Another film is dying article... really??

"Well, with all the Chinese photographers buying up Leica, there's a huge potential market for film."

That's only assuming they use them more than the people they bought them from.

Kodak's film division LOST money in the first quarter of 2011, despite making small profits in previous quarters.
 
mrisney said:
Regal Cinema expects to have practically all of its theatres converted to digital cinema by the end of 2012 http://tinyurl.com/regal-cinema-going-digital

When this happens, I think it's over for Kodak emulsions. So there's your time line.
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Film makers still shoot on film, edit digitally, and can release the film in a digital format. The Regal Cinema news doesn't mean that film-makers will stop using film for shooting, just that film won't be used for the final print that gets sent to cinemas.

The King's Speech was shot on film, but still got shown at digital cinemas.
 
I did some research into who is making money from film when that article came and I discovered that Ilford has become a world leader in the manipulation of silver. I forget exactly what they do with it, but the do it well. 🙂 Also, Kodak makes money from injet cartridges and film, the majority their inkjet money was because I believe they won a lawsuit.
 
tlitody said:
And Fuji say they will be the last to stop producing film. i.e. they are in it to the end. So your colour film supplies will be safe for a good long while yet.
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The end of film will be before there is only 1 guy in line waiting to buy a roll. A film manufacturer could stop making film for consumers and still make for the film industry. It would dramatically cut costs - advertising, shipping, boxes, spools etc. If Kodak wants to sell in a few years there may be no buyers for consumer photo film line. Fuji should have no interest,

Steve
 
There are probably more than a billion film cameras in the world. Goodness knows how many the Chinese have. It will be a long time before they all have a computer at home or a local shop with a facility to print from SD cards.

I think someone will still make film - new emulsions are still appearing - and it just needs to be a smaller operation. What I'd really be interested to know is how far black-and-white film sales have fallen; the b/w mass market has been dead since the 1970s! Colour transparency ought to go though; in these days of scanning, colour neg is sharper*, far more forgiving,and you don't need to faff around with 81A filters to get the colour balance right since it will all be fixed in Photoshop.

*AIUI transparency film was only sharper because it was an original, whereas neg film had to be printed. If you're going to scan them, colour neg has the edge; and it captures far more detail because of its huge latitude.
 
I find it interesting that Gary Thompson (the fellow quoted in the article) got his medium format slide scanned and then printed. If he were a true purist he would have made a Cibachrome!
 
andredossantos said:
In the end there will probably be a handful of smal boutique companies that cater to those who can afford to still shoot and develop the stuff.
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For B&W, I think Ilford, and the likes of Adox/Efke, already amount to 'boutique' companies selling to a niche. If they can run a business on their current prices, the demise of a giant like Kodak is surely going to increase their output as people migrate to alternative brands. As long as the smaller makers compete with each other, I'd have thought a larger customer base would result in better economy of scale, such that prices don't suddenly go up.

To me, the limiting factor is the continued availability, and servicability, of film cameras - and people that want to use them.
 
The 786m rolls to 20m rolls figure is truly daunting. The article states that another 30m rolls are sold in the form of disposable cameras! However, I think companies will be able to make film at a profit even in very small quantities. Just look at Ilford, which has maybe 5% of the photo film market, and none of the movie market. Not a big business, but sustainable. Kodak's film division has been making losses recently, but that is probably related to legacy labor costs and other baggage from their high-volume past. At some point it will probably be restructured and costs brought down, probably along with a sale.
 
mrisney said:
Regal Cinema expects to have practically all of its theatres converted to digital cinema by the end of 2012 http://tinyurl.com/regal-cinema-going-digital

When this happens, I think it's over for Kodak emulsions. So there's your time line.
Click to expand...

But that doesn't necessarily mean that filmmakers will stop using film to make movies. There are quite a few cinemas here that use digital projections but most of the films are still recorded on film stock.
 
It's also ironic that most digitally-shot film is given artificial grain (taken from scanned film images of grey cards, I believe) in post-processing. If that isn't an admission that digital looks bad, what is?

I don't know about NTSC TV, but on PAL TV the difference between a programme shot on video without post-processing, like news and old sitcoms, and between something shot on film, is startling. The video footage is more realistic but somehow "cheaper" and "wrong". Pop promos really took off in the late 1970s; they started out in video but very quickly moved to film for its softer, more organic effect. Now it's come full circle and they can shoot video in the camera again, making it look like film later.

I can see artifical grain still being added in 100 years' time as a sort of skiamorph.
 
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