The end for Kodak?

[thomas l]

There is only one company which selled old films as new ones, so maybe you are writing about Maco/Rollei...... (But Schroeder's time is over there, times are changing!)

Everybody knows which films are in the Adox boxes and Adox never stated that films like Adox CHS are new quality films. It is clearly stated that these films are old styled films and people buy this film just because of this (yes and they like it, I like them too although I normally use FP4 and HP5). The Adox CHS films (=efke) are advertised as old style films. So do not write such a nonsense, it seems that you do not know what you are writing about!

Your own experiences:....the new Adox film is not produced yet, so cannot have bad experiences with it. And Fotokemika (efke) does not have anything to do with Adox making the new Agfa APX films.

And with the other Adox films: Everybody knows which films are in these boxes (like Adox CMS) because it isn't kept secret.

The new Adox films will not repacked films but will be new ones, we hope that they will have the same or will be near the quality of Agfa. We do not know now, we hope it. But the paper which is made by Adox has the quality of Agfa papers and because of that I'm thinking that the same thing wil be with the films. Nothing is rebranded here.

The point is: you have to be able to coat films in small charges. If you are not able to do this, you cannot survive as a company in analogue film businsess.

 

[MDR]

Michael I personaly use both new style emulsion from Kodak, Ilford and Fuji as well as "outdated" Efke emulsions I agree with you that the constant new APX reincarnates are annoying and that none of the Fuji, Ilford, Kodak, Agfa-Gevaert alternatives offer the same kind of QC. Unfortunately there are currently no alternative to the big four in terms of QC but that doesn't mean that one should'nt experiment/use products from other manufacturers. If one is aware of the products shortcomings one can use them in a creative way they are just no alternative for the high quality products from the big four but can be used along with them. Efke 50 in pyro is just beautiful and gives a look I can't recreate with any others film but the look doesn't work in every situation. For general purpose photography I use products from the big four for printing I prefer the offerings from Fotokemika and Foma to Ilford (never tried Art 300 though )

Thomas as good as the new paper from Fotoimpex are they did in fact have coating and other defects just do a forum search.

Dominik

 

[thomas l]

There are no APX reincarnates, all APX stuff is old original Agfa stuff or it is no APX. This is a simple fact. The Maco/Rollei RPX which was advertised as an APX successor is rebranded Kentmere film - not a new film. This is misleading as there were many many misleading things made by this company, but I hope this time is over now.

And this does not have anything to do with the APX project of Adox. Adox had some problems with their last coating, which was mentioned by Mirko in the Fotoimpex Forum and is waiting for the time, when the old APX stuff is sold.

 

[Bob Carnie]

I have a simple question.. Where is MAS getting his paper made?
It must be coated on a small line and in small batches.
When I talk to people that use his paper it always has good ratings.
I am going to give his product a go.

 

[PKM-25]

It's certainly true that Ilford/Harman use the same line to coat everything from film through to digital inkjet papers (and, as such, they're at the forefront of nano coating technology). But I don't know if what Tom says is true of the Kodak facility - although it wouldn't surprise me if it was true. Perhaps PhotoEngineer could confirm...?

I just gave you the answer up above:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Not only was I there that day, but Scott Sheppard from Inside Analog Photo, Josh Root from Photo.net and Steven Schaub. From Kodak were Scott DiSabato among others in marketing from the Film and Entertainment Group that had never even seen the machine. After for lunch, we met up with Photo Engineer, Robert Shanebrook, etc...

There you go, all set..

 

[Aristophanes]

In today's Toronto Star in the business section, there is a decent article on the pending Kodak bankruptcy and a case study summary about the company. A good read for university students in buainess programs. Not in-depth but, concise enoguh to understand. I suspect Kodak will soon become a mandatory case study for business courses as well as other courses.

Kodak, even before Coca-Cola and certainly McDonald's, Apple, and other pretenders did more to establish the concept of brand and corporate identity. No other company so thoroughly brought forwards its logo and insinuated both the visual and conceptual (Kodak moment) into daily Western life as Kodak. I studied Kodak in school back in the early 1990's on that point alone.

Reading their formal statements from years gone by I can only say that part of Kodak's problem is insiders who think they have the scoop on how the company performed, but they mostly miss the fundamentals because, as much as Kodak invested millions in brand awareness only to see consumers run from the brand and film in general to digital, they also snared their employees in believing in the infallibility of their core product too much. Any insider information as to the financials and market positions is fundamentally biased (apologies to PE whose descriptions of the emulsion and coating process are exemplary).

The raw financials of film demonstrate that no amount of marketing or attempts to compete with digital was going to stop consumers moving away from the medium. Management saw it coming, but lived Q to Q instead sacrificing for the transition to digital, went down some dead ends, and panicked. They did not mismanage the film effort, but the transition to other sources of revenue. Demand collapsed and Kodak could not collapse their financials fast enough to keep up. It's right there on the balance sheets.

Oddly, Fuji could. They developed their own sensors in part licensing Kodak patents. They put out very competitive digital cameras and put out more consumer models per Q than any other company. They even continued film camera production (1 model still) long after Kodak did, but that effort is now almost entirely ended as there is no profit to be made from film cameras. Their diversified optics are still profit-makers in broadcasting. Fuji is an interesting foil to Kodak.

When Kodak goes bankrupt its film biz will be under the most scrutiny to see what residual value there is in a market of collapsed demand. The problem for smaller suppliers is that of shared resources. Kodak (especially the motion picture segment) drove demand across for most of the industry, in part with Fuji. So all inputs of film manufacture from petrochemicals to papers to machine parts and distribution systems all relied to some extent on Kodak's buying power and economy pf scale. When that goes all players, like Ilford, will have their credit ad supply profiles under scrutiny. If Ilford and the Czech companies are running 30+ year-old coating systems and are limited to a B&W market, and they need to re-tool or lock dow long term supply chains, they will have problems. These problems wil increase as film demand continues to decrease due to the aging demographic of purchasers and their knowledge, and, most importantly, the fact that the supply of new cameras (save Lomo and some very high-end esoteric stuff) is now a salvage market. What the Kodak bankruptcy will do is suck the oxygen out of the room. That's the money threat here. The contagion of falling demand may not mean more biz for other players. The cost to capture may be far too high as the money behind it all sees only a very short-term life for emulsion products.

It's nice to hear the Kodak has coating systems that may scale. Will the demand in the market? That's the key question.

 

[thomas l]

than the Ilford equivalents (TMX/TMY/TMZ and Tri-X), and you've got even more.

There are likely a small number of people who might really need the kinds of films "Adox", Efke, "Rollei" etc purport to offer, particularly if they have no access to Ilford or Kodak products, but other than that, I believe most of the people using these films are doing so because they want stuff from the "good old days"

It makes me angry, because you are writing about something, which is not the point. The new made films won't be old school films, so why are you always talking about that? The new films will be new made Agfa APX, like the new papers are new made Agfa MCP and MCC. So why you are always writing bad things about a small company which decided to save analogue photography and takes the risk to start making their own paper and own film as their new business, in a time, where sales are going down. This has nothing to do with efke or other old style films, these films will be new ones, like the paper. And I'm glad that I have these Adox papers, because I really like them. I won't use the new Adox films, because I'm Ilford user, but there are many people who loved Agfa APX and want to have it back. And Agfa APX was not and will not be an old style film.

And I think it is really bad what you are writing bout people who want to take pictures on Agfa APX films!

You do not understand the point I think: Nobody sad that we just need old style films like efke, but companies like Fotokemika and in the future Adox can produce films in small charges and because of that, these companies can survive and Kodak now cannot. Kodaks film production only can survive, if they can change it to small scale production like these small companies in Europe. I hope Kodak can do this and I think that there will be people who want to do it. I really hope it, because I was always using Kodak films when taking colour pictures.

 

[thomas l]

I don't want to dwell on this. Everyone use what they want. But I had to take issue with the post that held these companies up as examples of how things could or should be done when it comes to both the R&D and production of film.

I mentioned the new production of the Agfa APX films and you wrote an answer about efke films and many rebranded films, although there is only one Agfa APX rebranded film in the world (Rollei Retro, which nothing has to do with Adox). I mentioned that you need small scale production like Fotokemika now or Adox in the future, and you answered something about bad experiences with a film, which still isn't in production. You do not like efke films from Croatia and because of that the new APX films from Germany will be bad films. So people may ask if you are know what you are writing about.

Thomas

 

[michaelbsc]

It's nice to hear the Kodak has coating systems that may scale. Will the demand in the market? That's the key question.

Certainly the consumption demand will scale. We have been watching it scale for 25 years. The question is whether the two ratios are close enough to allow production to continue with Kodak's current equipment. I, nor likely does anyone here, know their smallest run sizes. PE probably did when he was employed, but it is probably different now. (And we hope smaller.)

But I think a "commercial" market would exist even at extremely small sizes as a boutique model. Roll film will sell next to riding crops and powder horns.

MB

 

[rhmimac]

(The other part of Agfa, in Belgium, still coats film, but, not, I believe, consumer product).

Oh yes, AGFA Belgium is selling as Rollei film called color neg RCN 640 and CN200 and E6 is called CR200.
I love these films because it's a whole other color pallet compared to the Fuji green high sat look.

 

[rhmimac]

today

I worked on these pretty 5 ones today instead of joining in the bad news thread mill...

 

[edge-t]

I felt sad when I first heard the news. The existence of tri-x, portra, ektar, tmax, hc-110 might be ending. After 2 days of my wife asking if my best pal died, I realised that there's still ilford, fujifilm and a whole slew of small companies that might pop up to take up the slack in the event that kodak goes.

Time to adapt, learn to love another film, chemicals and pray that I didn't just waste money on purchasing another camera and lenses. All I want to do now is burn some film, forget this depressing news.

 

[eclarke]

It's simple..go buy and use up some film. Kodak is going out of business because they are only selling a tiny fraction of the film they used to sell. Also consider that, at peak production, they had the abilty to coat hundreds of millions of square yards of product..divide that up in rolls of 35mm film..it's an astounding number..EC

 

[railwayman3]

Oh yes, AGFA Belgium is selling as Rollei film called color neg RCN 640 and CN200 and E6 is called CR200.
I love these films because it's a whole other color pallet compared to the Fuji green high sat look.

I completely forgot those! (And I made a note to order some only last week, looking forward to seeing the color pallet...)
Are the master rolls of these coated primarilly as an aerial film, or similar, and the packaging for consumer use a separate project by Rollei, or am I totally confused?

 

[thomas l]

I completely forgot those! (And I made a note to order some only last week, looking forward to seeing the color pallet...)
Are the master rolls of these coated primarilly as an aerial film, or similar, and the packaging for consumer use a separate project by Rollei, or am I totally confused?

You are right. Those films are aerial films, which are packed and rebranded by Maco (->Rollei). Maco (Rollei) does not produce own films, they are Agfa Gaevert Aerial films, (except Rollei Retro 100 and 400, which is original Agfa APX and Rollei RPX, which is Harman/Kentmere)

 

[semi-ambivalent]

(Kodak moment).

Open me first!

s-a

 

[Early Riser]

I am not optimistic about Kodak's future but there are a few bright notes for those who care about Kodak still making film.

First with a bankruptcy many of the legacy costs like pension plan and medical coverage for retired employees will disappear. Very sad for those people. But a real advantage for any business.

Second Kodak used to, from what I have been told, have individual buildings and coating lines dedicated to a specific film product. This meant that they were paying for a lot of overhead and required a lot of film sales to justify it. A few years back, Kodak built a new facility with a coating line that can easily change depending on what they need to resupply product wise. They shut down all the other lines, closed or sold the buildings and now produce all their film from one building. This means that they only need to produce a given film when inventories of that film are low. They can switch on the fly from one film to another and make just as much as they need and now have lower required minimums. This new coating line is supposedly more automated and has better quality control. It uses infrared sensors for QA, which is supposedly one of the main reasons why Kodak discontinued it's line of IR films.

Obviously one has to look at the books and see if the new direct costs of film production, overhead and administration/labor costs required just for that, and the revenues still being generated by film sales ultimately generate a net profit. If Kodak can sell the film production facility to a new company, that company would have not have the legacy costs, the overhead costs and would also have a state of the art and super efficient coating facility. They would have the debt though of having bought the division from Kodak. But the again if it's a fire sale they might get a great deal. And even if Kodak after reorganization would decide to keep making film, they would be doing so with all of those same advantages now, and NO DEBT. Any company that has an efficient production line making a top of the line product, no debt, no legacy costs and an existing client base and distribution network has a great advantage in business. But if silver is $50 an ounce, nothing may stop the hemorrhaging.

Bottom line is that you don't need to generate a lot of revenue if you have a very low overhead. And Kodak's overhead is about to get a lot lower.

 

[keithwms]

Ilford will capture most of Kodak's b&w market share; Fuji will capture their colour market share. Both companies will probably eke out more pure profit per unit sold than Kodak ever could. Moreover, both companies have better long-term position to defend and perhaps even expand their market. Regarding demand, that is of course worrisome in some film sectors (cine, e6) but quite solid in others (b&w). And as I mentioned before, there is precedence of companies becoming far more profitable as the number of competitors declines. Yes, we don't like to compare rolls of film to cigarettes, but there you go, the business model is before you.

Not that little ol' me would know anything about business strategy, but, years ago when I heard that polaroid was going under, I bought up a good amount of 8x10 polaroid. When deciding whether to invest in that, the motivating thought was: how much will the last polaroid print be worth? And the correct answer is, of course, priceless. Regardless of whether that last image is a cat's ass or the Queen of England. So I bought... and then sold it a few months later at 3x+ profit, when I saw that the worth of the individual sheets exceeded the price I could set on my own 8x10 polaroid output. I don't like cats and I doubt the Queen would have me over, so why not let someone else shoot the frames.

There is plenty of profit (artistic and financial) available to those who know the core worth of the market, who see through the ups and downs of individual companies, and realize that individual prints made by historic processes are going to become very, very valuable in the coming years. Meditate on these words: as long as the process is to archival spec and the image composition is solid, an inkjet print is worth nothing, nada, nix, nil, nichevo, zip in comparison to a silver print, as a collectible piece of art. (unless somebody really famous personalizes the inkjet, a rare exception)

So, to be blunt: shut up and get busy! Enough talk already. You know damn well what you have to do: make the best use of what is available, invest appropriately... and shoot, shoot, shoot... and print

 

[Photo Engineer]

ER;

Regarding your second paragraph, one must remember that there is a minimum length of film that must be coated and a minimum length of leader to thread the machine! This amounts to over 3 miles of film in one shot. Also there is a minimum operating speed. This means a lot of leader for small runners and a lot of idle time. And, the product they make will spoil. So, they cannot make too much.

I've said before that this is like the produce or meat business. You have to get things just right. Right now, things are not "just right".

The problem is that no one seems to understand this dilemma.

PE

 

[Early Riser]

ER;

Regarding your second paragraph, one must remember that there is a minimum length of film that must be coated and a minimum length of leader to thread the machine! This amounts to over 3 miles of film in one shot. Also there is a minimum operating speed. This means a lot of leader for small runners and a lot of idle time. And, the product they make will spoil. So, they cannot make too much.

I've said before that this is like the produce or meat business. You have to get things just right. Right now, things are not "just right".

The problem is that no one seems to understand this dilemma.

PE

Ron are you referring to the old coating lines or the new line? The information that I posted I got from someone who was given a special tour of the new facility about a year or two ago and was briefed by Kodak personnel. The whole point of the new line was to reduce the quantities required to run an emulsion and to enable easy switching from one kind of film to another on the same line.

 

[Photo Engineer]

There is one coating machine that coats everything now. It has a minimum speed and minimum threading length. These are absolute figures and cannot be changed. Therefore, the entire worlds supply of Kodachrome could have been coated in about 15 minutes near the end of its life. Of course it took months to prepare everything and bring them together that day at the head of the coating machine. But, there are gaps in coating that have reduced the EK coating to nearly the lower limit of sustainability. That is the problem. One whole building was mothballed at the end of May 2011.

Two years is a long time when product demand is going down 30% per year!

PE

 

[Early Riser]

There is one coating machine that coats everything now. It has a minimum speed and minimum threading length. These are absolute figures and cannot be changed. Therefore, the entire worlds supply of Kodachrome could have been coated in about 15 minutes near the end of its life. Of course it took months to prepare everything and bring them together that day at the head of the coating machine. But, there are gaps in coating that have reduced the EK coating to nearly the lower limit of sustainability. That is the problem. One whole building was mothballed at the end of May 2011.

Two years is a long time when product demand is going down 30% per year!

PE

Ron when it com to the inside outs of kodak and film I defer to your expertise. The info I got was from a very reliable guy though so it makes me wonder if the the Kodak rep he was speaking with might have spun the upside a bit. Nevertheless, with the potential for a far lower overhead for Kodak post bankruptcy they might have some chance of going forward, I just hope silver prices go lower....

 

[Photo Engineer]

The Kodak person would not have talked about threading length or coating speeds among other things so he need not lie or even dissemble to your friend. He may just have omitted information that was not relevant to the tour.

If a hypothentical machine coats 1 kilometer of film, and if the threading length is 1 Km and the coating speed is 100 m/min, then the machine coats 1 Km in 10 minutes, right? You must have 1 km of leader in the machine to thread it and 1 km of leader on a roll to rethread the machine after you make your run. So you use 3 Km of film for this 10 minute run. Two Km are reusable as leader, but must be considered in your inventory as used.

In another room are dozens of people who have prepped the melts and monitor them during coating. There are about 20 or so for a color product. Behind them are the dozens who made the melts and emulsions and delivered them to the coating room.

Once done, what do they do? Go home or go to the next product. Kodak was once on a 24/7/365 work schedule, but then reduced to 24/5/365 and then to 8/5/200 etc...... You see the decline? I doubt if ANY of this was discussed in that tour or if it was, I doubt if anyone really understood the significance.

PE

 

[eclarke]

The Kodak person would not have talked about threading length or coating speeds among other things so he need not lie or even dissemble to your friend. He may just have omitted information that was not relevant to the tour.

If a hypothentical machine coats 1 kilometer of film, and if the threading length is 1 Km and the coating speed is 100 m/min, then the machine coats 1 Km in 10 minutes, right? You must have 1 km of leader in the machine to thread it and 1 km of leader on a roll to rethread the machine after you make your run. So you use 3 Km of film for this 10 minute run. Two Km are reusable as leader, but must be considered in your inventory as used.

In another room are dozens of people who have prepped the melts and monitor them during coating. There are about 20 or so for a color product. Behind them are the dozens who made the melts and emulsions and delivered them to the coating room.

Once done, what do they do? Go home or go to the next product. Kodak was once on a 24/7/365 work schedule, but then reduced to 24/5/365 and then to 8/5/200 etc...... You see the decline? I doubt if ANY of this was discussed in that tour or if it was, I doubt if anyone really understood the significance.

PE

My brother in law was in QC at agfa/ansco/gaf for decades, they had small output compared to Kodak..nobody understands the immense ouptput capabilities...

 

[Aristophanes]

The Kodak person would not have talked about threading length or coating speeds among other things so he need not lie or even dissemble to your friend. He may just have omitted information that was not relevant to the tour.

If a hypothentical machine coats 1 kilometer of film, and if the threading length is 1 Km and the coating speed is 100 m/min, then the machine coats 1 Km in 10 minutes, right? You must have 1 km of leader in the machine to thread it and 1 km of leader on a roll to rethread the machine after you make your run. So you use 3 Km of film for this 10 minute run. Two Km are reusable as leader, but must be considered in your inventory as used.

In another room are dozens of people who have prepped the melts and monitor them during coating. There are about 20 or so for a color product. Behind them are the dozens who made the melts and emulsions and delivered them to the coating room.

Once done, what do they do? Go home or go to the next product. Kodak was once on a 24/7/365 work schedule, but then reduced to 24/5/365 and then to 8/5/200 etc...... You see the decline? I doubt if ANY of this was discussed in that tour or if it was, I doubt if anyone really understood the significance.

PE

Thanks PE. I think many do understand that film coating is a very large scale industrial effort over both volume and time to be done with effective QC and economy.

Industrial production on this scale will require a similar ratio of consumption and processing applying both to B&W and colour. Darkroom hobbyists make up maybe 1% of what is necessary to support a broader market. Only outsourced labs can make up the difference.. This applies to all suppliers. Fujifilm is in the exact same dilemma as Kodak, save Fujifilm did not mismanage their transition to alternative revenue sources.