brbo
Well-known
Well, I'm glad that a little bit of marketing will ensure long term Kodak film availability then.
Please, send your letter to Kodak Alaris immediately, so film will be saved and I don't have to end my life today.
Kodak Alaris CEO asking for input
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Well, I'm glad that a little bit of marketing will ensure long term Kodak film availability then.
Please, send your letter to Kodak Alaris immediately, so film will be saved and I don't have to end my life today.
mani
Well-known
Well okay - you decided to be insulted by my reaction, and come back with a sarcastic response. I just don't see the point of giving up as though there's nothing we can do - that's not how I want to live my life, though I see more and more examples of this 'learned helplessness' behavior in online discussions (in various topics) as time goes on. I think many of us are assuming that there's 'nothing we can do' because we're exposed on a daily basis to global events that seem to have their own immutable progression. But sometimes we can at least try to take control.
I have absolutely no naive belief that my inconsequential mail will change anything about the global use of film in the future. But I also see no point in NOT sending the mail. It took me five minutes to write it. Later on I'm going past the lab and I'll be buying a few 5-packs of Portra 160 in 120 format.
Next week I might buy some more. That's how I'll be doing what I can. On the other hand, I could sit at the computer and foretell the imminent death of film as some have been doing for the last fifteen years. It might supply me with some delicious feeling of schadenfreude - in Sweden there's a folk saying that this is the only 'genuine' pleasure - but I'd rather be out taking pictures with film in my cameras whenever I can. I guess one day the doomsayers will finally get the satisfaction of saying 'I told you so'. Who knows, I might be dead by then myself.
brbo
Well-known
And I have a strong belief that your 5-minute-film-saving-strategy is unlikely to work. Also, may I be free to have and state MY opinion on the matter without being suggested what to do with my life ...
Besides, do you think that people who shoot film don't buy film? Everyone that's still using film IS ALREADY buying film. Probably even more than they can shoot (they freeze the rest).
mani
Well-known
I wasn't telling you how to live your life, I was saying how I choose to live MY life - the approach that you said was pointless and futile, to which I replied why I decide to live my life with my approach. I'm also entitled to my opinion, I think.
Anyway, I was trying to keep the thread positive and constructive - I'd say that was the original intention of the OP. No point in continuing into a personal shouting match.
Aristophanes
Well-known
Kodak's old motto:
"You push the button, we do the rest"
Film won't be saved by appealing to emotions, history, creative urges, or lifestyle choices.
Film production will continue only by applied economics, plain and simple.
The Kodak name alone is a built-in marketing machine.
Roll film can only be produced in industrial strength runs measuring kilometres long, or millions of rolls. This can be done very cost-effectively. Unfortunately film expires, so inventory build-up is not feasible, even cooled (more cost).
Getting those films to market is easier today than before, especially with mail order through online outlets.
Processing film made from multi-kilometre long master rolls will take a great number of minilabs, and nothing else. No amount of home processing can keep up with production. Labs are vital to the continued production of film. Eastman Kodak used to centralize all processing before they, too, could not keep up. Returning to some variant of that model might be viable in the near future.
It is cost-effective scanning, especially of higher quality scans, that is the main cost barrier. This step unfortunately adds 2-4x more cost per shot yet is vital to today's consumer; a deal breaker. It is very ironic that the materials and chemistry of film is very cheap, but the digital side of scanning is very expensive and hardly automated.
Roll film was entirely a product of applied economy of scale. To survive, some semblance of scale must be preserved all through the chain of supply from Building 38 in Rochester all the way to the scanned image on the consumer's screen. You can write sentimental letters to the Alaris CEO all you want, but maybe more technical and financial questions should be asked as to how they propose to facilitate the scale and the chain. Speak a CEO's language, not yours.
nongfuspring
Well-known
Completely agree. The major obstacle to film usage for myself and my friends, most between 25 and 35, is the inconvenience and (often outrageous) cost of development and half decent scanning. Call us lazy, but this is the reality of it. Few of us can be bothered purchasing the often expensive chemicals and equipment, and fewer can be bothered using them.
If Kodak can establish a good dev and scan service with thoughtful online integration and market it suitably I think they'd be onto something.
02Pilot
Malcontent
FWIW, I sent the following last night and had already received a direct reply this morning, which indicated that it would be forwarded to the appropriate people as well. If nothing else, they are at least opening a dialogue with their customers - whether this proves to be productive and useful is a different question.
As a dedicated user of Kodak film for many years, I appreciate your invitation to customers to share their thoughts about Kodak's products and future. As you know, photographers using film today are a dedicated group, and opening and maintaining communication between your company and your customers will hopefully be to the benefit of all involved.
I would like to take the opportunity to share a few thoughts. The first point, one I suspect you've heard from others already, is that I sincerely hope that Kodak Alaris will continue production of the entire current range of photographic film. The products are excellent - I'm a particular fan of Tri-X and Portra 160 - and the discontinuation of any of them would represent a significant loss to the photographic community.
Continuing with the theme of maintaining the viability of film photography into the future, I have wondered if Kodak Alaris has or will be considering products and services related to digitization. Given that printing and archiving film photographs is increasingly done via digital capture of film negatives, it would seem that marketing a dedicated film scanner capable of rapid, high-quality scanning to end users might be a useful way to encourage continued use of film in the long run. Similarly, for those unable or unwilling to scan their own film, a high quality scanning service would seem a logical adjunct to your film sales. Obviously, realization of these ideas would be contingent on profitability - perhaps opportunities for collaboration with other companies and/or adaptation of existing technologies could be explored.
I hope that you will lead Kodak Alaris in a direction that continues the long Kodak tradition of support for film photography, and that you will embrace the dedicated and enthusiastic community of film photographers that want to continue to support your efforts.
As a dedicated user of Kodak film for many years, I appreciate your invitation to customers to share their thoughts about Kodak's products and future. As you know, photographers using film today are a dedicated group, and opening and maintaining communication between your company and your customers will hopefully be to the benefit of all involved.
I would like to take the opportunity to share a few thoughts. The first point, one I suspect you've heard from others already, is that I sincerely hope that Kodak Alaris will continue production of the entire current range of photographic film. The products are excellent - I'm a particular fan of Tri-X and Portra 160 - and the discontinuation of any of them would represent a significant loss to the photographic community.
Continuing with the theme of maintaining the viability of film photography into the future, I have wondered if Kodak Alaris has or will be considering products and services related to digitization. Given that printing and archiving film photographs is increasingly done via digital capture of film negatives, it would seem that marketing a dedicated film scanner capable of rapid, high-quality scanning to end users might be a useful way to encourage continued use of film in the long run. Similarly, for those unable or unwilling to scan their own film, a high quality scanning service would seem a logical adjunct to your film sales. Obviously, realization of these ideas would be contingent on profitability - perhaps opportunities for collaboration with other companies and/or adaptation of existing technologies could be explored.
I hope that you will lead Kodak Alaris in a direction that continues the long Kodak tradition of support for film photography, and that you will embrace the dedicated and enthusiastic community of film photographers that want to continue to support your efforts.
rybolt
Well-known
This has been an interesting thread. Some of the posts show an amazing lack of understanding about economics and others show the opposite.
One of the most interesting things to me is that no one has mentioned sensitized photographic paper. In order to understand Eastman Kodak's business plan you can't take away the synchronicity of film and paper both color and black and white.
In the heyday of black and white photography there were at least four major suppliers of photographic paper; Eastman Kodak, Agfa, Dupont and, a little later, Ilford. Eastman Kodak was the dominant film manufacturer at that time and probably controlled well over 50 % of the paper market. The more film they sold, the more paper (and chemistry) they sold. Later on the same was true with color.
Now there's no discussion of Kodak Alaris and sensitized photo paper. That ship has sailed. So what your left with is a market that has to stand alone and pay for all of it's costs strictly on what they can charge for a roll of film.
I know it's not a popular position but I was in the photo business for 33 years and I've seen many big companies come and go. I think that Kodak Alaris will manufacture film for the next few years. Maybe as many as five. After that I think you'll see them spin off that market to a country where it can be produced at lower costs. They will most likely retain the marketing rights as well as the name Kodak. I wouldn't be surprised to see a group like the Impossible Project step in and produce some vintage emulsions if they can get the money to do it.
I don't mean to sound like a know-it-all. Just my observations.
One of the most interesting things to me is that no one has mentioned sensitized photographic paper. In order to understand Eastman Kodak's business plan you can't take away the synchronicity of film and paper both color and black and white.
In the heyday of black and white photography there were at least four major suppliers of photographic paper; Eastman Kodak, Agfa, Dupont and, a little later, Ilford. Eastman Kodak was the dominant film manufacturer at that time and probably controlled well over 50 % of the paper market. The more film they sold, the more paper (and chemistry) they sold. Later on the same was true with color.
Now there's no discussion of Kodak Alaris and sensitized photo paper. That ship has sailed. So what your left with is a market that has to stand alone and pay for all of it's costs strictly on what they can charge for a roll of film.
I know it's not a popular position but I was in the photo business for 33 years and I've seen many big companies come and go. I think that Kodak Alaris will manufacture film for the next few years. Maybe as many as five. After that I think you'll see them spin off that market to a country where it can be produced at lower costs. They will most likely retain the marketing rights as well as the name Kodak. I wouldn't be surprised to see a group like the Impossible Project step in and produce some vintage emulsions if they can get the money to do it.
I don't mean to sound like a know-it-all. Just my observations.
KM-25
Well-known
Most of this sounds like developing and scanning for color film, certainly cause for concern...
Scanning is really nothing more than taking a photo of the already made photograph, a reproduction step. So with that said, a great variety of scanning needs and wants come into play. For example, I generally wet print my black and white images, due to method stability reasons and greater artistic flexibility, I use very little color film. So last night I wanted to make good on showing some photos from my new Nokton 35, I developed the film earlier this week. I simply used my DSLR in RAW and a macro lens on with a small light table. Even though I was only after a small file for web presentation, the D800 can often give my Nikon 9000ED a run for it's money, it works that well, especially if I place a piece of glass over the neg with a cardboard mask to hold back stray light.
This is just one example of "scanning", I have even used my iphone to quickly snap pics of chromes that really come out pretty good for web representations. There is all this talk of quality but let's focus on the real Achilles heel of color or even black and white film and that is the convenience or lack thereof in sharing the image. Most enthusiasts who pixel peep are after the highest quality they can get, so they might go the dedicated scanner or DSLR route while the Facebook crowd just wants it good enough to fill a average display, often an iPad or phone.
There is a lot of room for innovation here and yes, that also includes creating a network of labs that already handle print output from the likes of SD and CF cards. As a working pro who talks to a lot of people, perhaps an average of 2-3 everyday about photography, I can tell you from my experience that most people are not happy about the decline in labs or places to make a simple print from *any* medium, digital, film or otherwise.
So there needs to be some innovation here and centralized wet labs that are based on regional needs could easily serve the needs of customers that do not know where to go. People like to be able to count on things not changing too much, like the milk being in the same aisle of the grocery store. The same applies to how they deal with their images.
Maybe Alaris is onto this and is figuring out a way to meld at least middle of the road scanning services in addition to print products as it moves forward. In 2009 during a meeting at Kodak I was a part of, a former Photo.net admin brought up the lack of both a consumer version and network of scanners as the number one problem that film use faces. He is and was right.
This is exhausting stuff to a guy like me who really believes in film products offering an alternative to life in same-as-every-other-hack digital land. Some days I want to sign onto a place like this, try to get people fired up to be positive. Most days I go about my business of photography, use my darkroom and enjoy the fact that if all film production ceased tomorrow, I would be set for at least ten years from shutter click to matted print.
I am getting close to the latter...in fact I really have nothing more to add....except, what do you and other film doomsayers get out of leading the sky is falling crusade? Does it make you feel good about something in your lives to point a finger at someone and say their loved one is likely not going to survive cancer treatment?
I had mentioned a few posts back about how much better RFF is about not being down on film but it is starting to shift the other way and I just can't take it because if a day comes that I can not use my darkroom to make a *REAL* effing photograph, I am DONE with photography. Fortunately, Ilford Harman is doing very well with the entire process of black and white film all the way to the final print, their new MG Classic paper is fantastic, so let's not make it sound like ALL film is at risk when at least one player is continually in the black and is innovating to boost demand.
Looks like it is time to log out and leave it be...
Michael Markey
Veteran
Ilford ,in the UK, have just sent out a questionnaire to its customers asking how we would like to see the service developing in future.
Higher res scans and book production were some of the suggestions being offered.
Higher res scans and book production were some of the suggestions being offered.
Aristophanes
Well-known
Kodak Alaris doesn't manufacture any film. They purchase their film from Eastman Kodak. EK controls the manufacture of all film, and the sale of cinema film products directly. Kodak Alaris has to drive demand for roll film, which in turn subsidizes sheet film. To some extent based on Building 38's output minimum outputs, cinema film will drive and cross-subsidize all coating. it's a cross-subsidy pyramid: Vision cinema films subsidize the colour C-41 films (apparently Ektar and Portra and Vision all utilize many of the same inputs and may even be changed mid-run). If the lights are still on they can do some b/w.
As for print papers, this segment has dramatically shrunk as screen viewing has largely replaced mass printing, especially from labs. That said, paper printing does scale down fairly well. In fact, consumers can now source superior products at lower prices from specialist vendors. Large print suppliers still largely use optical (if you buy directly fro Apple via iPhoto it is all optically printed in the traditional sizes). The biggest market growth has been in photo books, some of which are phenomenal in quality and may represent the best combination of display and archiving for consumers. Labs have largely done a very good job of marketing and meeting these demands, but their online competition is slowly grinding the local suppliers out. As for darkroom supplies....time will tell. The darkroom industry (and the film camera industry) has largely become a salvage industry where used product in the pipeline eclipses both demand and new supply by huge margins.
Kodak Alaris has a right to use the name Kodak in perpetuity. But to reiterate, Alaris does not own the film coating manufacturing facility. The crown jewel of legacy roll film production worldwide is EK's Rochester Building 38. It is both ironic and insightful that this pinnacle of film production overproduces and cannot be scaled down, which is part of the problem.
Michael Markey
Veteran
bwcolor
Veteran
The survival of film as an artistic medium is, from the manufacturer's reference, about money. Calling someone a doomsayer for pointing this out is not reasonable. I'm old and am optimistic that some form of film will continue over the next couple of decades, but I don't hold out any hope that Kodak will take their limited resources and bring back Plus-X, or invest in new lab scanning services, or market a high quality home scanner. They have more productive places to spend their money and time. If film is to continue, it will be in very low volumes at a high price produced by smaller companies.
Aristophanes
Well-known
Ilford's in-house processing and scanning (Lab Direct...great title) is a step in the right direction.
I think their barrier is price, however.
Their baseline is develop and print at ~US$20 per 36exp.
Scans at Std-Res 1800x1200 adds another ~US$5.00
Scans at Hi-Res 4500x3000 adds another ~US$17.00
They sell film at ~US$8.50 for b/w.
Scans got to CD, not uploaded. This is because that is how the mini-labs evolved. The CD was seen as the distribution medium for digital in order to preserve the cash cow of photo prints.
As a result—and you can see this from the order forms—those scanners can handle quite a flow-though at a decent speed.
here's a Kickstarter project: someone engineer an ethernet and cloud service module into the CD drive bay of Fuji and Noritsu mini-labs. A second Kickstarter would replace the CPU guts of the scanners themselves with more pressing power and RAM. They are stuck in 2005 tech. It's huge cost suck., and you can see that from the Ilford order form:
http://www.ilfordlab.com/images/PDF/ORDER FORM FILM GBP.pdf
Imagine a different process:
1. You send your film in and it gets developed and scanned at standard res for US$10 (e.g. The Darkroom, by preferred lab http://thedarkroom.com).
2. Scans are uploaded online for the consumer as part of that price. No CD. Save on postage.
3. Consumer can choose an enhanced scan of select photos.
4. Consumer can choose prints of select photos.
5.Negatives can be mailed back at much less cost than CDs/prints. They could even be site archived and mailed back at year end or similar.
Scans are the dominant mechanism for the consumer, but the option for an enhanced scan needs to be affordable. Reason why is that the enhanced or "super" scans (http://thedarkroom.com/Film-Developing-Form.pdf see p.2) provide detail for cropping, Photoshop, printing etc. which is one gateway to scanning in any case. That's the bane of standard scans; they do not compete with a modern APS sensor.
Keys are to get rid of the CD associated with scans. Customize the consumer experience. Drive the costs down inclusive of postage, materials, labour.
Caveat on the Ilford process: they deal with true silver halide b/w. C-41 is designed to be cheaper. Nevertheless the Ilford cost in the UK per photo with an enhanced scan on CD wit prints and a new roll of film is over US$50 per 36.exp. roll PLUS postage pushing US$1.50 per image.
This historical cost for a 4x6 processed image plus a roll of ilm is below US$0.20 per image. Personally, based on my own calculations, the long-term viability of roll film will require an inclusive cost of no more than US$0.75 per image.I will give some extra costs for real b/w and elasticity on postage prices.
Ilford USA/Canada site has slightly different pricing:
http://www.ilfordlab-us.com/documents/6261%20Ilford%20Lab%20$%20with%20Order_Postage%20Paid%20Inbound%20V2.pdf
At least these are steps in the right direction. It's not all bad.
Michael Markey
Veteran
I always use Ilford for printing ...its very convenient and I`m happy with the results.
I sometimes use them for developing too if I haven`t got the time /inclination to do my own.
Cost is a big issue as are turn `round times.
All in all though I think its a workable model for the future .
I sometimes use them for developing too if I haven`t got the time /inclination to do my own.
Cost is a big issue as are turn `round times.
All in all though I think its a workable model for the future .
Ranchu
Veteran
Everyone understands economics, opinions differ as to what they will result in. And what Motorola Suit should do. Just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they 'don't understand' what's being discussed. You're passive agressively insulting us. Not that I'm surprised, I just think you need to get it straight.
Thanks.
bjolester
Well-known
After having read this tread I stumbled upon this article from September 2013 about the Kodak Park in Rochester. Kodak Park is aspiring to become a multi-tenant technology and industrial center, comprising in 2013 about 50 businesses. One of the businesses is the solar cell company Natcore, and they employ the services of people also working for the Kodak film division, and also use parts of the film making facilities. All in all this looks very promising for the film making part of Kodak. Previously in this tread there was talk about the need for "downsizing" the Kodak film producing plant. The way I understand this article, it already seems like Kodak has found other ways to use their expertise and facilities, to compensate for the diminishing demand for film. Could the future for (Kodak) film possibly look a bit less gloomy?
http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/rochester/the-park-and-resurrection/Content?oid=2275951
Regards
Bjørn
http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/rochester/the-park-and-resurrection/Content?oid=2275951
Regards
Bjørn
BlackXList
Well-known
Not to be argumentative, but Arri have just made JJ Abrams a bunch of new 35mm motion picture cameras for the new Star Wars films.
The showing of feature films being projected by digital projectors makes sense, and has absolutely nothing to do with whether projects are made on film or digital.
TXForester
Well-known
Ektachrome in 100. For those of us who don't want to spend a lot on pro films for all of print film needs, I'd like to see Kodacolor in 100 and 400. Between those two, you have a relative high resolution choice and a moderately fast choice.
clcolucci58
Established
I would like to see Plus-X return and B&W printing paper that Kodak use to offer.
Regards
clc
Regards
clc
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