The facts of film production

[dslater]

But that's my point; I don't want to use it. I'm lucky enough to be young enough to have no nostalgia\ for it, in which case there seems to be precious little reason for me to go out and buy an expensive film, which can only be processed slowly by one (apparently unreliable) lab in the world, which uses environmentally hideous chemicals, which is a pain to scan, and for which there are readily available (E6) and in many ways better alternatives.

It seems to me Kodachrome has been moribund for years - it isn't dead because of 'digital' or some other bogeyman, it's dead because it was replaced with film (E6 and its predecessors) which most of the market considered to be a superior product (taking 'superior' to mean, 'on the balance of a variety of practical and aesthetic considerations.')


Tell me again why I should spend $50 propping up this particular dead horse so other people can flog it, when I could spend the same $50 on TMax or Ektachrome. Proving there is a viable market for those products by buying them is more important to me than trying to 'prove' there is a viable market for Kodachrome when there clearly isn't. I'm afraid my wallet is a zero-sum game - money I spend on Kodachrome is money I'm not spending on something else which I'd be far more inconvenienced by the loss of.

Tim,
I think that people who love and use Kodachrome do so not because of nostalgia, but because Kodachrome has it's own particular look that they really like. As to whether or not the E-6 alternatives are better - I think that depends on who you ask. While it is true that there are great highly saturated E-6 films out there, I think they tend to be cooler that Kodachrome and exaggerate greens and blues more than reds. I think you will find that someone who really likes Kodachrome will tell you about how wonderful the reds are in it.
You're not into it and that's fine - I'm not trying to convince you to use it - just trying to shed some light on why other people like it so much.

Dan

 

[keithwms]

I doubt this logic of buying more film to spur on more production will make any difference at all, given the way Kodak works. As Ron explained, the production feedback loop is slow. If we all go out and buy HIE or whatever, we would at best influence next year's production cycle, but meanwhile the production will be halted because last year's demand was so much lower... and the cost of restoring production must be quite awful.

Not to berate Kodak (which is easy), but they could have anticipated the decline in demand a few years ago- their dcs pro cameras were part of the reason why film professionals considered digital in the first place. They could have sought a way to scale down to minibatches (perhaps by outsourcing). They could have realized is that the most vulnerable film sectors, with respect to digital competition, are 35mm slide and IR....

But they didn't and that's that. Time to try other films.

 

[waynecrider]

I wonder if Kodak's recent film rebate offer that is running is an attempt to clear out stock before it goes bad? Like the supermarket that has sales on short dated products.

 

[tim_walls]

I think you will find that someone who really likes Kodachrome will tell you about how wonderful the reds are in it.

Of that I have no doubt

You're not into it and that's fine - I'm not trying to convince you to use it - just trying to shed some light on why other people like it so much.

Oh absolutely, I have no argument whatsoever that it has a following, and the people who like it do so for perfectly good reasons. What I was responding to - and somewhat object to - was this:

Everyone, buy $50 worth of Kodachrome RIGHT NOW.

Not next week, not next month, NOW.

It doesn't matter if you don't normally use it. JUST DO IT.

Partly because I object to being told what to do, but mainly because it makes no sense. Kodachrome is dead, it's just not quite buried yet - that much became pretty obvious when it was reduced to only Dwayne's being able to process the stuff; that relegated it to niche status, and it's been pretty clearly demonstrated that Kodak just isn't able to cost effectively produce 'niche' products. So with that given, it just makes no sense for anyone who cares about film photography to go out of their way flogging a dead horse to try and save Kodachrome. Better to take those resources (i.e. the $50) and spend then trying to save products which may actually have a future, e.g. Ektachrome, TMax, whatever.

IMHO of course

 

[dslater]

Of that I have no doubt

Oh absolutely, I have no argument whatsoever that it has a following, and the people who like it do so for perfectly good reasons. What I was responding to - and somewhat object to - was this:
Partly because I object to being told what to do, but mainly because it makes no sense. Kodachrome is dead, it's just not quite buried yet - that much became pretty obvious when it was reduced to only Dwayne's being able to process the stuff; that relegated it to niche status, and it's been pretty clearly demonstrated that Kodak just isn't able to cost effectively produce 'niche' products. So with that given, it just makes no sense for anyone who cares about film photography to go out of their way flogging a dead horse to try and save Kodachrome. Better to take those resources (i.e. the $50) and spend then trying to save products which may actually have a future, e.g. Ektachrome, TMax, whatever.

IMHO of course

I agree - buying $50.00 of Kodachrome to try an create a market is silly. On the other hand, if you're into it, I'd say buy and freeze as much of it as you can afford 'cause it's going to disappear soon.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Hi Ron,
Thanks for the explanation - that makes sense to me. One thing that just occurred to me is this - why does Kodak still produce Professional films like Portra? Surely the demand for Portra is much less than for the consumer films like Gold and Ultra-Max. On that note, how do the Kodak consumer films compare to the professional films?

Dan

Portra film sales are robust! Gold films in single use cameras is robust. Professionals are still using film. See elsewhere on APUG for comments, and Kodak's web site for information.

The two films differ in that the professional film has a contrast of about 0.6 and more natural colors (of course NC, VC and UC up the ante somewhat with color). Gold has more color, similar to the UC and also a contrast of about 0.7 to compensate for the flare of cheaper amateur lenses.

PE

 

[sun of sand]

How much for the "now bad" film?

 

[sun of sand]

Dan;

There is the problem of the volume of the tanks feeding the machine, the amount of emulsion that must be made in the first place, so a lot of things factor into it. However, you are right and many products are made on the 21 machine (21" wide) at slower speeds. So they have been scaled down.

But here is the catch 22. Having lost 90 of the business (all analog companies share in this), where will the money come from to pay for the engineering to scale a batch of emulsion down from 1000 L to 100 L or to 10 L? Remember, the emulsion has a keeping problem along with the rest of the chemistry. So, EK has to make the optimum quantity to match production with a minimum of waste.

If you have an orchard with 1000 bushels of apples as yield / year, then if you only have customers buying 100 bushels / year, it is harder to adjust than if it is beans or corn. You can replant those, but trees take years to grow. Well, it took years to 'grow' this production facility and it will cost money and take years to shrink it down, but there is no money. They need the money as profit to invest in shrinking, product improvement, and digital. All three of these are taking up the resources.

We see new products coming out the door, and slow moving items are vanishing from the market. The strategy is there, and it is virtually their only option left. And while doing this, the quality has to equal the quality you have grown to expect from Kodak.

PE

Kodak film and paper is quality. Kodak digital cameras and printers for us Wal-Mart shoppers? I don't see that really happening. Film is relatively cheap at a few dollars a roll and a few for processing and a few more dollars for the next roll ..and it was the best available.
A P&S/prosumer digital camera is a couple/few hundred. That's it from that consumer for years.
When did Kodak last make great lenses and cameras? Rochester used to be big in that market ..even when just branding other factories products with their name. Could have been bigger, I suppose. What happened? More globalization? Europe got back on its feet? Didn't want to compete with Zeiss and Leitz whomever else ..an area which they were showing promise. Or perhaps they found being great too costly in that nobody could really afford the best they tried so hard to create.
They went another way, I assume ..film (especially color) and paper, I guess. Stay away from the big boys and find a huge market in something else related. Enlarging of film was probably just then beginning to crawl into homes -1940's or so
It worked! .. till 2000.
Perhaps if they had stayed in the camera/lens game -in some part- they would now have been in a different spot. Instead, Kodak probably turned huge profit into debt sucking up other companies that no longer help them much

Now it's digi's and printers and much more important to them now -I would think- is the medical imaging technology.

Medical imaging is one thing. For all this other digital stuff aren't they going up against those they would have "backed down from" in the past ..when they made good and/or profitable decisions. Why not make the best technology that these digital camera manufacturers need. New sensors and junk. They are, I'm sure ..but in Asia or Mexico or India somewhere. Kodak isn't American anymore/anywhere near as much ..no pride there.

Makes more sense to me to remain the best at something instead of trying to become the best at something they really have not done -concerning cameras and whatnot. Digital Brownie Revolution? I guess! Lots of halfway decent P&S cameras to flood superstores near you. Where is that twin lens deal ..I don't see jim and becky carrying those around here. That B&W digital was interesting. Where are all those? What happened to that whole idea? Kodak printers for the household office? When I think of computer-related stuff I don't think Kodak. Ever.
I don't have any expectations for their digital etc and that's obviously the problem. I could try em out/give em a chance ...but why?

I see a huge company with an ego right now. Were the best and now they're eating dust
So
You compete with the big boys and get slapped around till you're bloody and have nothing to show for it just hoping that eventually you grow some muscle or pull a rabbit out.
Why not keep paper/film/etc going only smaller scale and work towards new advances -totally new ideas- rather than just try to float along
Kodak missed the boat with digitals. I figure they have a decade of catching up to do -at least in name recognition


Digital IR is going to win. I don't think that HIE film is or was going to make it, anyway. It looked nice, though.





I know nothing about Kodak, though. Who cares. That's the world. Companies die and new ones thrive. Tough times right now but

Digital is gonna be 90% of the market in twenty years, anyway.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Import duty on most products into Australia is between 1 & 2.5%, remember this rate is calculated on the importing price, which can be quite low.

The GST in Australia on all consumable goods like photographic equipment, is 10%.

The GST on a $10 roll of film is $0.909 quite reasonable compared to most countries I know of.

Photographic products in this country are very high compared to Nth America and even Europe. One of the reasons Aldi makes a killing selling their Nth American sourced Kodak consumer film for close to half the price of other places.

Prior to GST being introduced in this country, photographic goods were taxed at the luxury rate which was 32.5% on the wholesale rate, it was rorted by many, many people.

Mick.

 

[kraker]

Isn't SFX a repurposed traffic surveillance film? That could account for their ability to produce it despite a small market.

It may have its origins in the area of traffic surveillance, true. But it is not used as such, it's a separate product.

More importantly: even if it were repurposed traffic surveillance film, that certainly wouldn't guarantee availability: Traffic surveillance is rapildy switching to digital. (Maybe that's just a local thing, though. I know that it is happening in the Netherlands...)

 

[Simon R Galley]

Dear All,

An interesting thread, we at HARMAN technology are lucky, we have one of the few coating machines in the World that can move from coating paper to film to inkjet, if neccesary in the same day, it is very big ( 60" wide) and 300 metres long. It can do this becuase we have invested in it.

To control inventory and quality we must certainly coat each of our films many times per year ( except SFX ).

PE gives the crucial comment, its not really about coating, we can coat pretty small runs by m2, its about emulsion making, we have an incredibly sophisticated highly automatic plant which produces super high quality and consistent emulsions and the volumes to make each batch are the crucial factor, again we are lucky is that it was designed for flexible volumes, not huge batches such as were used by bigger colour coating machines. On the APUG tour last June we showed our visitors it, it remains state of the art.

Yes we could make smaller quantities still, but on plant that is not as efficient or automatic as the big EP2 machine, we also have smaller ( pilot ) coating machines but these are for R&D and product testing they are not production coating machines.

Certainly all photo producers face challenges, we are no exception, but we are totally committed to silver halide, and for that we have the equipment and the clever people who continue to ensure we are a flexible, super high quality coater with the ability to adapt and embrace the future of silver based photography.

We will arrange another factory tour next year ( our third ) probably in June and all Apuggers are welcome to see how a photo factory works.

Simon. ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited

 

[Ole]

A thought just struck me (slightly off topic, but...)

Does the Harman/Kentmere merger/aquisition give Harman access to a smaller coating line for papers? And the opposite - so that the faster sellers can be coated on the main line, and other "specials" on the (presumably) smaller Kentmere line?

 

[Steve Smith]

Having been on the last Ilford factory tour I have to say that I was not prepared for the scale of the large coating machine. I am no stranger to industrial machinery and I work in an industry which puts coatings onto polyester, in our case by screen printing.

Their pilot machine was similar in size to something which I would consider a production machine so I can understand the challenges involved in keeping such a large machine running profitably and efficiently. This must be even more complex for Kodak (and probably Fuji) who, I assume, have many similar machines.


Steve.

 

[eclarke]

The important issue Ron has addressed is that NOBODY is going to spend money and engineering to sell less product. Moreover, NOBODY in corporate America is going to be linked to such a notion as they try to climb the company ladder. The corporate leadership at Kodak seems to have a philosophical desire to leave film and embrace digital...EC

 

[haris]

Huh...

So, I am CEO with sallary of 10.000.000 or manager with 1.000.000 per year drive 100.000 car, have small private jet, 15 meters yacht, and whining how manufacturing of this or that is not viable. Well, reduce sallary from 10.000.000 to 1.000.000, from 1.000.000 to 100.000 and transfer that money difference to production. Do not touch "ordinary workers" sallaries. I think there will be some room to continue to manufacturing some stuff...

I am sick and tired of people who force people to work 15 hours per day, whining how difficult is to run their businesses and at same time drive 100.000 EURO mercedeses...

 

[Photo Engineer]

Kodak has fully automated equipment for emulsion production from 1000 L down to 10 L. They have coating machines that can coat from 1 - 14 layers in one pass at from 100 ft/min --> whatever ! The machines range from 5" wide to 42" wide at Kodak Park and wider at Colorado where color paper is coated at about 70".

The machines range from single car garage size to multistory block long building sizes. If you drive down Ridge Road in Rochester going east and turn left at Lake Avenue, the long brick building on the left is one huge machine inside for coating.

Kodak coats film and paper on the same machine, but they also have specialty machines for each of these product lines.

The problem is that some of the nitch products fell off the low end of the scale. Kodak cannot make them in small enough quantity even with the 10 L machine and with the smallest coating machine. Remember that if a product sells as 10 x 20 in rolls, that cannot be coated on the 5" machine! It must be coated on the 11" or 21" machine, and the emulsion must be made at the scale that will fill the smallest container on that machine.

So, Kodak has been dropping nitch products that either cannot be fit into any small size setup, or that is outright not selling!

Simon understands this, and I'm sure he is familar with this problem. Kodak has been catering to a lot of very small scale industrial and personal needs. This just won't work anymore.

Kodak is now a $2B business down from $20B. If they were not into digital they would be a $1B business. Kodak is an imaging company. Many of the digital sensors made today use Kodak technology and most of the OLED technology came from Kodak. So, even though you might not see their name on the label, it is inside. Maybe they should sponsor a "Kodak inside" label.

On the other side of the issue, cameras, Kodak made the best cameras in the world, but no one could afford them. That was due to the cost of US labor. But, Kodak cameras were on the moon first! There is one in the photo of our first lunar astronauts sitting on the surface of the moon. They had high quality and wonderful lenses especially for space imaging. Kodak helped design the Hubble Telescope (but had nothing to do with the error).

But, people preferred to buy from Japan and China, so Kodak lost a huge share of the camera business overseas and finally had to subcontract themselves. Interestingly enough, the high-tech film making has not yet been mastered fully in China and has not been undertaken much beyond Japan.

So, just as GM declared a multibillion dollar loss this year due to Japanese influences, Kodak has had declines in the camera business due to general overseas influences. The Kodak professional cameras were priced beyond the budget of anyone but governments.

PE

 

[alanrockwood]

PE, I remember reading, many years ago, that the American camera/optical business excelled in two areas, 1) ultrahigh end very specialized instruments, and 2) cheap low end mass produced cameras. I think this is pretty much consistent with what you wrote about Kodak on the moon.

However, as to Kodak consumer cameras, as far as I am aware it has been many decades since Kodak attempted to make a high quality consumer camera, and even in those cases most of them were acquired products (e.g. the Retina line of high quality 35mm cameras) made in Germany. However, I think the Signet 35 may have been made in the USA.

They also made some good large format lenses, but I think it has also been decades since they were in that business as well.

 

[Photo Engineer]

The relatively high quality (for a consumer plastic lens that is) of the stamped plastic lens used in disposable cameras was an invention made here in Rochester by EK and the orignal cameras were made here until labor costs and taxes drove production to be outsourced.

Kodak still makes many of the OLEDs and sensors here in the labs on Lake avenue. One of the first digital cameras was made here years before the Japanese efforts and the first color digital prints were coming off the line in the 70s in early tests.

PE

 

[dyetransfer]

Melinex 582 now available.

A bit off topic, but I wanted to get the news out there. Photographer's Formulary is now selling cut sheets of Melinex 582 0.007" film stock with subbing layer. This is from a roll that I sold them, the same film stock I used to develop my matrix film. Should be great for coating any gelatin emulsion, it has a subbing layer with great adheasion on one side, and an antistatic coating on the other side. This is the last remaining stock of a film suitable for coating matrix film as the subbing layer will not pickup the dye. Get it while it lasts! Regards - Jim Browning

 

[jgjbowen]

While I understand the economics associated with keeping a product "continually on the shelves"..... It wouldn't seem to be such a nightmare to produce a product, such as those currently being discontinued, on a less frequent basis. What I have in mind is something like the TMY ULF special orders. Every few years, Kodak could announce that if enough demand exists, a special run of some product would be produced. Obviously, if enough demand doesn't exist they don't do the run and perhaps offer it again a few years later.

Lord only knows the Azo users of the world would love to be able to participate in a special order like this every few years. Being without a favorite product for a period of time certainly beats kissing it goodbye for ever.

 

[Photo Engineer]

John;

That would be great and Kodak is doing the special offers of ULF films from what I understand, but the others are not so simple. TMY is being made right now, and all they have to do is cut it differently and then box it. Even then the computers have to be reprogrammed to map out the optimum fit of the sizes to the coated master roll.

But for something like Azo or other products, while it is not being produced in some cases the building and crew sit idle. They have to pay taxes on the equipment and salaries for all involved. This would have been the case for all of the FB papers, as they make too much of a mess to easily coat along with film, so the FB papers were coated in their own building that could be shut down and cleaned. This was particularly true of Dye Transfer paper which contained Thorium.

So, while I agree in some ways with what you say, it isn't practical. It is like asking GM to make one dozen Vega's every time a dozen customers show up. They have to keep the tooling, the oddball plastic and metal parts such as the aluminum casting for the engine and etc. Not easy to do especially on a once a decade basis.

Also, imagine that the Vega's spoil on the lot before sale if not sold ASAP. And that the line can't move until it is entirely filled. This is almost the case with coating. Remember, a one mile track has to be filled with leader and then flushed of coating and refilled with leader or the system is really messed up.

Even coating on a shorter machine, the leader must be left in the machine all of the time. Ask anyone who uses a roller transport what happens if the leader breaks. Not fun.

PE

 

[sun of sand]

As for Azo
I hear it lasts an incredibly long time
Perhaps 40 years with decent results?

Why cant Kodak just make one last Huge run on products that last forever while they still have the knowledge and materials to produce it? I know that takes storage space and money to to keep storage cool but Kodak ain't poor. I'm sure Kodak has the ability to cut deals, too. Rochester has enough abandoned buildings. Kodak has polluted enough to give something to the people and yeah yeah they don't necessarily owe those that gain from thier polluting and they do a lot as it is, I'm sure
But c'mon. Kodak losing sleep over a building to store goods? I'm sure it wouldn't be that huge of a hit to a company that buys other companies. I don't know. Kodak seems to be losing the confidence of their once loyal customers and that means they'll have to win over the respect of an entirely new generation and while perhaps that's OK as those that remember these special products are nearing their own death those they help raise may not be kept hidden from the "What Kodak did" ..and Kodak ain't no American Company in the same sense it used to be when these products were first coming out
Who has great pride in Kodak these days? These generations are not that loyal, anyway.

I would think Kodak needs to be making a mark pretty soon with GREAT products or else it may be a -really- tough 10-15 during this switch
But then again
Kodak ain't poor and will almost definately be able to weather any storm





But I don't really care.

What I care about more than anything is their pulling out of the Olympics and staying with Nascar. The Olympics sponsorship was the coolest thing they had going
Kodak is too dorky
They kept Nascar ..which has never been a great source of pride that I know of in the minds of locals
Then again, Generation of the Dork. It would make sense only now.

I'm not sure Dorks and Nerds buy the point&shoots. That's grandmas and grandkids, aint it? Dorks buy the nerdiest things ..the most technological ..the best/better product, usually. Coolness can sell lesser quality and that seems to be the market they're after.
Then again, Baby Boomers.
Then again, these grandmas are not the grandmas of homemade cookies, weekend visits and special times


I hope I don't kill another thread

 

[gr82bart]

I'm glad Ron posted this. Since my entire career has been in manufacturing and R&D operations, I find it common the surprise the general public has when I describe to them a typical manufacturing process for drug. The size and complexity astounds people - not to mention the cost of the equipment and the facility to house them. Then there is the operational end to ensure the environment is clean and efficiently run.

What does this have to do with film production?

I've seen our dissolvable cellulose film manufacturing lines (otherwise known as strip packs), so I understand scale up issues. In Kodak's case, the scale down issues. People think you can just have a 'smaller' line. Most don't understand that the facility and equipment that makes half the quantity of product doesn't cost half the cost. And the cost of operations is not half either.

This doesn't take into account the cost of the equipment and facilities that's already there - which may have to be decommissioned and taken out before any new equipment can be put in their place. And the equipment like this takes about a year plus to specify, construct, deliver, install, commission and turnover. Also, large scale manufacturing has to 'scaled up' from R&D equipment. Making a 10g of a drug is different than making 1kg is different then making 100kg or 1000kg. Just as I am sure making, oh I don't know, 1m or film is different than making 100m of film or 1 km of film. The scale up process is complex and the product needs to be tested along the way.

Let's talk testing a bit. I put in a couple tablet manufacturing lines from the making of the tablet to its packaging. The cost of testing - raw materials from actives, excipients, packing materials, the cost of labour, cost of QC tests, the cost of creating new test methods for the new product and new materials being used, shipping and permits to ship raw ingredients (even placebo ingredients) under strict controls to a non-drug OEM company and then to ship the resulting 'finished' product back for destruction, then to do it all again once the entire line is assembled in the manufacturing facility, testing of the air quality of the room, testing the air handling equipment for HEPA or greater quality performance, testing for air rate changes, testing for safety standards - many times the primary ingredients are hazardous, testing security controls, training the people running the equipment, etc.... The cost of testing, or as I like to remind people, the cost of getting it right the first time, was about 70% of the cost of the project. And these projects are in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.

These are 'just' manufacturing projects too. I haven't even touched the R&D side of things or even the distribution side either.

Anyway, my point, I think, like Ron's thread, is to educate folks on the costs and logistics of manufacturing operations. Yes there is a lot of very well paid, talented people in Kodak, that ARE trying to find the best way to solve the problem of scale down. It can't be done in a day or a month or a year. This will take several years to get right.

Regards, Art.

 

[Scott Peters]

Ok, and the short answer is for any 'smart' businesss owner....price your product to reflect TRUE cost, including spoilage (among other things including overhead, etc)...and yes in a declining market this can be somewhat of a moving target..

Now, if the market will not bear the cost increases...well, your done.

I financed several acquisitions of rapidly declining market businesses that were bought on the cheap, scaled down (read - dead weight overhead) and turned into cash cows in a declining industry/market. Sounds like the AGFA plant overseas...not sure if this is possible with Kodak...

But, a billion dollars in film sales is still a market...

 

[Photo Engineer]

Art;

Thanks, you have expressed it well. Also, it is well to remember that other companies such as Fuji and Agfa did not have to invest a penny in developing the processes for B&W and color films and papers. They rode along on Kodak's R&D. It is no wonder that these products can be sold at a lower price than those from Kodak.

As for 'son of sam', the argument is specious. Lets say Kodak made one huge run of something that lasted forever (not true, that lasting forever thing but anyhow...). Well, it turns out that the taxes on the storage room would cost as much or more over the sales life of the product, as the income from the product and so the company would lose money.

In effect, the building has taxes, heating, cooling, maintenance staff and etc.

So, armchair analysts unite. If this is all so simple just get together and start making it in your basement like I am. If 'sam' is right yer gonna make a fortune.

So far, I'm losing my shirt personally! For me to make a sheet of 8x10 Azo paper and sell it (made entirely by hand) it would cost about $5 - $10 / sheet. No one wants to pay that! But, I never intended to sell it anyhow, I intended to pass the knowledge on, as I knew how hard it would be to keep making some of the nitch products.

This thread is intended, as Art says, to alert you to those difficulties and to also make sure that you know that all companies making analog products face the same problems.

PE