Kodak to Stop Making Digital Cameras to Cut Costs

[Robert Lai]

Wow, now my Kodak P880 digicam will be MINTY, RARE, HIGHLY COLLECTABLE in ebay-speak. I might even be able to buy a hamburger at McD's with the money I get from selling it. In truth, it's not a bad camera (nice Schneider zoom lens), but it is obsolete, being vintage 2007. Why Kodak wanted to commit suicide by entering the low end digicam market and the printer market is beyond me. These are markets that nobody is making much money in.

At least I still have my Rolleiflex 3.5F and Super Ikontas to keep me happy. They still get filled with Kodak's 120 films.

 

[chris00nj]

I get this feeling that Kodak's digital camera division were eschewing quality cameras to try and recapture the mass appeal that the Instamatic once had. However what they didn't realise is that today's version of the old Instamatic is a phone camera.

Agreed. You could never go up market with Kodak digital cameras either. Nikon has a wide range from low-end compacts to the D4.

 

[Leigh Youdale]

I think people here are drawing over-optimistic conclusions from vague statements made by Kodak about "continuing to manufacture film" etc. Of course they would say that - they're trying to prop up the share price and keep the investment market on side while they struggle to restructure and save something from the train wreck that Kodak has become.

Given the brilliance of Kodak management over the last couple of decades, the inbred nature of their senior management succession and changes in the market that they misread I wouldn't hold out any hope that Kodak itself will survive in a viable form. Bits of it will, and if the film division has been profitable, as reported, then it's a likely sell-off eventually to raise money to plug some other hole that's leaking badly.

What's also likely is that some venture capitalists will buy the film division, along with some technical and production management input, as a going concern along with rights to use the film names. Then "Kodak Film" will be a separate company, not owned by Eastman Kodak and we will continue to see a reduced and limited range of film and chemical products that we are familiar with. Consider what happened to Ilford and how it was "saved". I predict the same will happen to Kodak film.

 

[sig]

I think the film division would be sold already if anybody were interested..... Seems like the good parts of kodak is already sold

 

[jsrockit]

I get this feeling that Kodak's digital camera division were eschewing quality cameras to try and recapture the mass appeal that the Instamatic once had. However what they didn't realise is that today's version of the old Instamatic is a phone camera.

http://pluggedin.kodak.com/pluggedin/post/?id=2216068

 

[Mattco26]

I think people here are drawing over-optimistic conclusions from vague statements made by Kodak about "continuing to manufacture film" etc. Of course they would say that - they're trying to prop up the share price and keep the investment market on side while they struggle to restructure and save something from the train wreck that Kodak has become.

Given the brilliance of Kodak management over the last couple of decades, the inbred nature of their senior management succession and changes in the market that they misread I wouldn't hold out any hope that Kodak itself will survive in a viable form. Bits of it will, and if the film division has been profitable, as reported, then it's a likely sell-off eventually to raise money to plug some other hole that's leaking badly.

What's also likely is that some venture capitalists will buy the film division, along with some technical and production management input, as a going concern along with rights to use the film names. Then "Kodak Film" will be a separate company, not owned by Eastman Kodak and we will continue to see a reduced and limited range of film and chemical products that we are familiar with. Consider what happened to Ilford and how it was "saved". I predict the same will happen to Kodak film.

What happened to Ilford that was so bad? I can still buy their film up the street at my local camera shop so it couldn't be all that bad.

From the articles I've read it seems that they want to concentrate their efforts and investments in the film division, not that it's just another division of many that they will continue to have.

 

[Mattco26]

My Plan for Kodak

My Plan for Kodak

http://pluggedin.kodak.com/pluggedin/post/?id=2216068

Wow. Click on the Kodak logo and go to their main site.

Go to "Consumer Products and Services"

Look at all the film types they have!!!


Film is only under the "Commercial Businesses" tab. Truly inept management. Why wouldn't they promote consumer film purchase at all? Just for fun while at the mall I went into the camera store and asked if they sold any film. They actually had a decent selection of film, even in 120. No signage anywhere that said "Kodak Film Sold Here", nothing. I had to ask, as their inventory was in a drawer behind the counter.

Our local Barnes and Noble bookstore has Diana cameras in 35mm and 120 as well as a selection of overpriced lomo film in a nice big glass display case righ next to the register. I wonder how much film the mall store could sell if the kids knew they could get it there at 1/2 the price of the lomo stuff.

I think there is a perfect opportunity for Kodak to get on the youth photography bandwagon, think of how much room there is to undercut Lomo's prices. Kodak already has an established dealer network.

Imagine a cheap plastic new Kodak Instamatic 35mm camera , sold with a small selection of Kodak's new films, all c-41 you can still get processed at the drug store. Kodak Redscale 400, BW400CN(with some cool new name), some other new c-41 with wild colors like x-pro slide film and a roll of regular old 400 speed color.

Imagine this on a counter-top display onsale for $30-40. These would fly off the shelves at every mall camera store and Hot Topic or Zumiez accross the country.

Get some young cool celebrity as your spokesperson and it's golden.

Kodak could do this in just a few months, R&D should be fairly cheap and easy for them.

My fear is that judging by their response time to other market changes, this probably won't happen. Think of the bright future for Kodak and film photography in general if they could pull this off though.

 

[Leigh Youdale]

What happened to Ilford that was so bad? I can still buy their film up the street at my local camera shop so it couldn't be all that bad.

From the articles I've read it seems that they want to concentrate their efforts and investments in the film division, not that it's just another division of many that they will continue to have.

Who said it was bad? Not me! It was a good outcome, and if Kodak ends up doing something similar (whoever eventually owns it) it will also be a good thing. I just don't think present management is smart enough to do it - they'll let the ship sink rather than do something outside their very limited square.

 

[HHPhoto]

I think there is a perfect opportunity for Kodak to get on the youth photography bandwagon, think of how much room there is to undercut Lomo's prices. Kodak already has an established dealer network.

I agree that there is a big potential in future film users with young photographers who have grown up digital and are now curious about film.

But competing against Lomo would be silly, because than Kodak would be competing against himself:
All Lomo CN films, including the redscales, are made by Kodak for Lomo! In former times these films were made by Ferrania, but Ferrania stopped film production in 2009.
The X-Pro 100 is also made by Kodak.

The best for Kodak is to continue this cooperation, they are producing millions of films each year for the Lomographic Society. And LSI make a great job on marketing.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Mattco26]

I agree that there is a big potential in future film users with young photographers who have grown up digital and are now curious about film.

But competing against Lomo would be silly, because than Kodak would be competing against himself:
All Lomo CN films, including the redscales, are made by Kodak for Lomo! In former times these films were made by Ferrania, but Ferrania stopped film production in 2009.
The X-Pro 100 is also made by Kodak.

The best for Kodak is to continue this cooperation, they are producing millions of films each year for the Lomographic Society. And LSI make a great job on marketing.

Cheers, Jan

I don't think that's true. Lomo re-brands film from many different suppliers, some of it is Fuji, some of it is Agfa, and I'm sure some of it is Kodak but certainly not all of it.

It would still make sense to cut out the middle man and sell it directly themselves.

 

[shadowfox]

... so that means it's digital that's dead then? who'd a thunk it

No.
Digital point-'n-shoot is dead, or will be soon once camera phone can take it's place in the minds of people (non-serious photographers).

 

[amateriat]

I don't think that's true. Lomo re-brands film from many different suppliers, some of it is Fuji, some of it is Agfa, and I'm sure some of it is Kodak but certainly not all of it.

Fuji, perhaps, but at this point I doubt there's much Agfa stock reliably floating about for rebranding.

Meanwhile, Rochester's rationalizing of their film types has puzzled me slightly: they've killed off the NC/VC "flavors" of their 160 and 400 Portra films, which mostly makes sense to me, but they still reatain G and VS versions of their E100 transparency films, while killing off E200 (and, it appears, everything else). No skin off my nose, as I haven't shot slide film in any significant quantity since about 1999 (not coincidentally, about a year after I bought my first film scanner). Can't make heads or tails of what they actually have in their active consumer film line (tonight I'm going to scan the roll of ColorONE film I bought locally from my lab, and see what that's about). If they're actually going to make a go at squeezing a few more bucks out of their film business, I think they might try and do a slightly better job at marketing here besides "Oh, yeah, we still make this stuff, too."


- Barrett

 

[DanOnRoute66]

Kodak made digital cameras?

 

[HHPhoto]

I don't think that's true. Lomo re-brands film from many different suppliers, some of it is Fuji, some of it is Agfa, and I'm sure some of it is Kodak but certainly not all of it.

It would still make sense to cut out the middle man and sell it directly themselves.

You have not read my post.
I have not said that all Lomo films are from Kodak.
I've said that all colour negative films, including the redscales, and the X-Pro 100 slide film are from Kodak.
And that is right.

Only one film is from Agfa-Gevaert, Belgium: X-Pro 200.
And only one film is currently from Fuji: X-Pro 64 Tungsten.
Two films are from Foma: Lady Grey and Earl Grey BW films.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Kodak made digital cameras?

They actually made some very high end professional cameras at one time. The first D-SLRs were kodak cameras, using Nikon and Canon 35mm film cameras mated to a Kodak digital back. Later, they made the DCS-14n, a fullframe 14mp camera that cost $5000 back when the only other FF digital was the 11mp Canon 1Ds that cost $8000. It had some serious flaws (it didn't do well with long exposures, in-camera jpeg sucked, and the raw conversion software with it gave poor quality images, but Photoshop and Lightroom made perfect RAW conversions with the 14n files), and some have blamed its failure for killing professional cameras at Kodak. I bought one from the local camera store as a demo for $1500 after it was discontinued and it was actually a camera that delivered incredible images, when you understood its limits:

I think the Kodak 14n had the best color reproduction of ANY digital camera I have ever used, and the files made very good black and white conversions.

 

[Coldkennels]

You have not read my post.
I have not said that all Lomo films are from Kodak.
I've said that all colour negative films, including the redscales, and the X-Pro 100 slide film are from Kodak.
And that is right.

Only one film is from Agfa-Gevaert, Belgium: X-Pro 200.
And only one film is currently from Fuji: X-Pro 64 Tungsten.
Two films are from Foma: Lady Grey and Earl Grey BW films.

Cheers, Jan

That's not ENTIRELY true, Jan. I was in a Lomography store last weekend and was surprised to see that one of the Grey films (can't remember if it's Lady or Earl) actually seems to be a different emulsion in 120 to its 35mm equivalent. One is Foma, the other (being marked made in the USA) is Kodak. I was a bit surprised at that.

But being as how they changed emulsion on the colour negatives without telling anyone (which is annoying, because I quite liked the old Ferrania stock, and now I've got some horrid, over-saturated cheap Kodak stuff lying around that I'll probably never use), I wouldn't ever trust their film for reliable, repeatable results.

 

[btgc]

I wouldn't ever trust their film for reliable, repeatable results.

Lomography and reliable, repeatable results do not go well together 😀

 

[HHPhoto]

That's not ENTIRELY true, Jan. I was in a Lomography store last weekend and was surprised to see that one of the Grey films (can't remember if it's Lady or Earl) actually seems to be a different emulsion in 120 to its 35mm equivalent. One is Foma, the other (being marked made in the USA) is Kodak. I was a bit surprised at that.

Hi Tony,

I am very surprised at that, too, honestly.
Never heard reports about that.

AFAIK the "Holga" films, which Freestyle sells in the US, are also made by Foma, as well as the FS Arista BW films.
Foma is very active in this housebranding business.

In which Lomo store have you been, Manchester? Or in the new pop-up store in Birmingham?

Cheers, Jan

 

[Coldkennels]

Jan, I've been in both in the past month. A few of my friends are really into the Lomography scene in the UK and I was invited to both the opening party in Birmingham and a recent meet-up in Manchester.

It's amusing - I go to these things and just sit in the corner foaming in the mouth for various reasons. I don't know why they tolerate me, I really don't. 😀

You know, there was something else strange that I noticed about their films at the Birmingham opening, but I can't remember for the life of me exactly what. There was a lot of free booze flowing that night. I do know they've been struggling to get colour negative 800 supplies, though. Kodak don't do a cheap 800 film, do they?

 

[HHPhoto]

It's amusing - I go to these things and just sit in the corner foaming in the mouth for various reasons. I don't know why they tolerate me, I really don't. 😀

😀 At least it looks like they are tolerant 😉.

Now you have the mission to pull them from Lomo to the real stuff....😉.
From time to time I give me a break from "serious" photography and dive into lower fidelity photography as well. It's fun!
Cameras like the Sprocket Rocket and Spinner are unique and give pleasant results.

Kodak don't do a cheap 800 film, do they?

They do: Max 800 and Ultra Max 800. Offered in different markets as single films, and afaik in single use cameras.

Cheers, Jan