Meet the new Kodak Film: Kodak Alaris...

[Photo_Smith]

Did I miss her reference to film production? This new company will be about digital products and software. I bet that they spin-off the film business.

Yes it seems to me you didn't bother watching the video. The reference to film is PI which means personal imaging (AKA film) the digital software and imaging mentioned (DI) is the Kiosk system.

So keeping it simple we now have an independent company called Kodak Alaris which consists of PI (persoanal imaging-meaning consumer film) and DI (Document imaging- kiosks and digital services)
Although the company is independent it will licence the Kodak brand name for it's products.
This could be a huge win/win situation, and if played out correctly should ensure we have `kodak film' in the shops for years to come.

 

[shadowfox]

I shoot film and will until I die hopefully but I still believe that over all it's an endangered process that is destined for a niche and a small one at that. Snapshots of the situation in your own area are nice to hear about but I would love to know an accurate figure of what's actually happening globaly!

Nobody is denying that film is now a niche.
I've been realizing and writing/saying that for years now.

The question has always been whether film will survive as a niche market.

And with these moves by big companies (still big although downsized a lot), is very encouraging.

So why don't we just put in however much support we can and keep using the film which we love to do anyway.

There are people who just love to argue, I'd rather shoot film instead. See you out there.

 

[bwcolor]

Yes it seems to me you didn't bother watching the video. The reference to film is PI which means personal imaging (AKA film) the digital software and imaging mentioned (DI) is the Kiosk system.

A bit aggressive hmm. I watched it, if you could only forgive me for not knowing that personal imaging (PI) was film and that digital software and imaging (DI) is the Kiosk system. I guess that everyone knows that.

 

[biomed]

Kodak Alaris - sounds like the name of a new drug.

Actually Alaris is a brand of infusion pump.

http://www.carefusion.com/medical-products/infusion/devices/

A device that brings back memories of my last career.

Mike

 

[dave61]

Remember what Eastman Kodak Co. was, and what it stood for? Much of Kodak's corporate identity was directly the result of its founder-George Washington Eastman.
Entrepreneur and marketing genius, Eastman was also an idealist. He believed in corporate responsibility-not to only to stock holders, but to employees and consumers. His goal was to democratize photography. Through it, visual communications were changed forever.

He wanted Kodak to produce the best photographic materials, not just be the biggest producer. He believed that the way to make the best, most reliable photographic products was to hire-and retain-the best employees. That meant good pay and ample benefits-unheard of in the days of the Robber Barons.
Early in the 20th century Kodak introduced profit sharing, company health, education and social service programs. They had pension plans and IRA's, and payed equal pay for equal work regardless of race or gender. He built massive recreational facilities (parklands, now public). Eastman built the Rochester College of Dentistry. He donated $25 million dollars in 1916 to build a new campus for a modern MIT. He gave an equal sum to Tuskegee University.

Kodak started the American chemical industry in 1920. Kodak Chemical (now a separate corporation) is (according to Forbe's) still the world's largest producer of chemicals, synthetics, and plastics. Eastman Kodak (working with Edison Laboratories) developed flexible, transparent motion picture film. Kodak labs developed non-flammable film 20 years before it became the standard of the movie industry. He pushed Kodak scientists to develop the first color movie film. Kodak's film division still makes about 99% of the world's motion picture film.

Young George Eastman (a bank clerk), took up photography (as a hobby) when the technology was wet collodion plates. He wanted a simpler process and began experimenting with emulsions and ways to coat glass plates. What started as a hobby, led to years of experimentation.
He found a repeatable method to make standardized dry plates. He knew this was something others would want.

He founded Eastman Dry Plate Co., which became Eastman Dry Plate and Film Co., which introduced the roll-film camera, created the photo-finishing industry, and introduced daylight loading film. Both 120 film and the universal 35mm film cartridge were brought to the world by Kodak. The film we shoot is descended from Eastman's earliest inventions.

Most rangefinder photographers know that the first coupled-rangefinder cameras, roll-film Folding Kodak Specials, were introduced in 1916. Digital photographers should know it was Kodak engineers who invented the digital camera (in the 1970's), and built the first full-frame digital SLR (with Nikon) in the 1980's. Merely a handful of hundreds of E.K.Co. firsts.

If we want Kodak film and chemicals in the future, we need to buy their products now. If we want to see more innovations and inventions brought out by American industry, we ought to support Kodak now. Leitz Camera and Apple Computer both teetered on the brink of the abyss, and came back as industry leaders in innovation and precision. Kodak is still adapting to the changed world in which it exists; instead of forming a death watch, we should buy their products; maybe the shareholders would notice if the film division showed a profit?

If Kodak ceased to exist, who will bring us future revolutions in imaging, entertainment and communications?

 

[mszargar]

I know more young people than ever who love to shoot film, in fact 75% of the time, when I encounter a film camera user in my VERY photographed town, it is a person who is 35 or younger and most of the time is not a "Hipster" toting a Holga but a very enthusiastic film camera user.

I just want to confirm this. I am among those below-35s who shoot film. As a former software developer I am very much of a geek as well. An all-in-the-cloud, all-paperless, all-connected, all-digital person who hasn't written on a piece of paper for so long that he is afraid he is losing his handwriting skills. Yet, it took me only a couple of months after buying my first film camera to decide I didn't want my DSLR anymore. I had never took so much pleasure in shooting. A year later, now I have a couple of scanners, four film cameras and an iPhone that does perfectly what digital cameras are good for: recording forgettable moments of life for sharing and then forgetting. I have sold my DSLR and all it's gear. I find film rather expensive in long run, I find it extremely difficult to get credible information on film photography, I find scanning horribly slow and stupidly difficult with horrendous software packages that only obscure the essentials, I find film photography in general out of sync and out of rhythm with the rest of my life, yet I forget all that each time I see the results.

Now film will never take the center stage in the world of photography, but neither do vinyls when it comes to the audio equipment market. Vinyls went nearly extinct at the beginning of the last decade. Now they constitute a niche market that is highly profitable, and geometrically expanding in size (while CDs are losing to iTunes). Vinyls, like film, were saved by a bunch of youngsters (DJs) who took them as a music instrument, and an opportunity for creative work, rather than boring defunct music playing devices. Vinyls, like film, provide a physical affordance as compared to their digital counterparts. They are music engraved in a piece of matter that we can touch, not an intangible icon on an ephemeral screen. Vinyls, like film, have this airy quality to them that apparently precision digital devices cannot easily reproduce. And vinyls, like film, were initially abandoned by most of the big commercial players specially because they were rather costly to produce and perceived as having lower "objective" quality than their digital counterparts. Today vinyl players are upmarket products, and an important component of any serious audiophile system. Every single high-end audio brand produces at least one model of player. I don't see why this wouldn't happen to film.

Now I hope by then Kodak Alaris, and the other film producers, can stay afloat and don't run into the kind of trouble that brought Efke to its knees. But even if it happens, I think as long as there is enough of us shooting film to justify the fixed costs, somebody will produce film for us. There millions of excellently built film cameras from the last 50 years that can still serve us for the next 50 years or so while the imaging market is getting its act together to decide how to make a profitable market out of the film camera market...

 

[Roger Hicks]

Remember what Eastman Kodak Co. was, and what it stood for? Much of Kodak's corporate identity was directly the result of its founder-George Washington Eastman.
Entrepreneur and marketing genius, Eastman was also an idealist. He believed in corporate responsibility-not to only to stock holders, but to employees and consumers. His goal was to democratize photography. Through it, visual communications were changed forever.

He wanted Kodak to produce the best photographic materials, not just be the biggest producer. He believed that the way to make the best, most reliable photographic products was to hire-and retain-the best employees. That meant good pay and ample benefits-unheard of in the days of the Robber Barons.
Early in the 20th century Kodak introduced profit sharing, company health, education and social service programs. They had pension plans and IRA's, and payed equal pay for equal work regardless of race or gender. He built massive recreational facilities (parklands, now public). Eastman built the Rochester College of Dentistry. He donated $25 million dollars in 1916 to build a new campus for a modern MIT. He gave an equal sum to Tuskegee University. . . .

AND NO UNIONS. My late father-in-law was fired from Kodak in 1947 or 1948. Why? Because he had three hernias. Kodak's patermalist drivel was fine as long as you were healthy and toed the Kodak party line. At school in Rochester (1950-1962) my wife was fed the Kodak Party Line. It was a flat lie.

Cheers,

R.

 

[dave61]

"AND NO UNIONS. My late father-in-law was fired from Kodak in 1947 or 1948. Why? Because he had three hernias. Kodak's patermalist drivel was fine as long as you were healthy and toed the Kodak party line. At school in Rochester (1950-1962) my wife was fed the Kodak Party Line. It was a flat lie."

Your late father-in-law got the short end of the stick, but you didn't go into details.
I based my comments on reading, research and conversations I've had with with former Kodak employees and their descendants (I can provide a bibliography-if anyone cares).
There's always more to a story.
If you're talking, I'm listening, and I'm happy to stand corrected...

 

[gnuyork]

Once Plus-X and E-6 films are back I'll be buying.

Yes, Plus X, and E100VS please.

 

[noisycheese]

Bring back Plus-X!

Hear, hear!!!