"This could be the year that film goes away for Kodak!" ... [quote: George Conboy]

[Keith]

"This could be the year that film goes away for Kodak!" ... [quote: George Conboy]

This quote from the president of investment firm Brighton Securities in Rochester is interesting because this company has been around for a while and the 'pres' is worth checking out via the ever useful google search.

Incidentaly the quote comes from this video news clip on You Tube.

This is George's profile on the Brighton Securities site:

After several years with E.F. Hutton and on Wall Street, George joined Brighton Securities in 1988. Previously, he was a corporate tax accountant.

George, who has a national client base, specializes in thorough planning for comfortable retirement and for minimizing income and estate taxes. He is frequently quoted in the media when in-depth coverage is required on financial matters and he provides analysis of local companies.

George is a trustee for the Cobblestone School. He enjoys travel and is an avid cook and photographer.

He is indeed a photographer and is a member of photo.net and recently posted in a thread voicing his intentions of buying an M9 with questions about the compatabilty of lenses he currently uses on his two M6's. (I might point out that I made this risky assumption based on the fact that the George Conboy of p.net has images in his gallery shot in Rochester.) 😛

This says very little about Kodak's actual intentions I realise because George's statement really was just speculation but his photographic interests made it a little more interesting for me.

 

[sepiareverb]

Long thread at apug about this too.

 

[kdemas]

It's looking pretty grim given their fixed costs in production. Let's cross out fingers...and buy lots of film 🙂

Can you believe their workforce has dropped from 78,000 in 2002 to 18-19,000 today? This must be how horse pulled carriage makers felt at the turn of the last century!

 

[Mcary]

The way I look it this is no different then what happened with Ilford a few years ago. Kodak film will simple be available through a different company just like Ilford film are now produced and sold by Ilford Photo/Harman Technology LTD rather then Ilford.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

These threads have a predictable trajectory. 🙂

 

[maddoc]

When Kodak film is gone, how might Fuji act ?

 

[Keith]

If they do sell the film line whoever buys it will be looking for ways to make it profitable so I would assume a reduction of film emulsion options would have to follow.

It's hard to imagine a world without film with the 'Kodak' brand on it though ... even if the various emulsions do remain under some other guise.

 

[Keith]

These threads have a predictable trajectory. 🙂

Sorry Pickett but I think this is a little different ... less hysteria and more acceptance of what may have to happen.

 

[shadowfox]

These threads have a predictable trajectory. 🙂

It's good that threads like this one exist.
It brings out awareness.

It serves more purpose than sentiments like "get on with the times."

If every active RFF members buy 50 rolls of film a year (that's one roll per week), we won't be worrying about the demand part. And at least one company in the world will do very well being the supplier.

If Kodak is too daft to want to play, it's their loss.

 

[Mcary]

If they do sell the film line whoever buys it will be looking for ways to make it profitable so I would assume a reduction of film emulsion options would have to follow.

It's hard to imagine a world without film with the 'Kodak' brand on it though ... even if the various emulsions do remain under some other guise.

I think it safe to assume that the new film company will be allowed to use the Kodak name in some form or another. As for the names of the different emulsions it a pretty safe bit those won't change.
Do agree that the choice films will be greatly reduced a few core
emulsions.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Well, there are a lot of heroics going on, I guess. Some guy drags an old Kodachrome processing machine home and everyone is talking about the revival of Kodachrome. Kodak's film and processing sales are dropping like a rock quarter over quarter and folks believe that somebody is gong to pick up their film and make it profitable.

I don't get the problem. The handwriting on the wall is in big, black, bold magic marker lettering.

 

[Keith]

I think the good Doctor Kaufmann should buy Kodak's film line ... he's done a fine job of selling the world expensive low spec digital cameras as fast as he can make them of late.

Sorry ... that was mean! 😀

 

[Tompas]

When Kodak film is gone, how might Fuji act ?

They'll be flooding the markets with film cameras. What else?

 

[sig]

I think the good Doctor Kaufmann should buy Kodak's film line ... he's done a fine job of selling the world expensive low spec digital cameras as fast as he can make them of late.

Sorry ... that was mean! 😀

I think the word Digital is important here. Kodak is just doing what Leica sucessfully have done, get rid of the film part and go into the future with digital.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

I love film. There was a time in my newspaper photographer career when I shot 100+ rolls of Tri-X a week. So what am I editing tonight? Final Cut Pro is working away in the background rendering a video for the newspaper website for Black History Month.

A group of us on an RF forum shooting a handful of Tri-X each isn't going to keep it alive. It's Leica we should be hounding to make a decent $1,500 digital RF, not hoping that somehow Kodak and Ilford can keep an anachronism alive.

 

[Tompas]

(...) The handwriting on the wall is in big, black, bold magic marker lettering.

Yes. And it's always saying the same. It's saying: bad, greedy, short-sighted management killed this company.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

My guess, though, is that even a digital rangefinder camera is too much of an anachronism to save, much less to hope for an affordable one to be built.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Tompas, I agree with you. But Kodak hasn't been a "film" company in a long time.

 

[DNG]

I shoot Fuji anyway
re-spooled from Freestyle....
Kodak does this too,and I wander how many other company's use Kodak with different brands names... must not be enough though.....

 

[wlewisiii]

If Kodak pulls the plug, Harmon is in a better spot to lock up the niche. They might even be the ones that buy the coating facility.

There will be film from someone till long after I'm gone. It may get to be obscenely expensive but it'll exist. Unlike Kodachrome or Polaroid there isn't any one company only trade secrets or "magic" formulations. A basic silver in gelatin emulsion will exist if there is a market just as Titanium White can still be bought.

Good enough for me.