Kodak Alaris official statement: Film future

[Ranchu]

Just wanted to note that for all the nice things about slide film, and I love it too, color negative has so much DR it's like lolling around in a hot bath. It's nice to know you can cover the waterfront. My saying that has nothing to do with digital users, don't worry so much.

 

[HHPhoto]

Dear Jan,

Possibly, but I still don't think so. Most serious photographers do their own B+W film developing, but slide is far more dependent on commercial E6 labs. It is the decline of these, rather than film availability, that has slaughtered slide film.

Dear Roger, it depends on the country:
For example here in Germany, which is one of the most important markets for slide film (in 2011 the slide film sales here have been double the sales of BW film!), we don't have such a decline in E6 labs.
Dozens of professional labs are doing it, most of them nationwide via mail order.
And we have more than 3500 drugstore chain shops were you can get slide film and development. And the development is very cheap, between 1,95 and 2,55€.

In the Netherlands, Suisse, Austria, UK, Hong Kong and Japan for example there is also no lab problem.

Even in the weak US market, where the film infrastructure is much worse compared to Germany, UK or Japan, you have more than ten E6 labs offering the service via mail order.

So in the US you have only three main film online sellers (FS, B&H, Adorama), but more then ten places you can get your E6 films developed via mail order.
And mail order is mostly even cheaper than using your local lab, because you have fuel cost, parking ticket costs, bus costs and your time loss if you use a local lab.

And you always have the opportunity to develop at home. It is not very difficult to develop colour at home. Lots of steps are even more simple with colour than with BW.

And, to repeat what I said before, no-one denies the advantages of slide film, and not just in quality. You are of course right about colour refs (not that this always weighed heavily with repro houses); I have myself given illustrated talks with slides; I love the convenience of being able to pull out a page of slides from my filing cabinets and select the ones I want. It is just that in my opinion -- and presumably in Kodak's -- the commercial viability is (a) declining and (b) irreversible.

I've had a longer phone call with one of the biggest film distributors in Europe yesterday.
They told me Kodak Alaris is discussing to start E6 again.
The pressure from the European and Asian markets, and especially from Kodak UK, is very big, I was told.
And not only the pressure from photographers, but also from users of 8mm and 16mm film.

So for all the Ektachrome lovers: Send Emails to Kodak Alaris and tell them that you need Ektachrome back.

It may be a little chance, but there is a chance.
It is in our hands to keep E6 alive. If we use it, it will stay.

Cheers, Jan

 

[HHPhoto]

Hi Stone,

I agree with a lot of what has been said so far, slide film is better than CN in many ways, and if I have to shoot color I always shoot slide film, however using slide projection as an example of quality isn't practical or useful as it's not something that anyone does anymore,

1. Lot's of people are doing it here in Europe. Even new slide projectors are built by several German manufacturers.

2. No one is preventing you or any other photographer to do slide projection and to enjoy it's unsurpassed picture quality!
You can get an excellent projector for almost nothing used, and even new ones are very cheap.

you don't go to your neighbors house and see their slides of their trip to oompah loompah land...

That is that stupid prejudice.
Current, modern slide projection has nothing to do with that.

You do it for yourself! You make the slide projection for you at your home. It is like home cinema, but much better, because no one is disturbing you eating pop-corn or farting 😉.
And with much better quality.

If you like, you can of course enjoy it together with your photographer friends, your family or your girl-friend.
But that is an option, no necessity.
If you like projection, just do it for yourself and don't care what others are doing.
You are a free person.

Another alternative if you want to enjoy your slides in a group:
Here in Europe a little new trend is in the beginning among serious photographers. It is called "Open Slide".
You meet with two, three, four or even more of your photographer friends for slide projection. And each brings in only some (5-10) of their most interesting slides.
Everyone is showing his small selection, with completely different subjects. And all take time to watch and enjoy this limited number of pictures. And discuss them.
It is like an exhibition.
Very very enjoyable and relaxing.
Of course we have a good meal and good drinks, too, at our Open Slide events. Really much fun!

The two are different animals since you can't print optically anymore (yes some specialty lab in Australia can do it while supples last but let's get real here...).

Wrong, in Germany alone we have several labs still doing Ilfochrome. There are others in other European countries.
And if you want BW optical prints from your slides, just use Harman Direct Positive paper.

Thanks for the info about this campaign I got out of the film game in 2007 (bought a canon digital 40D and back in in December 2010 during my mad rush around the country shooting K64. And before 2006 I was an amateur shooting only 35mm as a hobby, now I'm shooting 35mm(rarely), 120 mostly, and 4x5 (damn that slide film processing is expensive in LF).

Do it yourself, than it is cheaper. Or use mail order.

3 bath kits are unstable and 6/7 bath kits are unattainable for anyone but in huge lab sizes. And the 3 bath kits go off so fast you have to stock up on rolls and rolls and then devote a whole day processing it all to make it financially worth it.

The Tetenal 3bath kits and Fuji 6bath are quite stable. On flickr "I shoot film" an E6 shooter is currently making a long term experiment, he is currently using a solution which is now more than a half year old with flawless results.

Cheers, Jan

 

[HHPhoto]

Stone in Europe we have Professional E6 kits that are reasonable and high quality this will do 50 rolls:
http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/fuji-hunt-chrome6-e6-kit-5l-1758-p.asp

Yes Mark.
Other sources:
http://www.macodirect.de/colour-chemistry-c-765_768.html

http://www.fotoimpex.de/shop/fotochemie/farbchemie-e-6/

http://www.nordfoto.de/Analoge-Foto...mikalien/E-6-Prozess-Amateur:::1_2_20_26.html

http://www.fotobrenner.de/default.a...11867&UG=746&UE=19,76&MENPRO=3&MZW=227&SON=10

It may explain why E6 is more popular here, and I still project so does my father in law.
We have family evenings with old and new slides especially when relative come from far away–its a nice event and better than sitting round a laptop

Exactly.
And you always can do it only for yourself and your enjoyment. See my post above.

Cheers, Jan

 

[HHPhoto]

Dear Daniel,

I think you are vastly underestimating how many more photographers, pro and hobby are using black and white negative over slide film, I bet it is at least 30:1

You are estimating. Do you have real numbers?
Well,I have at least numbers for Germany, and here much more slide film is used than BW.
Last week the numbers of the leading German Professional lab Photostudio 13 were published: They are developing much more E6 slide film than C-41 and BW together.

The markets are different. There are big markets where slide film is much more popular than in the US.
The US has always been a more low quality oriented market.
In no other country so much single use cameras are sold as in the US, about 30 millions p.a. (in Germany only 0,5 millions).
That is about double compared to the worldwide BW film market.
The BW market is a tiny niche compared to colour, especially to C41. Depending on the market, 90-95% of all photo films worldwide are colour films, the tiny rest is BW.

And above all, black and white as a viable future medium is highly stable compared to color film let alone slide....I bet it is even more stable than digital in current form for that matter.

Of course film is more stable long term as digital. And film archiving is about 11x cheaper than digital storage.
http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/council/projects/digitaldilemma2/

The best long term stability has BW film on PET (more than 500 years).
Second best is E6 with about 200 years, the latest Fuji films even longer.
Colour negative film is in the 50-70 years range.
(Results from Image Engineering test lab and Wilhelm test lab).

You can start a crusade for E6 if you want,

I am not a crusader, not at all.
All I want to do is giving valid and useful information.
And as I permanently get pm's here in which other members are saying "thank you" to me, I think I do it quite well. At least lot's of others are telling that.

but I don't think it ever held nearly as big of a nostalgic place in people's hearts as Kodachrome did so

The facts are telling you you are wrong. Kodachrome was already dead about 20 years ago, when E6 surpassed it in quality.
Photographers preferred E6. Period.
For this reason Kodak stopped R&D with Kodachrome, and continued R&D for E6. And expanded their E6 range, and decreased the Kodachrome range.
E6 is still alive and Kodachrome is dead because photographers bought much more E6 than Kodachrome.
That is the simple truth.

All this being said, I will shoot the remaining stock of Velvia I have for one reason only and that is to look at gorgeous 6x12 and 4x5 chromes on my light table to remember fondly how utterly wonderful photography was before digital and the internet all but relegated the craft to the junk it is now.

That alone is enough reason, even for you, to continue shooting it.

Cheers, Jan

 

[sevo]

Wrong, in Germany alone we have several labs still doing Ilfochrome. There are others in other European countries.

Do you know any which would do small jobs for new customers? The ones I know have no tendency to expand their business, given that the paper is out of production, and they have a few successful artists to cater for.

written on the road

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Roger, it depends on the country:
For example here in Germany, which is one of the most important markets for slide film (in 2011 the slide film sales here have been double the sales of BW film!), we don't have such a decline in E6 labs.
Dozens of professional labs are doing it, most of them nationwide via mail order.
And we have more than 3500 drugstore chain shops were you can get slide film and development. And the development is very cheap, between 1,95 and 2,55€.

In the Netherlands, Suisse, Austria, UK, Hong Kong and Japan for example there is also no lab problem.

Even in the weak US market, where the film infrastructure is much worse compared to Germany, UK or Japan, you have more than ten E6 labs offering the service via mail order.

So in the US you have only three main film online sellers (FS, B&H, Adorama), but more then ten places you can get your E6 films developed via mail order.
And mail order is mostly even cheaper than using your local lab, because you have fuel cost, parking ticket costs, bus costs and your time loss if you use a local lab.

And you always have the opportunity to develop at home. It is not very difficult to develop colour at home. Lots of steps are even more simple with colour than with BW.



I've had a longer phone call with one of the biggest film distributors in Europe yesterday.
They told me Kodak Alaris is discussing to start E6 again.
The pressure from the European and Asian markets, and especially from Kodak UK, is very big, I was told.
And not only the pressure from photographers, but also from users of 8mm and 16mm film.

So for all the Ektachrome lovers: Send Emails to Kodak Alaris and tell them that you need Ektachrome back.

It may be a little chance, but there is a chance.
It is in our hands to keep E6 alive. If we use it, it will stay.

Cheers, Jan

Dear Jan,

Let us live in hope!

Cheers,

R.

 

[HHPhoto]

Most of what you say is a good argument if you wish to remain in the digital domain for final output.
I've started projecting again and using the two free projectors a Leica and a Kodak and nothing digital can touch them not even a fairly high resolution short throw projector costing many thousands.

Exactly Mark.
Those who will keep film (E6, C41, BW, instant) alive are enthusiast photographers.
Those for whom it is a hobby.
And those can enjoy slide film at its full potential, with no compromises at all:

- projection with the best quality at lowest prices; projectors heve never been so excellent as today, and prices have never been so cheap!

- enjoying them on a light table with an excellent loupe; you get a Schneider or Rodenstock loupe for only a few bucks.

Cheers, Jan

 

[HHPhoto]

Do you know any which would do small jobs for new customers? The ones I know have no tendency to expand their business, given that the paper is out of production, and they have a few successful artists to cater for.

written on the road

Photostudio 13.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . Last week the numbers of the leading German Professional lab Photostudio 13 were published: They are developing much more E6 slide film than C-41 and BW together. . .

Dear Jan,

Surely a lab that offers E6 is going to develop a lot of E6. But there are a lot more C41 labs and I'd have thought that almost all serious B+W users develop at home. Are you sure that even in Germany (the acknowledged stronghold of slide films) that slide film sales are twice B+W? No doubt you have far better figures than I, but I'd be grateful if you'd quote your sources.

Cheers,

R.

 

[gdi]

Agree 100%, the idea of my response had less to do with slides and more do to with the fact that the slides and negatives already in existence are a steady stream of business for scan houses. Most will go away but some will do quite well as niche demand will remain steady for some time.

FYI for those who may be thinking about it, Catlabs Jobo Outlet has come up with a really nice and economical C-41 kit that even I am considering getting for twice a year runs of my color neg film in my Jobo, so people are trying to fill those niches for color film, even as demand continues to fall:

http://catlabs.bigcartel.com/product/catlabs-c-41-3-bath-chemistry-kit-5l-10l

Do you see an advantage of using Catlabs 3 step process over others that are available - like Tetenal, Unicolor and the like? I used to develop E-6 now and then in my Phototherm, but then Kodak discontinued their 6 step kit...

 

[HHPhoto]

Dear Jan,

Surely a lab that offers E6 is going to develop a lot of E6. But there are a lot more C41 labs and I'd have thought that almost all serious B+W users develop at home. Are you sure that even in Germany (the acknowledged stronghold of slide films) that slide film sales are twice B+W? No doubt you have far better figures than I, but I'd be grateful if you'd quote your sources.

Cheers,

R.

The lab Photostudio 13 is the leading lab here for professionals.
They are doing developing of all film types, even BW slide.

The numbers are from the "Deutscher Photoindustrie Verband".
That is the organisation of the photo industry in Germany.
Similar, but not identical to the american "Photo Marketing Association" PMA.

As I've written above: We have about 3500 drugstore chain shops here in Germany, and they are all selling AgfaPhoto Precisa slide film. And very cheap. And all offer very cheap slide film processing.
We have eight big mass volume labs here (developing on an industrial scale, not such professional labs like Photostudio 13).
CeWe has three of them here, Fuji Eurocolor has two, and allcop, OrWoNet and dplab have one big mass lab.
All are also developing slide film.

Germany has probably one of the best infrastructures worldwide for film and photography in general, Japan probably being on the same, or even a bit better level.
The US infrastructure is quite crappy compared to that.
Here more than 10 specialized online film companies are doing their business e.g..

5 German manufacturers are producing slide projectors.
5 German manufacturers are producing photo chemistry.
several camera manufacturers, manufacturers for optical enlargers, film, photo paper, developing tanks and so on.
All in all, more than 30 companies here are producing new stuff for the film market.

Cheers, Jan