Kodak closes its last developing lab in France

[Topdog1]

This from Stephen Gandy's other site, cvug.com

The English translation from the French is charmingly Roccoco. Beware the Numerical One 😱:

Kodak: the death of silver in France Yves Grandmontagne January 23, 2007 -
09h13 The deposed giant of silver photography closed his last laboratory of
development in France. Information almost passed unperceived: Kodak closed
last Friday January 19, 2007 its laboratory of development of Creteil. It
was the last laboratory of development of the silver films of Kodak in
France. The traditional and historical system of pre-numerical photography
dies! In 2006, the site of Kodak developed 4,1 million films, against 22
million developments in 2002. A closing which in known as length also on the
desperate attempts at Kodak to survive. In spite of the migration towards
the numerical one, very top-of-the-range impression and health, the group of
cease to lose money. Frank cuts in plans of rectification, Kodak already
removed 27 000 employment in the world. With the center of Creteil, they are
150 removals of additional stations which come to weigh down the assessment
of that which was, a long time, the king of the silver one!

Regards,
Ira

 

[peter_n]

Will they be missed? I'm not so sure. I think the future of film is secure but underperforming behemoths like Kodak cannot afford it anymore.

 

[Trius]

This was announced quite some time ago.

 

[clintock]

The french lab probably had the highest labor costs vs productivity of any facility that Kodak had. Just guessing in a purely prejudiced way.

 

[david b]

Isn't the film division the most profitable part of Kodak? Aren't large format film sales up for Kodak?

 

[Abbazz]

Isn't the film division the most profitable part of Kodak? Aren't large format film sales up for Kodak?

Don't you read the news? Film is dead 😀

Unfortunately, Kodak, like many other large photographic companies, is not run by photographers. They are closing down all their film production plants and development facilities to save on costs. But I doubt they will survive by selling rebranded Chinese digital point and shoot cameras...

Cheers,

Abbazz

 

[sigma4ever]

I have to agree w/ Abbazz. Film is dying and it's sad. The world has passed us by, but I still feel that film with stick around with a few die-hards like me and maybe make a comeback someday. It would be great and it never hurts to dream. The reason I like film is because it actually takes time and work to get the shot. Nowdays, you can just point and shoot w/ digital and fix later on the computer. Photography is becoming more of an activity for computer nerds than the actual artists. As film fades, we'll only see more of this. I saw a photo in a magazine a while back which was just awefull. Besides the fact that the composition was terrible, it was so digitized that it looked like a computer generated image. This is what I can't stand, so no offense to the good digital users who take their time. Hey, were not we talking about film?

 

[Abbazz]

I have to agree w/ Abbazz. Film is dying and it's sad.

I don't think film is dying. Kodak thinks so. They are digging their own grave coz film is what they do the best.

Cheers,

Abbazz

 

[Diomedes]

Traitors !!! 🙂

 

[Trius]

OMG, some of these comments can't be serious, can they?

Kodak has had huge capacity for producing film. Film is produced in large batches. Depending on the substrate, the wide rolls are slit for different sizes, finished into sheets, MF rolls, 35mm carts, etc., and then shipped and/or stored, etc., etc.

With just one or two plants, Kodak could supply the current demand for their film products indefinitely. Demand for film IS down, no matter how much I wish it were otherwise.

K25 is dead. In my mind as a photographer, this is a bad, bad thing. Why is it gone? Because it was not a profitable product. IOW, it cost more to produce than sales supported ... more rolls of K64 and E6 films were being consumed; simple economics.

Right now Kodak makes good profit on analog products, so it keeps producing them since it certainly needs positive cashflow until digital becamse EBIDTA positive. And they can do so while consolidating facilities.

Rebranded Chinese digital products? OK, so what? Let see anyone go out and buy a digi-product that doesn't have at least Chinese components in it, if not wholly produced there. Such products will have badges such as Canon, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic, Pentax on them, etc.

Kodak's strategy in digital is clearly twofold:

1. Be a top player in the consumer digital camera market, i.e., digicams, not dSLRs.

2. Being in the top tier (i.e., #1 or #2) OEM sensor manufacturers.

How EK executes will be the telling tale, of course. I could probably think of strategies in analog products that would differ at least somewhat from their current strategy. But I'm not privy to the economic details and realities that come into play, so my speculation (and anyone else's) is just that, speculation.

Whatever missteps Kodak has made in the past, what is now is now. I'm pretty tired of everyone looking backwards and bashing Kodak based on emotion and no consideration of Econ 101. I'm not an economist or MBA, so take my comments with a grain of salt. But if you want Kodak to continue to support film, buy the damn stuff and help.

Rochester is not my home town, and I'm not emotionally attached to it. But if you continue to support EK film and chemicals, the people of Rochester will thank you.

 

[clintock]

I wonder what the biggest market for 35mm film is, Cinema prints?

I used to love to play arm chair quarteback about Kodak- in the mid '90s they let me down with the marketing department- it seemed they could not figure out a good way to name their film.. Gold, royal gold, gold max, max gold plus like that.. and aps!? And I'm still not sure what to call their c-41 black and white stuff..
Also the results I got from one of the gold somethinganother variants looked rank, so that didn't help.
But that was then. Now the Ultra Color film (fomerly something with the word Gold in it) and High Def (an aps film that had the word Gold in it I think).. are really damn good for print films sold at the drug store.. That black and white c-41 stuff- real good!
I'ts sad that K-25 is gone, but the stuff does have a shelf life and K-64 is just as good to the eyes of many, better if you consider speed, so they made the right call..

As parents and such, it is our duty to explain to the next generation how important analog methods of recording are. Not just images, but sound too. We're in a world now that thinks Digital=Good, Analog=Bad.
The fact is Analog is derived from analogy, in this case the analogy of something real. No matter how many bits or megapixles something has, continous tone is one thing, and a histogram based on discreet values is another. One can always derive the histogram from the analog continous tone source, but not the other way around.



Doh, I fell into the A-vs-D quicksand!

What i am preaching to the choir here, is that if we want film to survive, make sure there is a market of buyers for it, by explaining and showing to up and coming film customers why it's good and why it should be around...

While I'm ranting, here's something I noticed while digging through a box of old vietnam war era slides. I was looking at a Kodachrome of my late dad, and there was something magic about it thinking that that very bit of film, that material object that I could hold in my hand and touch, It once was in his presence and the light bouncing from his young living body was what altered this bit of chemical smeared celluoid to make the image.. I don't think I could get that feeling, however hokey- from a computer file icon.. sorry bout that..

 

[Topdog1]

It is the marketing departments of film companies that will have to explain this if film is to be a robust market - I won't say survive. And if the big companies do it too much it makes them seem like dinosaurs. I think film is ripe for niche players, except that the economies of scale are such that it makes it hard for them to be profitable. If you got used to gas at $3.50/gallon (in the US), maybe you shopuld start getting used to film at $15/roll.

/Ira

 

[Trius]

Clint: I am in total agreement about Kodak's missteps in marketing, but also in other areas such as PR/corporate communications and even product management decisions.

In the mid-70s Kodak lost me as a loyal, "Kodak as first choice" customer because of changes in product and strategy. Their resin coated papers SUCKED and their claims of "more silver", "better results", etc., were laughable. They changed Tri-X and I had to recalibrate, so that was another irritant. A bit later they tried to discontinue TX in favour of T-Max films ... hence the name "T-Max". There were multiple choruses of outrage and EK had to retreat. With all this, I switched to Ilford materials. I loved HP4, Ilford papers were great (even their RC was better than EK, though I pretty much stuck with fibre for finished prints), and the only Kodak product I really stuck with was HC-110, along with Photo-Flo because it was ubiquitous.

A lot of this has be hashed to death in other threads and elsewhere, of course, so I'll shut up.

Except to say yeah, the current products are very good. I can live with K64, part of my attachment to K25 is nostalgia and the slightly finer grain and definition edge. And the current Senior VP of Film Products Group, Mary Jane Hellyar is, from all accounts both extremely competent and a champion of film/analog.

I'll be shooting some of my promotional Portra this weekend, and I fully expect it to be some of the best C41 I've ever shot.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

I think that film will still around, but that film processing will get more difficult.

My local place (50 metres away) does a lot fewer films now than it used to even a couple of years ago. I think that next time the film developer machine needs a repair they'll discontinue film development.

 

[Trius]

Oh, and yes, I think 35mm film stock is the lion's share of Kodak's film revenue stream. When (if) Hollywood, Bollywood and Chinawood reach the digital tipping point for movie originals, that's when I think we'll see the death of film with the major film manufacturers.

 

[clintock]

Hopefully by then we'll have peel-n-stick micro-lens-free sensors that can tell black from purple to attach to our film plates with film can sized wireless transmitters to transfer the 3 Gigapixel full frame captures with dynamic range of 4+ to our Super iPods, which use the new mega-terabyte relativity-defying drives.

I'll still miss the smell of the chemicals anyway!

 

[Trius]

Heck, you'll miss fixing old cameras, too!

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I can only say one thing: fils de pu....!