Film Not Dead Yet, Says Kodak - Introduces Film SLR

Ade-oh said:
It seems a reasonable move. Outside the bigger cities, I'm not sure that India has the infrastructure to support all the things that are required for full-on digital photography, like cable-based broadband internet access and even reliable electricity supply (well it didn't when I visited a few years ago).

So film isn't quite dead after all. Good.
Click to expand...


Hm, I had no problems whatsoever in countries with frequent powershortages and no internet at all, not even a telephone line.

I would have had problems to find a place to develop E6 there, even C41 was close to unavailable.
Same for clean water and reasonable constant temperatures to develop B/W.
 
photogdave said:
Sounds like the educational institutes mentioned in the press release may have asked Kodak for this camera. They would already have contacts with Kodak from buying film and chemistry etc. so they probably asked for a new cheap film SLR that could be purchased in quantities.
Click to expand...


Sounds reasonable to me, too.

They probably want their students to shoot the same camera and buy classroom sets. Else one student competes with an EOS 1v against another with a Brownie :)
 
Socke said:
Hm, I had no problems whatsoever in countries with frequent powershortages and no internet at all, not even a telephone line.

I would have had problems to find a place to develop E6 there, even C41 was close to unavailable.
Same for clean water and reasonable constant temperatures to develop B/W.
Click to expand...

Presumably you were just visiting these countries?
 
bsdunek said:
I can agree with this. The price just to keep up is high. A lot of film can be bought for the several thousand dollars it takes to buy a computer, printer, and all the software, and it's out of date when you buy the next camera.
Click to expand...


What would you want the computer for, if not to replace a lab?

I take my film to the same lab which gets my digital files, I can shoot JPEG and select the files to print there, no need for a computer and monitor.

A 1GB card holds some 200 pictures and costs 6 Euro, 8 rolls 24exp Fuji C200 at the grocers next door are some 7 Euro.

And then I save 3 Euro developing with every film, prints are the same price no matter if digital or film :)
 
bsdunek said:
I can agree with this. The price just to keep up is high. A lot of film can be bought for the several thousand dollars it takes to buy a computer, printer, and all the software, and it's out of date when you buy the next camera.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but that's a ridiculous argument.

Clearly most all of us already HAVE a computer. Software is included with most digital cameras (and honestly, most don't need more than something like Elements).

My DSLR setup cost me all of $349 (Samsung GX-1S with 18-55 lens). I had the computer already. And a printer, but I usually just send it over to WalMart since it's dirt cheap to print there.

Out of date when I buy the next camera? I'm not replacing this one until it dies; just because there are ones out there with more features and more megapixels doesn't mean that mine suddenly is garbage. It took good pictures when I bought it, and unless it breaks it'll take pics just as good five years from now.

I prefer film (and shoot 90% of my stuff on it), but these types of arguments are just ridiculous. I'm not saying film is 'too expensive' because you need to run out an buy an F6 and a minilab to use it...
 
Socke said:
Yes, that's why I could have my slides developed at home.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Which is why in countries where electricity, broadband internet access and so on are more problematic, digital doesn't offer any particular advantages over film. Whichever format you use, you have to physically send it away somewhere to get your pictures in hard copy form.
 
aparat said:
There should also be an market for a low-priced SLR among thousads of college students in the US who take intro photography courses. It is virtually impossible these days to walk into a photo store and buy a manual SLR. The used market does not work for everyone. Some people still prefer to buy new and with a warranty.
aparat
Click to expand...

Could be, but you can buy Nikon FM's by the boatload for next to nothing. Not an unimportant factor for students. If it breaks (a big if with an FM in any case) just buy another.

I'm not a student, I just love to buy great gear for little cash :D
 
myoptic3 said:
I see this as just another inept, ill thought out move by what was once a great company but is now totally out of touch w/ the photography enthusiast. Or the consumer market for that matter.
Click to expand...

... or even sanity and common sense. Kodak (the people who brought us fifty proprietary film formats (none of which are still in use but 110 -- all because they wanted to corner the market on film sales -- who brought us the disc camera, who brought us the 110 camera, and so on and on and on), has not been in touch with photography enthusiasts, (so far as making film cameras is concerned) since the late 50s, when they decided to take a hands-on approach with the Kodak/Nagle Retinas and ruined them. Kodak's philosophy has ALWAYS been cheap and affordable photography for the masses -- and their film cameras have pretty much always reflected that (cheap junk). The ONLY two exceptions to that I can think of are the Retina I, II, and III series (which they actually had very little to do with) and the Medallist (produced to higher standards than usual, in order to get a government contract).
 
FallisPhoto said:
Kodak (the people who brought us fifty proprietary film formats (none of which are still in use but 110 -- all because they wanted to corner the market on film sales -- who brought us the disc camera, who brought us the 110 camera, and so on and on and on), has not been in touch with photography enthusiasts, (so far as making film cameras is concerned) since the late 50s, when they decided to take a hands-on approach with the Kodak/Nagle Retinas and ruined them.
Click to expand...

Leaving out the run-on sentence, just to address the 'proprietary' comment. 110 film is not proprietary, nor are the cameras which use it. Neither was 126, 127, 620, or even disc. Kodak introduced them, and one can certainly argue that they did it to try to increase their sales (like any company doesn't do that).

But Kodak was the film format innovator. 35mm cine film was around before Kodak decided to sell it - but their cartridge design called 135 soon eclipsed all others, and that's the standard today. 120 film, 220 film, these are also Kodak innovations that survived. Plenty of others didn't, but Kodak was hardly the only one to make them.

The fact is, without Kodak, there would not have been an amateur film industry as we know it today.

Kodak's philosophy has ALWAYS been cheap and affordable photography for the masses -- and their film cameras have pretty much always reflected that (cheap junk). The ONLY two exceptions to that I can think of are the Retina I, II, and III series (which they actually had very little to do with) and the Medallist (produced to higher standards than usual, in order to get a government contract).
Click to expand...

The Ektra was pretty nice. And quite honestly, even their cheap junk cameras do an amazingly good job, even today. My Brownie Hawkeye, which I bought for that 'cheap toy camera' effect, rendered such good images, I can't use it for that.

Taken with a Brownie:



Taken with a Yashica 12 (same lens as 124G):



The Yashica clearly does a better job - but not THAT much better, considering that one is a high-quality Tessar lens with the ability to focus, while the other is a miniscus lens with fixed focus.

Kodak made cameras for the rest of us - which was and is a large market. Not for you and I, perhaps - but for our parents and others who like to "press the button and we'll do the rest." And that's wrong how?

I wish Kodak well. I suspect this latest move as a boneheaded management play, but you never know.
 
Students use dslr's now. If you (as a student) want to take a chemical B+W class too, you'll have to buy a film camera too. You cannot at my community college take film photo classes anymore without a basic photography class which is taught exclusively with digital.
 
While I'm not sure about Kodak's move with film SLR, I can tell couple-of-years old experience in India - Taj Mahal, specifically. When we approached complex, photographer offered his services, take pics of us before we go into palace territory and maybe go with us and take pics there. Prints would be made in hour or so. I don't remember which SLR exactly he carried but for granted it were film SLR, not digital. Adding here predigital amateurs, there's space for film use in India.
But at what price ? I'm not sure Indians will buy new film SLR for, let's guess, $200. And I wouldn't, too, because I love bargains on used stuff. Old, used, sturdy and beautiful film stuff.
New film camera could pay back (for any manufacturer) if it would be cult camera. Will this SLR be cult camera ? I don't give my hand for it, not even finger.
 
Ade-oh said:
Exactly. Which is why in countries where electricity, broadband internet access and so on are more problematic, digital doesn't offer any particular advantages over film. Whichever format you use, you have to physically send it away somewhere to get your pictures in hard copy form.
Click to expand...

Sure, but what is better, exposed and undeveloped film or a computer screen to view digital files for three hours a day?
 
While I agree this announcement has several layers of strangeness, I don't think citing the used market as a natural competitor for a new economy film camera is quite right.

Most of us folks who end up hanging out on special interest message boards are deep into the hobby enough that we don't think twice about wading into eBay or the like to find that model from 20 or 30 years ago and do what it takes to get it. It's an unfounded presumption that everybody is like us in this regard, ready to be or even able in a practical sense. For large masses of the population, if you can't buy something locally from new stock on the shelf, it might as well not exist.

Take my hairdresser for example. In order to have some sample pictures of her work to show prospective brides, she's been using disposable cameras. She doesn't own a computer. She doesn't even own a DVD player. I started to recommend a Nikon FE and 85mm lens as a nice, grounded kit that wouldn't cost too much but realized I might as well be asking her to join the voyage of Jason and Argonauts. Just shopping for a used kit is beyond my hairdresser's normal range, to say nothing of getting one in good order and having it CLA'd.

Junk that it might end up being, people like my hairdresser are exactly the sort who'd buy a new cheap Kodak film SLR and I live in Washington. In India, I'm sure this kind of situation is a lot more common and there's a lot of people in India.
 
Here in the USA I understand colleges aren't even using film in their intro classes and are throwing away the darkroom equipment. I've seen a lot of this stuff on several auction sites.
 
In case you never noticed it, there is 6,6 billion inhabitants in this planet, and 2,6 billion are out of electricity... Try to market them a digi cam, or any camera at all...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom