If we give them enough money now, they'll cancel the price increase!
thoughts on the announced Kodak film price increase?
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If we give them enough money now, they'll cancel the price increase!
… and maybe hire some staff that don’t wear red noses and big shoes!
Tri-X at Freestyle is out of stock now. I think you can find it at other places...
I remembered that I have 200 feet of hp5....
why does this group go so far off Track. Eastman Kodak went bankrupt! they got out of their pension obligations for most of their staff, BUT they were not able to get out of the Liability to the Staff of Kodak Limited. in the UK. to cover this off, they formed Alaris which was given the consumer photo business, and a few other businesses. that manly amounts to the rights to sell Film and paper under the Kodak Name. Alaris did not exist before the Kodak Bankruptcy. Alaris does have a deal whereby Eastman Kodak will make film for them to order. the right is nonexclusive so alaris could chose another supplier. for example they have had some paper made fro them at a former Kodak Plant in Colarado now owned by Carestream, another Kodak spinooff.
subsequently the pension Board in the UK found that the pensions are still underfunded, and so alaris has been selling off some business and real estate. that is where SinoPromise comes in. And yes the management of Alaris is mostly financial people, they are trying to generate enough money to cover the Kodak Limited pensions.
MattKing
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Actually, the pension funds were moderately well funded, and certainly none of the Kodak Canada pensioners were shortchanged prior to my Dad passing away.
The shortfall relates to the more distant obligations to younger employees, plus the historically funded health benefits.
The settlement involved the Kodak Limited pension fund paying to the trustee in Bankruptcy $600,000,000.00 (IIRC) and a release of the super-priority enjoyed by the pension administrators over the substantial assets of Kodak Ld., including the Harrow production facility and the land on which it sat, n return for:
1) several of the remaining Kodak businesses, including still film, photo-chemistry, colour photo paper and an office scanning system. Eastman Kodak remained as the manufacturer for the still film. Kodak Alaris was initially the manufacturer for the paper;
2) interests in all the remaining international Kodak facilities, outside of Rochester. Most of those interests were probably leasehold interests;
3) the marketing and distribution infrastructure that was spread around the world for all the photographic businesses, save the motion picture film business. Most importantly that included a majority of the Eastman Kodak employees who worked in the still photography business.
By the way, it is Eastman Kodak that has the B2B printing business - their main business actually - not Kodak Alaris.
The history of Alaris and Eastman Kodak is swell and all, but it has very little to do with whether or not they (whichever one it is) price themselves out of competition.
They could be selling film to fund the breeding of gold-excreting cows, for all that matters.
And if one makes the film and the other sells it, it looks like none will be making film and none will be selling it if no one is going to buy it. Instead of just trying to get more for the film, they should maybe try to sell more of the film. Ilford is constantly trying to do just that by offering and promoting products that make film developing easy for people (as an example). Kodak just reduces the product line. Or, better yet, offers a new product, Ektachrome, which is inscrutably obtuse, since most facility for developing it has evaporated and they (Kodak Alaris) offer no service to do it. A slide film for a world with no slide mounts and no slide projectors.
They could be selling film to fund the breeding of gold-excreting cows, for all that matters.
And if one makes the film and the other sells it, it looks like none will be making film and none will be selling it if no one is going to buy it. Instead of just trying to get more for the film, they should maybe try to sell more of the film. Ilford is constantly trying to do just that by offering and promoting products that make film developing easy for people (as an example). Kodak just reduces the product line. Or, better yet, offers a new product, Ektachrome, which is inscrutably obtuse, since most facility for developing it has evaporated and they (Kodak Alaris) offer no service to do it. A slide film for a world with no slide mounts and no slide projectors.
Says the man whose glass is clearly 99/100ths empty. Geez. Do you actually LIKE making photographs??
TMY and TMX are both spectacularly good films. I can buy 120 TMY for $8.50 a roll from Blue Moon camera, compared to $8.75 for a roll of Delta 400. (On B&H its $9.00 vs $8.66) So, bash Kodak all you like, but it appears to me that many Kodak films are in line with Ilford's equivalent products. In some cases they are slightly cheaper. So WTF is the problem here? Is it like Sirius says: just a bunch of Kodak haters spouting off??
I'm happy that Kodak films still exist. Thanks to the pandemic, both my partner and I are without meaningful income. (I make about $10 an hour doing Kodak Retina restorations now) We are living off our savings, waiting for a better day when disease is no longer raging around the globe. I've had to sell off my treasured collection of heirloom Cattleya Orchids because spending $1200 a year to heat it is no longer an option. We've stopped buying all kinds of things that were well within our grasp, now regarded as luxuries. We've set the nighttime thermostat to 58F (down from 65F) and put more blankets on the bed, to save a bit of $$. We've even cut our coffee consumption by half, just to save $7 a week. Our clothing budget has been reduced to less than half of what it was 2 years ago. I recently sold one of my beautiful Darlot Petzval lenses just so I could justify replacing my failed Canon inkjet printer recently, so I can continue making and selling prints.
You get the picture.
But will I stop buying film and darkroom supplies? Eff no. Making photographs is what keeps me anchored and sane in this train wreck of a world. Especially this past 18 months. So there's no way I am going to b*tch about the price of Kodak (or Ilford, or Foma, or Adox...) materials. I'm just grateful they are still made. There are many other things I will give up before I stop buying TMY/TMX. Your moaning about these prices seems just petty and pointless from my perspective.
PS: regarding Ektachrome. Twenty years ago, slide films were the default medium for professional photographers making color work for commercial applications. Transparency films scanned for reproduction were what the industry was centered on. I suspect there are a lot of professionals who have returned to using Ektachrome for this purpose. Transparency films are amazing for commercial reproduction use. And while there are few commercial labs who process E-6 films, there are still places to get it done (Blue Moon Camera in Portland is one of them, and they do a LOT of E-6 business). So I find it a very narrow view of things to suggest that transparency films are "obtuse" just because slide projectors are no longer "a thing".
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Don makes sense. Hard to read but based in reality.
Didn’t “Kodak” recently start promoting bling like film holders in various colors and calendars?
I have to agree about the incongruity of Ektachrome but some folks still crave it. Hard to understand but it is what it is.. the market can be fickle. Personally, my only photographic regret is that I shot many of my best images on slide film. If I had a time machine I would make better choices.
Didn’t “Kodak” recently start promoting bling like film holders in various colors and calendars?
I have to agree about the incongruity of Ektachrome but some folks still crave it. Hard to understand but it is what it is.. the market can be fickle. Personally, my only photographic regret is that I shot many of my best images on slide film. If I had a time machine I would make better choices.
You're not getting my point. I'm not saying Kodak makes bad products. They make great products. But have they actually done anything to encourage use of their products?
That you will continue to use their film as they raise their prices: I'm suggesting you might be in a shrinking minority. I'm suggesting that film use is a tenuous thing for a great many people as it is. I'm suggesting that, if they cause too many people to stop buying film because of expense, they will no longer be able to make any film.
I'll admit I was a bit harsh about Ektachrome. It is beautiful stuff, the way many people are using it. But it is reasonable to view that release as compared with their refusal to sell DoubleX in anything less than 400 foot rolls. Before anyone mentions the irritating difference between their motion picture division and their still film division, I'll take the opportunity to say "That doesn't matter." Other people are successfully respooling and selling DoubleX and making a profit. It's just something easy Kodak could do.
Well, I guess we will have to see at what price Kodak can no longer sell enough film to make a profit.
I have a feeling it is a lot higher than people imagine.
And yet last year Kodak reported that their sales were still increasing, sufficient to make it difficult for them to keep up with demand. Remember that? Quote: Ed Hurley general manager of film at Eastman Kodak, detailed the huge increase in production in a short film made for NBC’s Left Field.
“We are making more than twice the amount of rolls in 2019 than we made in 2015,” he said.
This is in spite of significant prices increases implemented in that four year span. I doubt that trend has changed since 2019.
I'm pretty sure prices would have to get a lot higher before sales suffered significantly.
It probably won’t be the price of film that eventually causes them to go bust…
Yet there are people who posted on this thread that they have already switched to Ilford or Foma because they don't want to spend that much.
Anyway, Kodak announces they're going to raise the price - their stock flies off the shelves, bought by people who don't want to pay the new, higher price. But some people will not respond by stocking up - they'll find an alternative.
Also, ten million Instagrammers buying three rolls of film each is 30 million rolls of film. What happens next year when they all decide to make celery smoothies instead? (You know, a few years ago the price of celery jumped through the roof because of a trend.)
Sure some will switch to other brands due to price, but how many?
Really not enough information available atm to be able to predict much with any accuracy.
Did you see my earlier comment about today's prices of Delta and Tmax films?
"I can buy 120 TMY for $8.50 a roll from Blue Moon camera, compared to $8.75 for a roll of Delta 400. (On B&H its $9.00 vs $8.66)"
There is pennies difference between the two. Switching to Ilford isn't going to save you much. Foma might be cheaper, but the product isn't nearly the same as the tabular grain films; it's not a good comparison.
I already know the price difference. Bulk Kentmere 400, for example, if half the price of Tri-X. I know the prices of Delta 400 and Tmax are similar.
Is switching film the danger or is switching to digital the reality? There used to be more reasons to not shoot digital. But it has advanced. It has also become less expensive, since older digital cameras can be bought for next to nothing. And the majority of new (and seemingly existing) film users are already tethered to a computer, since they don't enlarge.
I don't know how much it's worked, but they do make "easy" film developing kits. They do sell film bundled with paper. They are going to be selling that portable darkroom tent (if that's not an attempt, I don't know what is). They also provide film developing and printing services. So, at the very least, they're trying to service their customers.
So.... are YOU switching to digital because of the price increases? If not, why not?
Like anyone, I see things how I choose to see them. I get to choose how good/bad my life looks right now, and I opt for being happy with what I have.
There is no reason at all to not shoot digital alongside film. It's all photography.
But that's a different story/thread.
But that's a different story/thread.
Reason #1, digital sucks!
In most corporations, dividends are often waived if money is needed for other things such as research and development or marketing. However, the Alaris retirees need their monthly checks. So the business plan is structured for that purpose. Money that should be reinvested to make Alaris more solid for the future, goes to the retirees instead. It's all short-sighted from a business standpoint. In the end, they might not have either a company or a retirement plan.
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