Would Kodak get back into the instant film business?

koraks said:

These two things have *everything* to do with each other, of course. Especially in this case. Why do people insist on trying to smash something like this flat into a single factor? These things are never a clear cut case.

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Of course they aren't. As nothing in film production of any kind is simple. Not what I was saying. It will not move ahead if there is no market for it, that to me is a simple as it gets. A first step to confirm before funding can be secured.

MarkS said:

As a former Kodak employee, who while not involved with film manufacturing, did spend a little time at Kodak Park...
None of us realize the amount of effort, at all levels, it would take to invent a new instant film and market it.
Theoretically possible? Yes. But it would take years and enormous amounts of money. Profitable? Never.
The good folks at Kodak today have far more important (and profitable) things to do to keep the company alive.

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But this is the point of the company. To make complex things to sell. We call this investment. We know the market exists and is robust for instant film. Kodak is a known name in the film business and has the tech and ability to do it. 'But it's hard!' never pushed a company into the black. We don't do easy things, we do hard things.

BrianShaw said:

Isn't it fun suggesting how someone else should spend their money?

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They're not an 'else' they're a company that makes a product that we on this website specifically use and know what we want. We don't need more branded Kodak transistor radios or another 200 speed color film. We know what we want and know who makes it. If we the users of film don't ask for something we'll never get it.

I want super slow color negative film and super fast color negative film. I want color film in bulk that has significant savings over packaged film. I want a third line of student/budget black and white film that is only sold in bulk. I want the Kodachrome name resurrected. I want Plus-X and Panatomic-X back. Do what ilford does and open up a once a year order for oddball film sizes. Market your product in a productive way. Stop thinking like a multi-billion dollar company and more like a niche market that you are.

I like the size of Instax Wide. With a quality scan, creating an enlargement using a high quality online lab is an option.

Cholentpot said:

But this is the point of the company. To make complex things to sell. We call this investment. We know the market exists and is robust for instant film. Kodak is a known name in the film business and has the tech and ability to do it. 'But it's hard!' never pushed a company into the black. We don't do easy things, we do hard things.



They're not an 'else' they're a company that makes a product that we on this website specifically use and know what we want. We don't need more branded Kodak transistor radios or another 200 speed color film. We know what we want and know who makes it. If we the users of film don't ask for something we'll never get it.

I want super slow color negative film and super fast color negative film. I want color film in bulk that has significant savings over packaged film. I want a third line of student/budget black and white film that is only sold in bulk. I want the Kodachrome name resurrected. I want Plus-X and Panatomic-X back. Do what ilford does and open up a once a year order for oddball film sizes. Market your product in a productive way. Stop thinking like a multi-billion dollar company and more like a niche market that you are.

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Looking forward to Kodak’s response to your wants.

It's not like Kodak can just start making instant film from stuff they have sitting on the shelf. The overhead required for sourcing all the new materials they'd need to realize the product is probably prohibitive enough to make anyone in their position not want to do it. Also, it would be a pure expense for them to begin with. All the money they would need to invest would likely need to be borrowed. They're an existing company, not a couple of clowns on Kickstarter. They can't "test the waters". They would need to throw their hat in the ring. That's real risk. Likely a risk they would not be willing to take.

And that's apart from the difficulty in actually designing and establishing whatever product they make.

MarkS said:

As a former Kodak employee, who while not involved with film manufacturing, did spend a little time at Kodak Park...
None of us realize the amount of effort, at all levels, it would take to invent a new instant film and market it.
Theoretically possible? Yes. But it would take years and enormous amounts of money. Profitable? Never.
The good folks at Kodak today have far more important (and profitable) things to do to keep the company alive.

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And most of them have little or nothing to do with photography.

I don't think that there would be many people left at Eastman Kodak from the days when the Polaroid litigation resulted in a major change to US patent law - to Eastman Kodak's great detriment - but if there are, I would expect that they would be as much interested in getting involved again as they would be in doing their own emergency appendectomies, without benefit of anesthetic!
It would most likely now be impossible to enter the market without infringing on Fuji patents - relatively current ones - because it isn't just end products that are patentable. Means of manufacture get patented too.

@MattKing Hi Matt. Can you further expand on this thought, “the Polaroid litigation resulted in a major change to US patent law”. I was aware of litigation and Kodak’s loss in the case but not resulting change to the law. What resulting changes to patent law do you refer?

BrianShaw said:

Looking forward to Kodak’s response to your wants.

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I ain't wrong am I?

Flood the market with super cheap budget film. We're talking deep deep discounted film, make the goal to get film into every photographers hands. Rebuild the market like that. I'm sure Kodak can crank out some super cheap recipe from the archives and lower the standard a few bars. Sell it for what it is and have development tied to Kodak developing in the price. I'm sure those old monopoly laws are ripe for overturning when it comes to film.

BrianShaw said:

@MattKing Hi Matt. Can you further expand on this thought, “the Polaroid litigation resulted in a major change to US patent law”. I was aware of litigation and Kodak’s loss in the case but not resulting change to the law. What resulting changes to patent law do you refer?

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I'm trying to find my historical materials on this, but so far without success.
Based on my recollection though, the major change related to the actual test for infringement - the case effectively expanded that to include a wider variety of types of infringing "similarities" between the patented items and processes, and the allegedly infringing ones.
It also served as a signal of change from US courts being less supportive of patents to one that was more supportive - apparently due to diminishing concerns about the dangers of monopolies.
Any concerns about monopolies are of course essentially moot now. Outside of the subject of this thread - Instax - there really isn't any marketplace that any substantial entity has any interest in competing in. The markets remain infinitesimally small, in relation to the costs involved in starting up participation.
We don't know about Fuji, but every other producer is working with old equipment - much of it acquired due to bankruptcies or sales at a few cents on the dollar. That certainly includes Harman/Ilford, whose coating line was a small repurposed one, which took the place of the much larger lines that ended up being scrapped as a result of Ilfords's collapse. The only minor exception being Eastman Kodak, who downsized tremendously and were left with the legacy equipment in Building 38, which barely survived the scrap heap during the bankruptcy, and with respect to which they never would be able to raise the capital to replace.
Unless Building 38 could be adapted to produce instant film - doubtful - the management of Eastman Kodak would never be able to persuade its stockholders to take on the extra risk to raise enough capital to compete.

Cholentpot said:

I ain't wrong am I?

Flood the market with super cheap budget film. We're talking deep deep discounted film, make the goal to get film into every photographers hands. Rebuild the market like that. I'm sure Kodak can crank out some super cheap recipe from the archives and lower the standard a few bars. Sell it for what it is and have development tied to Kodak developing in the price. I'm sure those old monopoly laws are ripe for overturning when it comes to film.

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Kodak is not in the processing business currently. I am not sure but they don't even process motion picture film.

Chan Tran said:

Kodak is not in the processing business currently. I am not sure but they don't even process motion picture film.

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They do supply and support commercial motion picture film processors though, including manufacturing some of the chemicals and things like control strips.

Chan Tran said:

Kodak is not in the processing business currently. I am not sure but they don't even process motion picture film.

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But they do? New York, Atlanta, and London all have Kodak run motion picture labs. I thought they had one in LA but it looks like they just work closely with a few labs there but don’t own one anymore.

Cholentpot said:

I ain't wrong am I?

Flood the market with super cheap budget film. We're talking deep deep discounted film, make the goal to get film into every photographers hands. Rebuild the market like that. I'm sure Kodak can crank out some super cheap recipe from the archives and lower the standard a few bars. Sell it for what it is and have development tied to Kodak developing in the price. I'm sure those old monopoly laws are ripe for overturning when it comes to film.

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You would think that idea would be good.

Cholentpot said:

I ain't wrong am I?

Flood the market with super cheap budget film. We're talking deep deep discounted film, make the goal to get film into every photographers hands. Rebuild the market like that. I'm sure Kodak can crank out some super cheap recipe from the archives and lower the standard a few bars. Sell it for what it is and have development tied to Kodak developing in the price. I'm sure those old monopoly laws are ripe for overturning when it comes to film.

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This is a TERRIBLE idea…

At least, the “make cheap film, flood the market, lower the quality standard“ part of your comment seems very similar to what Foma and ORWO are doing in the EU (although unfortunately, those cheap prices don’t make it to the US). And although both of them make decent films sometimes, I also see them get a lot of flack for their very obvious and sometimes image destroying lack of quality control and material selection… I wager to say that if Kodak did something similar, it would completely destroy their reputation and kill off any aspirations of making new film that they may have left.

MCB18 said:

But they do? New York, Atlanta, and London all have Kodak run motion picture labs. I thought they had one in LA but it looks like they just work closely with a few labs there but don’t own one anymore.

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Technically, the one in the UK appears to be operated by the remnant of Kodak Limited - not Eastman Kodak - that is still in existence.
But yes, Eastman Kodak did acquire and bring in house some motion picture processing capacity when they entered into agreements with the major film production entities as part of the agreement that has kept motion picture film manufacturing viable. I had forgotten about that part of the deal.

Cholentpot said:

I ain't wrong am I?

Flood the market with super cheap budget film. We're talking deep deep discounted film, make the goal to get film into every photographers hands. Rebuild the market like that. I'm sure Kodak can crank out some super cheap recipe from the archives and lower the standard a few bars. Sell it for what it is and have development tied to Kodak developing in the price. I'm sure those old monopoly laws are ripe for overturning when it comes to film.

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Great way to increase digital camera sales.

Pieter12 said:

Great way to increase digital camera sales.

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That market is even more moribund then film - outside of cel phones.

Fuji is making Instax printers that look like an analog camera these days. Kodak would need to leverage more than film.

Fujifilm Frontier RA4 printers/Fujifilm digital cameras/Fujifilm...film/ Fujifilm manufacturing

Tough nut to crack

Chan Tran said:

Fuji is doing well with its Intax line of instant film. Polaroid is also selling a lot of films and cameras. Polaroid I understand is having problem making their film as good as the old Polaroid. I found the short lived Kodak instant film to be very good and in some aspect I liked better than Polaroid. Now the Polaroid patents what ever they were would be expired and Kodak I believe has the expertise to make it so would they get back in the business?

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Kodak would make and sell unicorns if enough people were buying them.

RalphLambrecht said:

Kodak would make and sell unicorns if enough people were buying them.

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I bring up Kodak because they are making films and not that many people buy them. Perhaps even fewer people that buy Kodak films than people who buy the Instax.

Cholentpot said:

I want super slow color negative film and super fast color negative film. I want color film in bulk that has significant savings over packaged film. I want a third line of student/budget black and white film that is only sold in bulk. I want the Kodachrome name resurrected. I want Plus-X and Panatomic-X back. Do what ilford does and open up a once a year order for oddball film sizes. Market your product in a productive way. Stop thinking like a multi-billion dollar company and more like a niche market that you are.

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I want. I want. I want.

I want a Rolls Royce and a driver to go with it.

gbroadbridge said:

I want. I want. I want.

I want a Rolls Royce and a driver to go with it.

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gbroadbridge said:

I want. I want. I want.

I want a Rolls Royce and a driver to go with it.

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Which RR?

BrianShaw said:

Which RR?

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A Silver Ghost, of course..

Given the issues the new Polaroid co have had with QC and competitive pricing over the past decade or so, I can't see Kodak even considering getting in the ring. Especially as their own history is so chequered in that space, tooling from scratch would be massively expensive and they've got plenty to worry about just making, you know, the actual film they already do in a financially sustainable way going forward.

Fujifilm have also had the (extremely) distinct advantage of continuous production of Instax throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s. If I'm correctly informed, Instax was basically the only analogue photography format not in utter freefall back then... while film itself seemed set to disappear completely, Instax continue to sell and sell well. They've kept up with environmental changes and regulations, which is a huge burden to overcome restarting any chemical process/product that's been out of production for a decade or more.

The fact that Fujifilm keep banging out Instax products on a regular basis, yet seem utterly disinterested in either slide or negative film, or bringing back instant pack film for that matter, leads me to believe Instax makes them a bunch of reliable money each year, whereas they're unconvinced the latter products would.