Hmmm, we don't know what they are doing about film outside of English speaking countries and that's mainly Australia, New Zealand, North America and Europe to judge by the members of these forums.
They could have a huge but growing market in China (where a lot of Leicas end up in collections) for all I know.
Regards, David
Good point.
For what's my (VERY limited) experience, I have contacts in Algeria, Venezuela, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Russia etc yet all those I know talk about mobile phone cameras and digital p/s. Film is totally unknown to them. Although I bet that in some remote supermarket of Central Asia Kodak Gold is still being sold (as it's here in big department stores, sometimes it's even expired), I'm not sure who's going to purchase it.
In general, I suspect that Kodak is selling low (and always lower) cheap film there, with probably the exception of China and (maybe) India - don't forget they have Bollywood. China might be a great opportunity or a total failure depending on how things will evolve in the next 10 yrs, maybe less, so Kodak should play at its best there.
For our countries, I guess high quality films like Portra (and maybe classics like Tri-X and others) are those who record a higher sale trend. It's due to the fact that both "connoisseurs" (like we are, more or less) and "amateurs" (at school and colleges) are their main user base.
Despite imperating digital, I'm assuming things for Kodak will be better in the next, short-term, future, although I couldn't say "how much" better, yet I think the bottom point has already been reached and overcome. Once people could afford digital cameras, then some of them decided to come back to film for whatever reasons. Digital is still the main option but didn't kill film. Not yet and not in the moment it could do that.
My esteem is that in the future - if no other major troubles happen - a second negative wave for film might be in the next 10-15 yrs when there will be a solid DIGITAL user base which won't have ANY idea of what film is. It's when our kids, become adults, will have kids themselves without having had any film experience in the past, only mobile phones and p/s or whatever comes next.
Yet, until I can, I'll continue supporting film not because of a "die hard" philosophy yet because I simply like it how it renders the same image in a
different way, whatever "different" means.
Since 2 billion people eat rice daily, it doesn't automatically mean I have to as well, right ?
