Why did Kodachrome fail in the end?

accozzaglia · Oct 27, 2015

Ken Nadvornick said:
View attachment 118820
Walking Stick Heads
Puyallup, 2010
Kodachrome 64

Very nice, very nice.

While you were in Puyallup with Kodachrome 64 in 2010, I was in Seattle doing the very same with the very same:

Ken Nadvornick · Oct 27, 2015

accozzaglia said:
While you were in Puyallup with Kodachrome 64 in 2010, I was in Seattle doing the very same with the very same:

Practiced insouciance...

accozzaglia · Oct 27, 2015

Ken Nadvornick said:
Practiced insouciance...

Don't be hatin'

Ken Nadvornick · Oct 27, 2015

accozzaglia said:
Don't be hatin'…

It's neither pejorative nor prejudicial. It's empirical. I like the mask. We all do it...

accozzaglia · Oct 27, 2015

Ken Nadvornick said:
It's neither pejorative nor prejudicial. It's empirical. I like the mask. We all do it...

I always parsed her expression as glancing over at something to their east which got both her and his attention. It was at a massive, three-day block party on Pike Street in Capitol Hill. I can't remember whether that was the evening when MGMT played live (or on the evening after).

Photo Engineer · Oct 27, 2015

Consumer surveys among photographers who did reversal shoots was HO HUM for the newer lines of Kodachrome and so it was all stopped and the people reassigned.

PE

railwayman3 · Oct 27, 2015

Photo Engineer said:
Consumer surveys among photographers who did reversal shoots was HO HUM for the newer lines of Kodachrome and so it was all stopped and the people reassigned.

PE

Somewhere I have a review of 400ASA Kodachrome snipped from one of the UK amateur photo magazines from the time, and I seem to remember the writer was quite "indifferent", didn't really criticise anything about it, but didn't seem to be able to generate any enthusiam or positive points. I recall feeling that it was just a "nothing" article, in no way helpful to anyone thinking of trying the film had become available.

Photo Engineer · Oct 27, 2015

There you go! Lack of interest.

Now, here is a new question.....

Why did Ektachrome fail in the End?

And, my follow up for about 1 - 3 years from now:

Why did Fujichrome fail in the End?

PE

Prof_Pixel · Oct 27, 2015

Desire for instant gratification.

Sirius Glass · Oct 27, 2015

Photo Engineer said:
There you go! Lack of interest.

Now, here is a new question.....

Why did Ektachrome fail in the End?

And, my follow up for about 1 - 3 years from now:

Why did Fujichrome fail in the End?

PE

Prof_Pixel said:
Desire for instant gratification.

And there you have it.

Ken Nadvornick · Oct 27, 2015

Photo Engineer said:
There you go! Lack of interest.

Now, here is a new question.....

Why did Ektachrome fail in the End?

And, my follow up for about 1 - 3 years from now:

Why did Fujichrome fail in the End?

Prof_Pixel said:
Desire for instant gratification.

Implying that Kodachrome's (and by extension Kodak's) crash-and-burn was simply due only to the falling off of interest in film is a bit like the NTSB implying that an airliner's crash-and-burn was simply due only to the falling off of a wing. I mean, everyone just knows that an airplane can't fly without a wing. So there you have it.

However, in both cases that initial simple and very obvious observation is really just the starting point in the process of finding the deeper truth, not the ending point of having found that deeper truth.

In the NTSB's first press conference 48 hours into the investigation they will tell the TV cameras that the wing fell off. Three years later in their final press conference and report they will relate in excruciating detail exactly why the wing fell off.

And more often than not it will end up having nothing whatsoever to do with the wing itself.

Ken

accozzaglia · Oct 27, 2015

Photo Engineer said:
There you go! Lack of interest.

In 1988 or 1990 or whenever the surveying and feelers for the market was happening, yes, certainly.

At the time, film manufacturers were marketing all kinds of eye candy with snazzy names (Kodak's Lumière, Panther, Ektapress, Farbwelt/Funtime), which could get pretty confusing, rather than just keeping it simple. Granted, I do remember the late '80s very well and know that the Modernist notion of "new" still carried great cachet in marketing, even when there wasn't really much which was new about something labelled as such. It's not unreasonable that a consumer fatigue set in.

"Kodachrome" wasn't a "new" name, and there was little mystery as to what it could do (and do well), so frankly, given the moment then, a K400 T-grain isn't as fancy-pants as something named "Jagu..." — I mean, "Panther".

Of course, for the film photographer then, a different creature and part of a different demographic breakdown from the film photographer right now, it was an embarrassment of riches as emulsion varieties and availabilities went.

Now, new crops of film photographers, quite a few weaned on digital imaging from the get-go, particularly if born after 1990, are really loving things such as that line of peculiar Lomography emulsions (the ones available for a limited time only, not unlike a Disney movie title), anything 120 which could be shoved into a Holga, and for a few, the self-discovery of old film cameras and trying out black-and-white or even expired colour films for the first time (and loving the surprise they get once the roll is processed).

Now, here is a new question..... Why did Ektachrome fail in the End?

Because Kodak liked the cake but kept stabbing themselves instead of slicing the cake.

And, my follow up for about 1 - 3 years from now: Why did Fujichrome fail in the End?

As it ends, however it ends, Fujichrome won't be a "failure", but a success for having delivered to consumers a line of products which its once-arch competitor could no longer deliver. Why? Because Kodak.

But if we're clamouring to view this with a pessimistic lens — something which "failure" may seem to suggest — then something may be said about the relationship between the "Fujichrome color" setting on Fujifilm digital cameras being calibrated to the curves of Velvia film, and Velvia film itself, thus obviating a need to make available their most venerable E-6 offering for all (save for photographers whose equipment needs the specialized Fujichrome market for sheet film work).

Prof_Pixel · Oct 27, 2015

Ken Nadvornick said:
Implying that Kodachrome's (and by extension Kodak's) crash-and-burn was simply due only to the falling off of interest in film is a bit like the NTSB implying that an airliner's crash-and-burn was simply due only to the falling off of a wing. I mean, everyone just knows that an airplane can't fly without a wing. So there you have it.

However, in both cases that initial simple and very obvious observation is really just the starting point in the process of finding the deeper truth, not the ending point of having found that deeper truth.

In the NTSB's first press conference 48 hours into the investigation they will tell the TV cameras that the wing fell off. Three years later in their final press conference and report they will relate in excruciating detail exactly why the wing fell off.

And more often than not it will end up having nothing whatsoever to do with the wing itself.

Ken

People (consumers) didn't/don't buy film because it's 'film' - they buy it for the IMAGES it can capture. Over the last 40 years (or so) they have wanted to get their images faster and faster. When I started at Kodak in 1971 working on color paper, the turn-around time for color prints was about a week. I worked on things that led to the development of mini-labs and then 1-hour labs, reducing the turn-around time from weeks to hours. And let's not forget the consumer popularity of instant photography.

It's a matter of "What do we want? Prints; When do we want them? Now"

Reversal materials went through much the same turn-around time reduction and people wanted their slides NOW.

Which brings us back to my comment about desire for immediacy killing the demand for film (since there is another option).

Roger Cole · Oct 27, 2015

And in a few years, "Why did Ferrania succeed?"

Photo Engineer · Oct 27, 2015

Well, a few points here.

Fuji was conceded the positive film arena by Kodak and Kodak was ceded the negative and MP world by Fuji. See the documents on the Fuji withdrawal from that market. So, there is give and take and things are all moving towards a final denoument. Yes, the final act is yet to come.

Now, see my post "Amen". Read the reason I responded that way. Kodak and Fuji are both making poor decisions, but Fuji is backed up by a big financial empire that we don't see. Read 50 year old articles on "Japan INC".

So, Fuji is a failure in the MP, negative world and Kodak is a failure in the positive world. ????? We have to think about that.

And will Ferrania succeed? I certainly hope so, but the schedule is yet to be finalized there.

PE

Roger Cole · Oct 27, 2015

My post was wishful thinking - possible but wishful.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk and 100% recycled electrons - because I care.

Ken Nadvornick · Oct 27, 2015

Prof_Pixel said:
People (consumers) didn't/don't buy film because it's 'film' - they buy it for the IMAGES it can capture. Over the last 40 years (or so) they have wanted to get their images faster and faster. When I started at Kodak in 1971 working on color paper, the turn-around time for color prints was about a week. I worked on things that led to the development of mini-labs and then 1-hour labs, reducing the turn-around time from weeks to hours. And let's not forget the consumer popularity of instant photography.

It's a matter of "What do we want? Prints; When do we want them? Now"

Reversal materials went through much the same turn-around time reduction and people wanted their slides NOW.

Which brings us back to my comment about desire for immediacy killing the demand for film (since there is another option).

I understand and don't disagree. You are correct. But all this continues to tell me is, the wing fell off. And we already knew that from the first press conference.

The point of contention is, what happened after they saw the wing falling off?

Other analog-based photographic companies also had pilots that looked out their cockpit windows, saw the wing starting to fall off, and knew the problem was serious but was really caused by a pair of failing wing bolts. They were still able to get their aircraft safely on the ground. Damaged, yes. But a landing they could walk away from, then repair the damaged bolts, then successfully take off again.

Kodak's pilot, on the other hand, saw the wing falling off and decided instead to drop the flight controls, crawl out of the cockpit, rip the other wing off, pull out the piston engine, replace it with a jet engine, and build out a set of new supersonic wings. All while in uncontrolled free fall. Predictably, the ground came rushing up a heck of a lot faster than he thought it would, and the rest of us just winced and closed our eyes.

Who in their right mind does that?

It was only the stupid wing bolts that were failing. The wings were fine and still able to generate lift, provided the bolts were maintained correctly. And WTF was up with tearing out the piston engine? It was a piston aircraft. If you want a jet you buy or build a second jet aircraft. While safely on the ground. Then keep both and fly the one most appropriate for a given mission. That seemed to good enough for everyone else.

But not for Kodak. Who now only has a rusted beater pick-up truck to drive around...

Ken

Ian Grant · Oct 28, 2015

Prof_Pixel said:
People (consumers) didn't/don't buy film because it's 'film' - they buy it for the IMAGES it can capture. Over the last 40 years (or so) they have wanted to get their images faster and faster. When I started at Kodak in 1971 working on color paper, the turn-around time for color prints was about a week. I worked on things that led to the development of mini-labs and then 1-hour labs, reducing the turn-around time from weeks to hours. And let's not forget the consumer popularity of instant photography.

It's a matter of "What do we want? Prints; When do we want them? Now"

Reversal materials went through much the same turn-around time reduction and people wanted their slides NOW.

Which brings us back to my comment about desire for immediacy killing the demand for film (since there is another option).

That sums it up well and also answers PE's questions about Ektachrome and Fujichrome. while it's fair to say consumers feel that way it was and is even more critical in the professional field where it's almost impossible to compete using film with those shooting digital and that led to the huge decline in the reversal film market,

However there's still a niche for film use and that includes reversal films and some commercial photographers still use and others have been returning to reversal films in recent years, the same is happening in the amateur market. For Fujichrome to survive that trend needs to increase.

Ian

Jager · Oct 28, 2015

Most of us don't fully appreciate what we have, while we have it.

I shot Kodachrome for years without any sense of its eventual demise. I used it simply because I liked it. And along the way - because I had no sense that it was anything special - I had dalliances with competing films: Ektachrome, the later Lumiere emulsions, and Fuji products. By the mid-nineties I had moved almost entirely to Provia 100.

It was only in retrospect, with the benefit of hindsight and after it was already lost, that I came to understand what Kodachrome had meant to me.

Certainly a lot of it had to do with Kodak's hubris. But, then, that's the nature of companies. They all fail eventually. Even the biggest, most iconic. Hard to believe that Apple will one day reverse, then decline, then die. But it will.

I put a roll of Velvia 50 through my Hasselblad back in the spring. That undeveloped roll still sits on my desk, waiting for me to make the 80-mile drive, twice, to the only lab in the DC area that still does E6. Or else mail it off somewhere.

Yes, Fuji's transparency film business will die. Sooner than later. If you like Velvia like I once liked Kodachrome, best shoot it while you can.

Kodachrome...

twelvetone12 · Oct 28, 2015

In the early 2000s I used to shoot loads of Kodachrome in super8 and I loved it. For the format it was extremely convenient: in Italy it was pre paid so you just popped it into the yellow envelope, a trip to the post office and in a couple weeks you would have it back from Lausanne. The alternative, for black and white was (is) sending it to Andec in Berlin and paying by money transfer (at the time I was young and did not have a credit card!). And the film was quite cheap, too.
But I also felt that this was an overkill for the slide film. While I loved it a lot, it was quite expensive compared to other slide films (at least in Italy, including development) and for other films I could (and sill can!) just drop it to my lab and have it the next day. But at the end of the day, I think I just felt that price/value for 35mm Kodachrome was not just as good as super8 K40. And I think many people thought the same, as my local shop used to order K64 just for me.
Also having just two labs remaining clearly set that the film's life expectancy was not long, and also the general feeling about film in the early 2000s (it seemed that by 2010 no one would make film anymore!) surely did not encourage to but lots of a "rarity" film as Kodachrome.

accozzaglia · Oct 28, 2015

Jager said:
Certainly a lot of it had to do with Kodak's hubris. But, then, that's the nature of companies. They all fail eventually. Even the biggest, most iconic. Hard to believe that Apple will one day reverse, then decline, then die. But it will.

Apple have already hit their apex. They'll continue to be around for a long time to come, but their age of driving innovation and doing so nimbly (the very essence of what kept them alive, where other tech hardware companies from their class cohort of the 1970s failed) is of their past.

I love this shot, not only because it's a magnificently composed shot and rich with texture, but also because it's a Kodachrome image from the 1990s. In my archival and curatorial work on the project I've worked on, I've found there's a bit of a lull from the very end of the 1980s until about the mid-2000s, as far as what I've been able to find out there which was produced with Kodachrome still media. Thank you for sharing this image.

Kodachrome...

DREW WILEY · Oct 28, 2015

I'd slightly amend Prof. Pixel's answer. Instant disgust. I still prefer film. But I'd be pretty surprised is anyone like Ferrania is going to be able
to reinvent the wheel and provide realistic substitutes for state of the art E6 products like E100G or Fuji Astia, much less in affordable sheet film products. What they are talking about at the moment is the equivalent of Scotchchrome. I'm intrigued because I loved the old school Agfachromes with their softer muted palette and pronounced grain, an almost Autochrome look at times. I shot a bit of Scothchrome too.
But this was mainly for portrait work and not an alternative for the more technically targeted chrome films which I primarily used. Kinda an
academic question now that Ciba is gone as a direct pathway for printing chromes. I might want to try an occasional dye transfer print on
something Ferrania might hypothetically market.

Prof_Pixel · Oct 28, 2015

DREW WILEY said:
I'd slightly amend Prof. Pixel's answer. Instant disgust. I still prefer film. But I'd be pretty surprised is anyone like Ferrania is going to be able
to reinvent the wheel and provide realistic substitutes for state of the art E6 products like E100G or Fuji Astia, much less in affordable sheet film products.

I understand that there are a number of photographers that feel that way. What nobody really knows is how big a market that group represents; clearly it isn't big enough to support a Kodak sized operation. I sincerely hope that Ferrania can right-size their operation to that market and will be a success.

madgardener · Oct 28, 2015

If Ferrania continues to hit roadblocks, I have to wonder how long they are going to keep trying.

kb3lms · Oct 28, 2015

So, Fuji is a failure in the MP, negative world and Kodak is a failure in the positive world. ????? We have to think about that.

And will Ferrania succeed? I certainly hope so, but the schedule is yet to be finalized there.

Here's my thoughts: Of all the things that Kodak has mismanaged, and there have been plenty, in this case it seems to me that Kodak left Fuji holding the bag in being the "go to" guys for slide film. Whether that was by design or just dumb luck we will never really know but Fuji's (professional level) negative offerings are few and really expensive although very good. Kodak has the major presence with a product that still seems have some minimally sustainable level of demand. MP film: the jury is still out on that one but at least the Kodak color negative products and MP products appear to be strongly aligned.

At least Film Ferrania doesn't seem to have ever planned to be big. They are going into the E6 market knowing what the size is and that they will service only the residual market. It's just a handful of guys and some leftover equipment that is capable of servicing what's left. (Not to diss their effort in any way.)

Wouldn't you think that Fuji's legacy plant would be much larger than necessary for what's left of the E6 market? This is why I feel they are holding the proverbial bag.

Film Ferrania doesn't look to be exactly a micro-sized operation but I think that is because they inherited an existing plant. If they were going to start from scratch it would almost surely be much smaller. But no one is going to start from scratch these days in the slide film business.

Jager, I just love the color in that shot.

-- Jason

Why did Kodachrome fail in the end?

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