end of December? They may be cutting and spooling, or boxing film as needed, but I'll bet the final coating run was some time back. It is not economical to run coating lines of the size Kodak has for less than several miles of 30 or 40 inch wide film, which is then spooled, stored and cut fo final size as needed. I'm betting Kodak is "estimating" it will "run out" by the end of December. Kodachrome is coated in one day, for a whole year or more of raw inventory.

And, November is usually Kodachrome month. The emulsions are made and tested, and everything comes together on the right day for the coating. Then we have another year's supply or so. As the market decreases, this one run lasts longer and longer. When it reaches the point that one run will eventually spoil before all of it is sold, then profits vanish and so does the product.

PE

Les, Tim, I can only offer my personal feelings about the demise of HIE; I of course do not speak for anyone but myself. If HIE was near and dear to you then maybe its best to skip my post With that disclaimer in place...

I do a fair amount of IR but had no affection for HIE. I simply have no personal use for super-grainy, halated images with foliage completely whited out. To be brutally honest, the film's sensitivity and halation consigned it to a narrow genre, in my opinion. Tim, you're right, it is/was a unique film, maybe too unique. Compare it to the several current vis/NIR films, in which the Wood effect is tunable, the grain is much more subtle, there isn't the in-your-face halation, and both 35mm and larger format film is freshly available so that there are more creative possibilities...

If HIE had been available in 120 or 4x5 form then I might have developed an interest in it, but the days are numbered for any film that is freshly available in only 35mm format. This is especially true of IR which has formidable competition from digital (N.b. that competition shifts more in favour of film when one goes up to MF or LF).

Overall, my feeling is that the films which are most popular among MF/LF shooters will remain on the market. I think it's clear by now that 35mm sales alone cannot sustain any film.

N.b. I do not intend to malign anyone's work with HIE, and I offer my condolences to the bereaved.

Yes, people are upset about the demise of HIE but what to do about it to convince KODAK to keep making it. It doesn't seem that it would do much good. I have been using using this film for twenty years and I truly LOVED IT! Naturally I have been wearing a black arm band ALL WEEK since I found out! All my coworkers think I'm bonkers but I don't care. That film has defined me as a photographer for a long time and yes, I feel lots of stabbing pain in my heart. I'm trying desperately to order even 20 rolls in my town because I bought the last 2 rolls available. I feel like I live in a remote area of Iceland because they barely sell any film here!
What I decided I am going to do is whatever infrared I manage to get a hold of I am going to make the best, most amazing images I have ever taken with infrared film and make each exposure count. Then I am going to have a Farewell to Infrared Show like I've never had before. That's how I'm going to deal with this. I'm not laying down but honouring the film I love so much.

The only way to make these specialty films that have slow sales is to be able to economically make them in smaller quantity than is possible with Kodaks coating lines. If you have to run a mile of 40 inch wide base stock to operate your coating line, then you have to sell a bunch of finished goods. Now, some film producers, including Kodak have "test" coating lines that are much smaller. I guess what is needed is an "intermediate" coating line that could coat a mile long roll of 10" wide base. Just speculation on my part, but it "IS" possible that some manufacturers might see potential profit in making short runs of specialty product for sale at much higher prices, if the coating line exists to support this.

Kodak is already using pilot and research scale equipment to make production runs of small runners. I have just posted details elsewhere.

But, just as a reminder, it is easy to be an armchair ref. Not many of you have actually done this. D'oh, oh, probably none of you have.

PE

I see these news from Kodak relaxed. Why?

1. Discontinuance of the Ektachromes: I'm not surprised that Kodak stops the production. I was surprised that Kodak has produced these films for such a long time. These films are from the eighties, technologically completely outdated materials. All other slide films from both Kodak and Fuji has surpassed these films some years ago.
Or in other words: Do you expect from a car manufacturer, that they produce the same model for 20 years?

I think Kodak made the right decision to concentrate on the modern films.

2. HIE: The demand for this film is to weak to justify the production. And what are the reasons for the decreasing demand?

- decreasing interest in IR film photography? May be, but not very likely, because Ilford, Maco/Rollei and Efke introduced new IR films. So they must have seen a sufficient demand for IR films.

- loosing market share in the niche market IR films because of the increasing competition from Maco/Rollei, Ilford and Efke? Possible. HIE is a unique film, no doubt, but the other films have their strenghts, too. They are much easier to handle, not so expensive, and the Rollei for example is very flexible. You can use this film as a high resolution panchromatic film, as a replacement for Agfa Scala, and as an infrared film with fine grain and high resolution as well.

Therefore it is possible that the HIE was killed by the competition. On free markets such things are normal.
Perhaps another manufacturer will fill the gap. There are some rumors in Germany that a new film with extended red sensivity to 850-900 nm will be introduced next year.

We will see,
Jana

JanaM said:

I see these news from Kodak relaxed. Why?

1. Discontinuance of the Ektachromes: I'm not surprised that Kodak stops the production. I was surprised that Kodak has produced these films for such a long time. These films are from the eighties, technologically completely outdated materials. All other slide films from both Kodak and Fuji has surpassed these films some years ago.
Or in other words: Do you expect from a car manufacturer, that they produce the same model for 20 years?

I think Kodak made the right decision to concentrate on the modern films.



We will see,
Jana

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Kodak did not discontinue all its "older" technology E-6 films. EPP is still around. This is the film I still use every week for my work. I shot 300 4x5 sheets of it last month.

Running on empty

Regarding the HIE discontinuation, (to muddy the water a little more) I got our (Silverprint's) wholesale Kodak supplier to check into how the HIE was running down. They reckon that supplies will be OK until March 08.
This could be accurate (but then it might not).

Therefore, the way I'm going to approach it is to aim to keep several hundred rolls of HIE in stock at any one time over the next few months. As it goes out we will re-order. It's too expensive & perishable to buy a mountain of it, but we can be reasonably sure that around 10 x normal stock level will find end users. If other dealers put a bit of investment into a moderate amount of stock they won't lose out either & it will give something of a buffer zone.

HIE's sales foundation was always the US Department of Defense, for aerial reconnaissance. Consumer sales would never have been enough to keep the original Kodak Infrared, or High Speed Infrared, in production. HIE isn't going away because of competition from another film.

The DoD probably kept buying it 10 years after their primary equipment went digital, and 5 years after they scrapped the cameras they could use it in. The DoD has always been cool about buying stuff they don't, or can't, use. It's a huge machine, doesn't take turns very fast.

After all, the DoD was still buying huge quantities of vacuum tubes (remember them?) in the 1980's. Lots of DoD surplus lots with tubes with 1980's date codes have been sold in the last ten years.