Time to stock up on Kodak

brianmquinn · Oct 4, 2011

Recent Ferrania USA news

http://pmanewsline.com/2010/09/21/cs-industries-to-transition-former-ferrania-usa-business/

j-dogg · Oct 4, 2011

Will be stocking up the fridge soon with the yellow stuff.

perkeleellinen · Oct 4, 2011

HC-110 and RA4 chemistry are the things I rely on. Are they actually made by Kodak or a third party?

AlbertZeroK · Oct 4, 2011

perkeleellinen said:
HC-110 and RA4 chemistry are the things I rely on. Are they actually made by Kodak or a third party?

From what I hear, all photography chemistry in the US is made in just one plant for color stuff.

MattKing · Oct 4, 2011

perkeleellinen said:
HC-110 and RA4 chemistry are the things I rely on. Are they actually made by Kodak or a third party?

Champion Photochemicals:

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&sourc...sg=AFQjCNEfDqpAXRm76Ln_bZ0fWB4ebxzQ1g&cad=rja

Silverhead · Oct 5, 2011

perkeleellinen said:
HC-110 and RA4 chemistry are the things I rely on. Are they actually made by Kodak or a third party?

If this is helpful, HC-110 was cloned quite a while ago. It's latest non-Kodak incarnation is LegacyPro's L-110. The only real difference is that the L-110 doesn't have the yellow color of the Kodak product.

Actually, almost all of the LegacyPro line of chemicals are Kodak clones. Thus, I would guess that they should be around for quite a while if Kodak does indeed go into bankruptcy. Check out Freestyle's web site for details.

Don't know about RA-4, sorry.

perkeleellinen · Oct 5, 2011

Thanks, that is actually helpful. I thought I might buy a bottle or two anyway as it lasts years.

I'm almost due to buy another box of Kodak RA4 developer / replenisher so I should be good for another year at least. The 4x5L box is really useful as you don't need to break into the whole lot in one go. Hope that stays around for some years. But then, I hope RA4 paper stays around too...

And some good news from today: my landlord has extended the lease by another 18 months with the same rent. Looks like I'll have this darkroom to play around in for another year and a half at least.

36cm2 · Oct 5, 2011

Looking back to the title of this post, is there a particularly good discount distributor from which to buy a mini-fridge full of TMY120 if I were to want to? I guess that someone must offer bulk sales at better prices than B&H's 5-packs. Any insight is appreciated.

Leo

michaelbsc · Oct 5, 2011

I just bought a bunch of TMY a few weeks ago, not expecting this.

My bummer realization is that I've been trying hard to get my ducks in a row to actually get into some color work, processing at home as well as making my own prints. Every time I get a little close to figuring out the chemicals Kodak drips the 5L kits, or now may go under completely. PE's post that the Photo's Formulary's "developer" listing was actually the whole Flexicolor kit was a revelation to me, and I did order that finally.

At least someone posted a link about who's buying the chemical business. But without the film that's not much use. The new Porta's really, really caught my attention.

I guess I could buy a freezer full and sit on it for a while.

I guess I'm back to making that home made one-shot camera.

hpulley · Oct 5, 2011

Ilford's Ilfotec HC and LC29 are similar to HC-110 as well though more expensive.

Roger Cole · Oct 5, 2011

Silverhead said:
If this is helpful, HC-110 was cloned quite a while ago. It's latest non-Kodak incarnation is LegacyPro's L-110. The only real difference is that the L-110 doesn't have the yellow color of the Kodak product.

Actually, almost all of the LegacyPro line of chemicals are Kodak clones. Thus, I would guess that they should be around for quite a while if Kodak does indeed go into bankruptcy. Check out Freestyle's web site for details.

Don't know about RA-4, sorry.

There's other RA4 available. It may not be as good as Kodak's, but it does work.

I use the Legacy Pro brown toner, works great. Kodak does still sell their brand, but only in gallon sizes for over $300. I get the 8oz bottle of Legacy Pro for $14.95 and even that lasts a while. For stuff still available as Kodak brand most of the Legacy Pro stuff is so close in price I just get the Kodak, but they are great for things Kodak no longer sells or, like this, only sells in impractical sizes. I notice too they now have Rapid Selenium Toner, the one black and white chemical from Kodak I was a bit concerned about. Others make selenium toners but they are considerably more expensive, and it isn't something I wanted to try mixing from scratch. But now the LP brand is slightly less expensive than KRST.

For black and white there are now no Kodak products I consider indispensable. For color, pretty much the same for chemistry and even paper since Kodak doesn't sell color paper in sheets anymore. The real lack in color would be film, particularly color neg. Fuji does still have a decent selection of E6 bu the recent demise of Astia would be even more sorely missed without E100G.

frotog · Oct 5, 2011

According to my supplier, Kodak jobbed out their ra4 some time ago to champion. In any event, Champion chemistry and Trebla are excellent cheaper subs to the kodak stuff. In fact, my experience is that the Trebla chem. runs quite a bit cleaner than kodak.

Roger Cole · Oct 5, 2011

frotog said:
According to my supplier, Kodak jobbed out their ra4 some time ago to champion. In any event, Champion chemistry and Trebla are excellent cheaper subs to the kodak stuff. In fact, my experience is that the Trebla chem. runs quite a bit cleaner than kodak.

I never heard of either sold under those names. Are they available in hobbyist quantities and, if so, where? If not then it doesn't really matter right now, though someone might buy larger amounts and repackage them if Kodak were no longer available.

alanrockwood · Oct 5, 2011

Trebla ("Albert" spelled backwards) has been marketed mainly to minilabs. I don't know how easy it is to get in small quantities.

hpulley · Oct 5, 2011

Tetenal makes both RA-4 and C-41 chemicals available in small quantities.

alanrockwood · Oct 5, 2011

Here is one example of a minilab supplier. They can supply several brands of color developer and other supplies.

http://www.minilab.com/subCategory....NG_SUPPLIES_E_PHOTOGRAPHY_DEVELOPING_SUPPLIES

dehk · Oct 6, 2011

All you need to do is..... go back to optical prints again, because, the scan & print minilabs make film look like Sh*t.
Go look at your family photo albums from the 80s and 90s as a reminder.

perkeleellinen · Oct 6, 2011

I remember when the local labs near me first changed to scan / print machines - the results were awful: grainy and over sharp, it made people's skins look grey and 'greasy'. For a while I didn't know what was wrong, I tried different films, inspected my lenses, changed labs. Then I was told about the new minilabs and I promptly gave up shooting colour and didn't go back until I started doing it myself (optically).

kevs · Oct 6, 2011

Cruzingoose said:
What-If...

Kodak starts a campaign to promote film cameras and film products by advertising on TV like thay used to back in the day? After all, most people will believe a product is desireable if advertised often enough by a well known company. Think the Kodak Moment commercials of the kids birthday party and dad is there taking a picture of the kid lit by the candles on the cake, and the Polaroid Swinger comes to mind, just twist the knob and when it says YES, push the button and your picture is ready in 60 seconds. The old commercials almost made you feel left out if you did not have one of these cameras.

<snip>

Now that digital is the norm, Kodak could never recapture their former market share with film products. People like the convenience of digital; they aren't gonna throw away their digicams for an apparently antiquated, polluting, inconvenient and expensive medium called 'film'.

Cheers,
kevs.

stavrosk · Oct 7, 2011

KODAK should survive from digital but keep making film as well.

MaximusM3 · Oct 7, 2011

Cruzingoose said:
It's unfortunate that people accept digi images the way they are. I guess if the image is in color and reasonably sharp its OK. When Wal^%$ or Walgre&^% is backed up with a line of people waiting to use the kiosk to make their own snapshots, they come to my place and expect to do the same. Sorry... (Not Sorry), You leave the chip and I'll print the images. Don't know which ones to print they say. How many are on the chip I say. I don't know, 300 or 400 or so they say. So they want to use my equipment and look through the chip just to find a few they want printed in 1 hour or less for 20 cents each, take up all my time talking about composition and cropping blah blah blah......

I'm just not interested. When the old Agfa MSC200 quits for the last time, There will likely be no more digi prints here. Film developed printed by optical means, by machine or hand only.

As a side note, Notice how even television images are accepted? Bold contrasty, over saturated colors with odd display ratios and annoying flicker or refresh rates that make one dizzy and can't or won't make a proper circle or people that look normal? Tires on cars turn into eggs on each side of the screen or appear to be running flat across the entire screen. People appear only 5 feet tall and weigh 300 pounds. The general public is completely brainwashed and accept this crap.

Either they don't care or don't know any better.

ANYWHOO.... Sorry for the rant. I know everyone is not affected this way, it is just a pet peeve of mine....

But you are right and this is all indeed at the core of the problems. People, the masses, are just happy with mediocre and they simply don't know any better..and don't care. The new generation certainly doesn't. Kids go around snapping away with cell phones and share on Facebook etc, so they are not concerned with quality or optical printing. It's a different world. We know it's not better but the masses don't and don't care either. We have to remember that many are the same who where just happy with results from One Hour Photo Labs for their vacation snapshots so, what we have today, is better for them and they are just happier buying the latest digital gadget cameras to keep their interest going.

ntenny · Oct 7, 2011

Cruzingoose said:
It's unfortunate that people accept digi images the way they are. I guess if the image is in color and reasonably sharp its OK.

But that's always been true. Somewhere in the past, there's an irritated wet-plate person saying "It's unfortunate that people accept dry-plate images the way they are", and so on. That's why formats kept getting smaller for so long; most people were willing to prioritize convenience over quality, until the subminiature formats of the 70s-90s (110, disc...) where the impact of negative size started to be enough to confront the casual viewer. I don't think digital is anything special in this respect.

And in the long view, Kodak has done that "race to convenience" better than anybody else. This is, after all, the "we push the button, you do the rest" company. I expect a reasonable observer from inside the company might have seen the digital switchover coming and said "Wow, this is exactly what Kodak does best!"

-NT

perkeleellinen · Oct 7, 2011

I'm guilty of exactly this type of thinking with music. I moved from vinyl to CDs to mp3s, I currently don't even own a Hi-Fi, I play music files through my crappy laptop speaker, tinny as hell but I don't care, music isn't my passion. It's the same for many with photography - an image is good enough, people without passion simply don't care to the same degree as enthusiasts and most of the time can't register the difference even when it's pointed out.

Rudeofus · Oct 7, 2011

perkeleellinen said:
It's the same for many with photography - an image is good enough, people without passion simply don't care to the same degree as enthusiasts and most of the time can't register the difference even when it's pointed out.

You'd be amazed how much the most non-enthusiasts do care about image quality, sometimes just unconsciously.

film_man · Oct 7, 2011

"Better" is such a relative word...

Time to stock up on Kodak

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