I thought it might be useful to make some statement of the problems facing analog film producers in general.
Let us take a hypothetical film that is made once a year in a 5000 ft roll, and that roll will supply the entire world demand for 1 year. Let us assume it keeps on our shelf for 2 years to give the film a reasonable lifetime when it gets into customer hands.
Year 1, we sell a whole roll and so year 2 we make another roll. At the end of year 2, we find we have 1/2 roll left, but what the heck it lasts for 2 years and so we do not coat. Instead we schedule a full roll for year 3.
Year 3 arrives and we find that due to a decline we have 1/4 roll left and it is now bad. So, we have discovered that it takes 3 years or more to sell something that used to move in 1 year, and which goes bad in 2 years.
What do we do?
Well, this is the question now faced by Kodak with 2 major products, namely HIE and Kodachrome. They cannot sell a full production run in the time it takes for the stored raw film to go bad and so the remainder is scrap and must be destroyed. Production costs are greater than profits on this type of operation and therefore the product must be cancelled. There is no other choice.
Of course there are a lot more factors that go into this, but here is a simple case for you to understand, and remember that Ilford also makes film in 5000 ft rolls (approx) and at about the same width and are therefore faced with the same analogy. Analog products spoil on the shelf and in the cold store.
If you work backwards from this too, lets look at the IR sensitizing dye which is very expensive. It also spoils and so as demand goes down, the remaining dye which is not used for production goes bad and the same is true of the raw emulsions in storage, the Kodachrome chemistry on the shelves waiting to go to Dwaynes and etc. It is like our ecology and we are seeing a major cool spell which is killing things off.
This is not meant as doom and gloom, but it is Darwinism at work in a sense in that the fittest will survive.
To give an analogy, Digital can replace reversal films and IR films more easily than negative, motion picture and etc, and so it is hurting most in those areas where it can compete.
I hope this helps explain what is going on behind the scenes a bit.
PE
Let us take a hypothetical film that is made once a year in a 5000 ft roll, and that roll will supply the entire world demand for 1 year. Let us assume it keeps on our shelf for 2 years to give the film a reasonable lifetime when it gets into customer hands.
Year 1, we sell a whole roll and so year 2 we make another roll. At the end of year 2, we find we have 1/2 roll left, but what the heck it lasts for 2 years and so we do not coat. Instead we schedule a full roll for year 3.
Year 3 arrives and we find that due to a decline we have 1/4 roll left and it is now bad. So, we have discovered that it takes 3 years or more to sell something that used to move in 1 year, and which goes bad in 2 years.
What do we do?
Well, this is the question now faced by Kodak with 2 major products, namely HIE and Kodachrome. They cannot sell a full production run in the time it takes for the stored raw film to go bad and so the remainder is scrap and must be destroyed. Production costs are greater than profits on this type of operation and therefore the product must be cancelled. There is no other choice.
Of course there are a lot more factors that go into this, but here is a simple case for you to understand, and remember that Ilford also makes film in 5000 ft rolls (approx) and at about the same width and are therefore faced with the same analogy. Analog products spoil on the shelf and in the cold store.
If you work backwards from this too, lets look at the IR sensitizing dye which is very expensive. It also spoils and so as demand goes down, the remaining dye which is not used for production goes bad and the same is true of the raw emulsions in storage, the Kodachrome chemistry on the shelves waiting to go to Dwaynes and etc. It is like our ecology and we are seeing a major cool spell which is killing things off.
This is not meant as doom and gloom, but it is Darwinism at work in a sense in that the fittest will survive.
To give an analogy, Digital can replace reversal films and IR films more easily than negative, motion picture and etc, and so it is hurting most in those areas where it can compete.
I hope this helps explain what is going on behind the scenes a bit.
PE