Would Kodak Sell Film Division?

eclarke said:

It's not a conviction for me but rather a suspicion. I just think that we are seeing the first generation of people who were born since mainstream digital photography, and for them it's the conventional method. I also think that Ilford is the shining hope for film and paper and I hope I am gone before you are!! God bless HP5 and MGWTFB!!..EC

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Most of us were born after the invention of the car, but we still walk or use bicycles.

People still write letters despite telephones & emails, there's room for all.

Ian

Photo Engineer said:

GAF film and paper coating equipment for consumer use was apparently demolished and sold in the early 80s by GAF as they entered the Linoleum business. They sold a lot of diverse plastics and flooring products for a while.

PE

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I quizzed Danny this morning. Quote:

"At one time we had 6 or 7 machines. The old paper machines went down in 1973, the older film machines went down between 1981 and most likely 1985."

" We coated color on F6, paper on P4 and B&W on both machines. F6 and P4 were our 2 newest machines and the last 2 to be torn down."

"P4 and F6 went down when we closed in 1999."

"In about 1980 we got out of everything but Graphic Arts films and papers, due to our inability to compete with EK patents and R&D."


He also said the they (the Anitec people) were convinced that EK scrapped the place just to remove the coating capacity....EC

eclarke said:

When today's children are adults, they will be looking at film photography artifacts in the museum and making images of them with their 50 megapixel video cell phones. They will wonder why anybody ever put up with all the darkroom mess just to make a still photograph...No long term hope for Kodak, Ilford or Fuji film...EC

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Or wonder why such a high quality way of making images were replaced by such a transient and lower quality called digital.

Every generation says they don't make them like that any more.



Mike

Ian Grant said:

Most of us were born after the invention of the car, but we still walk or use bicycles.

People still write letters despite telephones & emails, there's room for all.

Ian

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I sure hope that's the case!!..EC

eclarke said:

It's not a conviction for me but rather a suspicion. I just think that we are seeing the first generation of people who were born since mainstream digital photography, and for them it's the conventional method.

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I have no doubt whatsoever that silver as the mainstream, default, assumed way to capture a visual is dead, gone and staying that way.

Then again, B&W as the mainstream, default, assumed way to capture a visual was mostly dead in the '70s when I was a yearbook photographer. The 30-year reunion is this year, and I'm still buying B&W film.

I think it is reasonable to expect that it will be readily available for another 20-30 years, which is how long my wife want's me to live. Costs will probably go up as volumes go down. But I'll be moving more slowly, so it should balance out.

DLawson said:

...another 20-30 years, which is how long my wife want's me to live.

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Heh, heh... I love it...

Ken

Dear eclarke,

I fear you may be correct about the future, but I don't see why it has to be so...

I walked into an art shop recently. Wonderful place, full of oil paints, acrylics, water colours, crayons, pencils, charcoal and hundreds of other ways of making pictures and sculptures.

If painters were photographers they would all have adopted the superior acrylic technology as soon as it came out and would laugh at anyone who still used ground natural pigments in oil... they would all use synthetic brushes and anyone who tried to draw with bits of burnt would would be regarded as a crank.

Sometimes as photographers I think we betray ourselves (present company excepted, of course) too easily as nothing more than gadget freaks by always chasing the latest technology.

If a cyanotype was once a valid way to make a print... then it will always be a valid way to make a print. Personally I enjoy making prints the traditional way. I don't enjoy sitting at the computer... I do that at work, I certainly don't want to do it as a hobby.

I think trying to decide which technology is 'best' is pointless. Which method of making pictures is more fun? More rewarding? More satisfying? And why can't we keep all of them?

Simon R Galley said:

Dear eclarke

I am not entirely convinced.......why ?... just this morning was the monthly scheduled coating of glass plates here at HARMAN technology...something we at ILFORD Photo have been doing for 131 years...

Kind regards

Simon. ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :

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I wish you were coating them with FP4+ !!!!

DLawson said:

...for another 20-30 years, which is how long my wife want's me to live....

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Buying 30-yr term life insurance, are we?

markbarendt said:

Okay, first off, no I haven't got any real info here,

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Which makes this yet another BS post about Kodak and their business model.

Simon R Galley said:

Dear eclarke

I am not entirely convinced.......why ?... just this morning was the monthly scheduled coating of glass plates here at HARMAN technology...something we at ILFORD Photo have been doing for 131 years...

Kind regards

Simon. ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :

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Thank you for chiming in Simon.

donbga said:

Which makes this yet another BS post about Kodak and their business model.

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So Dr. Evil

Taking time off from planning to take over the world just to chime in here?

Hope you get that Million dollars ransom. :rolleyes:

steven_e007 said:

I walked into an art shop recently. Wonderful place, full of oil paints, acrylics, water colours, crayons, pencils, charcoal and hundreds of other ways of making pictures and sculptures.

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Did they have any HP5?

Wouldn't that be fun?

"I fear you may be correct about the future, but I don't see why it has to be so...

I walked into an art shop recently. Wonderful place, full of oil paints, acrylics, water colours, crayons, pencils, charcoal and hundreds of other ways of making pictures and sculptures."

Many of these things don't require hugely sophisticated, large equipment with intricate chemistry to provide the products. Most of it doesn't spoil in a year or so and none of it has to be kept absolutely dark while stored. Film products need a pretty good turnover to be viable, otherwise we wouldn't be having this thread...EC

markbarendt said:

So Dr. Evil

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I'm with Don on this one. This is really nothing more than another useless, Chicken Little, "Sky is falling!", blah-blah thread and poll lacking in fact and full of conjecture. I have no idea why it is in the "Product Availability" section of this website and not just another doom and gloom cast-off.

Come on Bill, how do you really feel.

Mike

Bill,

It's in product availability because I put it there, it seemed appropriate.

I asked the original question in earnest and I put a fair amount of thought into the questions.

I honestly wanted to see how committed people are and see if some good ideas or big hurdles popped up.

I believe that any film company can survive and prosper if they devote themselves to film 100%, and put everything they have into it. (That includes spending time, effort, and money promoting their products and film photography in general, BTW.) With the film division of a company being a "quaint" side project just for the sake of tradition, it will never survive.

Here is a hint: Take a break from developing new, cutting-edge, near-redundant films that none of us need, and that will not get anyone shooting film who does not already shoot it, and spend all that money trying to convince people to USE FILM in the first place! The problem comes from people NOT USING FILM, so do something about it.

eclarke said:

It's not a conviction for me but rather a suspicion. I just think that we are seeing the first generation of people who were born since mainstream digital photography, and for them it's the conventional method. I also think that Ilford is the shining hope for film and paper and I hope I am gone before you are!! God bless HP5 and MGWTFB!!..EC

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Amen (though you forgot Delta 3200).

2F/2F said:

I believe that any film company can survive and prosper if they devote themselves to film 100%, and put everything they have into it. (That includes spending time, effort, and money promoting their products and film photography in general, BTW.) With the film division of a company being a "quaint" side project just for the sake of tradition, it will never survive.

Here is a hint: Take a break from developing new, cutting-edge, near-redundant films that none of us need, and that will not get anyone shooting film who does not already shoot it, and spend all that money trying to convince people to USE FILM in the first place! The problem comes from people NOT USING FILM, so do something about it.

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If you believe this I am afraid that you have not been paying attention to the developments of the past 10 years, nor the postings of Photo Engineer, FotoImpex etc.

If you currently do not have the appropriately-sized production infrastructure for a radicallly-downsize market already; you are simply doomed. Nobody will give you finance in the present market conditions to do it.

AgfaFoto wasn't right-sized; it failed.

Kodak radically downsized its coating lines; but not radically enough

The land the Forte Photo plant was built on was worth more than the value of the enterprise.

Kentmere revamped their entire production infrastructure around 2004-2005; it was forced to merge with Ilford to survive and their shiny new plant is but a memory.

FujiFilm has now joined the group of companies discountinuing films.

We are simply going to hope the market shakes out in such a way that the last men standing indeed have the appropriately-sized production infrastructure to sustain product availability. Even should the global economy recover there's still the rather basic problem to consider that many of the commodities (e.g. silver, rare earth elements needed for panchromatic sensitivity) needed to produce analog photo products are now seeing what seems to be a secular uptrend in cost due to emerging applications.

All this suggests you need more than to confront the world with the best of intentions and conviction. It is no longer a matter of making the correct decisions but hoping you already *made* them and that your luck will hold.

aldevo said:

If you believe this I am afraid that you have not been paying attention to the developments of the past 10 years, nor the postings of Photo Engineer, FotoImpex etc.

If you currently do not have the appropriately-sized production infrastructure for a radicallly-downsize market already; you are simply doomed. Nobody will give you finance in the present market conditions to do it.

AgfaFoto wasn't right-sized; it failed.

Kodak radically downsized its coating lines; but not radically enough

The land the Forte Photo plant was built on was worth more than the value of the enterprise.

Kentmere revamped their entire production infrastructure around 2004-2005; it was forced to merge with Ilford to survive and their shiny new plant is but a memory.

FujiFilm has now joined the group of companies discountinuing films.

We are simply going to hope the market shakes out in such a way that the last men standing indeed have the appropriately-sized production infrastructure to sustain product availability. Even should the global economy recover there's still the rather basic problem to consider that many of the commodities (e.g. silver, rare earth elements needed for panchromatic sensitivity) needed to produce analog photo products are now seeing what seems to be a secular uptrend in cost due to emerging applications.

All this suggests you need more than to confront the world with the best of intentions and conviction. It is no longer a matter of making the correct decisions but hoping you already *made* them and that your luck will hold.

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Pick one or two of your favorite films in your favorite formats and buy enough to last the rest of your active photographic lifetime. For me, that means about 25 more years worth of film. I won't execute on this plan until it is clear that film will not be available shortly. This means I won't have to do the bulk buy for many years. Right?

SchwinnParamount said:

Pick one or two of your favorite films in your favorite formats and buy enough to last the rest of your active photographic lifetime. For me, that means about 25 more years worth of film. I won't execute on this plan until it is clear that film will not be available shortly. This means I won't have to do the bulk buy for many years. Right?

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Time flies when your having fun.

or if you're an aspiring pro(current photo major still in school), if I can shoot film, I'll shoot film!

but unfortunately, Kodak(my go-to for all flavors, e6,c41 and b/w) won't give me a healthy discount on a 25 year supply .

but then again, I'd have to rent out a small freezer room at my local costco to store it all!

and getting chemicals in 25 years for color film might be somewhat problematic, who knows?

but from what I've found from working pros I've assisted for, art directors generally don't care what the medium is that's being shot, as long as what they've requested in terms of shots is met, and being able to see it on a large LCD screen is a must these days(most new AD's have only seen a polaroid when going to school, and digi since graduation)

what I think that will/could save film in the end(predominately color film) will be the new(er) generation of students and young pros who are getting exposed to film, and are liking what it gives them.

I worked on a job last year(assisting) where the Ad Agency(and client from what I heard) requested film specifically. so, there are times when film gives what is wanted, most other times digital meets the needs of both parties(photog and client) 100%.

but to artists, many of the top-dollar artists(think David Lachapelle, Andreas Gursky, Jeff Wall for instance) have moved to using MF-digi backs and dslr's in lieu of MF and LF(4X5, mostly 8x10). I don't think that most pro's(who can justify spending $30-60k on a camera system of their own) really are all that bothered about whether its film or digital(most preferring the digital workflow these days due to client's wanting to see the whole process and shot-by-shot. to me, its a give-and-take argument, I can see where they're coming from, not wanting to "waste time" running polaroid tests to see lighting ratios, or running test sheets/rolls of film to the lab and back, time pays, and the more jobs you can shoot in a smaller amount of time(not to mention clients with EXTREMELY SHORT DEADLINES), I think you can see my point.

sorry to have rattled off a bit, but we have to look at this from a pro's perspective a bit: If you have a roster of 15 shots in a day(10hrs), with 3 variations of each shot on 3 revolving sets, 1-1.5min per polaroid is a bit of time to wait to see what you get. shoot-->look at full-res file on monitor, "ok, 1/3 down on pack #2" shoot-->" "etc... you get my drift.

money talks, and slow pros walk....

pros(and to a point amateurs) back in the day were the backbone of film production, because film was the only thing to shoot(even when digi started to come into the pro scene heavy in the early 2000's). when ad agency's and photographers could see that they could have a faster turnaroud to a client, not having to make trips to the lab daily, and know 100% what they have before leaving the set, this was a very tempting offer, albeit an expensive one(still is to an extent). but being able to take that $40k digital system and write off a portion of its cost to your client on a daily basis lets you pay it off quite quickly.

more jobs(in less time)=more $$$$$$(generally) most ad's have finally gotten the point that digital can take AS MUCH time, if not more time, than film(retouching mostly), and pro's are able to charge justly for it.

so digital isn't always cheaper in the long run, but in terms of turnaround, it has some definite advantages

to the young(and all aged) artists and people who prefer the 'look' of film to digital, our numbers might be getting bigger(hopefully), but if we aren't buying more to feed our habits, the companies that make it won't be making $$, so, cutting our favorite films from their current line-ups.

in a perfect world, we could all have the ability to buy as much film as we could stock in our fridge/freezer, but unfortunately, I don't think this is possible for most of us. I know I can't stock up on Porta VC and TMY-2 for a while cause I need to get through my current stock of NC and efke film in the fridge.

tis the life....

sorry for rambling.

-Dan

Would Kodak Sell Film Division?

My experience is that everything is for sale.
Make Kodak an offer, you might be surprised how low they will accept.

Kris