I wish we talked about resurrecting Plus-X even half as much as we talk about Kodachrome.
I'd go for Verichrome Pan.
In spite of the same vocal group here who passionately dislike Kodachrome, this really IS what we are talking about in the bigger picture. The
"common thread" that ties the whole discussion together is the already demonstrated ability of today's successful film manufacturers to scale down their minimum production volumes to levels that match today's market demands. Several real examples of both companies and products have already been given.
The key take-away from this is that if EK can do as the other successful manufacturers have done and find a way to successfully scale back their production environment, then your above film requests may become worthy of a second look.
This was the crux of the remarks reportedly made by EK's Ms. Pasterczyk. All of the emotional chest-thumping here aside, if her remarks were accurately reported, then the film side of EK is already aware of what needs to be done and may, in fact, already be doing the R&D to try to make it happen.
And if that's trueand successfulthen your above requests
could move from the extinct category back into the hmm-let's-kick-it-around category. Still no guarantees in that hypothetical. But at least no longer
"totally dead".
Kodachrome in such a scenario thus becomes only one of
many new kick-it-around possibilities that might also include returning some E-6, or Plus-X, or other products. Who knows? Maybe even a few b&w printing papers.
Realistically, I would also think that this would be the preferred KA selling environment. Flexibility in both numbers of product offerings, as well as volumes of those products produced. My reasonable guess is that they would not want to be tied to the same massive over-manufacturing cycles that doomed EK in a severely contracted market, lest they end up in the same bankruptcy boat, sitting there with a bunch of hungry retirees.
I expect most of the resident thumpers here will respond to this with their usual snide
"it's dead, Jim" self-entertaining replies. I don't think they realize that if they are arguing against these kinds of possibilities, they may very well also be arguing
against the very survival of KA in the long run. C-41 may be viable right now, but what about when MP production ends at EK?
But for the rest, give it some serious thought. It's not an unreasonable way to look to the future. And it's already working for other suppliers.
As far as the poll goes, at this moment I see 61 replies. Of those, 23 would be willing to open their wallets and 38 would not. That's pretty amazing. Remember now, we're talking boutique markets here. Not the mainline production of 30 years ago. Small, occasional production runs of Kodachrome, with processing capabilities tailored to match that.
Truthfully, I was prepared to be amazed if only 10-15% expressed an interest. If hypothetically scaled up, that's still a huge number worldwide. But 23/61 is 37.7%. Better than 1 out of every 3 respondents. I suspect that would make for far more than just a boutique market presence. In fact, slice it in half (or even one-third) for those who might actually pull the trigger, and who knows? It might be worth considering.
Ken
But, I doubt it.
