Nikon going out of the film camera business

[bmattock]

Evolving technologies create alternative uses for prior formats.

Yes, like 8-track tapes as decorative mobiles and wall-art.

Remember, they still make canvas and oil paints and calligraphers can still buy parchment and quills! 😀

Anyone can go into business making paint and even paper in their garage or basement.

Not so with photographic film. Even if they could, in the US, the EPA would prevent it.

No access to the raw chemicals to make emulsions anymore - Eastman Chemical is one of the biggest suppliers - do you think they'll be making them long after they get out of the film biz themselves?

No new film manufacturing plants, anywhere, ever again.

Old plants will be slowly shut down - it will cost many megamillions for EPA-type superfund kinda cleanup on many. No small company will want that liability, so no one will buy them and that liability. Therefore, no old plants, either.

Color film is over in less than two years. B&W in ten. Fact.

No cottage industry, no film at all. Glass plates, maybe.

Sorry, film is not paint, canvas, parchment, or buggy whips.

"As long as there is demand, someone will make it" is a crock of crap - an old wive's tale that was never true to begin with. A sop for those unable to handle loss.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[enochRoot]

LSD is illegal, and requires hard to come by illegal precursor chemicals to manufacture, yet people keep making it. just because the epa would not "allow" small scale film manufacturers to crop up...maybe it would become an illict black market. "got your tri-x" "who needs some t-max". hehehehe.

 

[wrenhunter]

Remember, they still make canvas and oil paints and calligraphers can still buy parchment and quills! 😀

True -- and more to the point, they still make reel-to-reel tape. And a significant minority of professionals insist upon using it in preference to more user-friendly digital recording. Of course, tape just passed through a big scare as one of the last big manufacturers almost went under. Another difference is that these cantankerous fellows make loads of money for large corporations -- who may play a role in keeping tape alive.

Maybe even more relevant in economic terms are vinyl records, which have not only survived cassette, CD, and DVD-audio, they're even making a comeback -- because there is a strong niche market of buyers who think they offer better quality in sound. Also, the pressing plants are, I believe, small outfits -- who don't demand large scale to make (what I hope are) profits. Perhaps film production and processing will take a similar road?

David

 

[bmattock]

LSD is illegal, and requires hard to come by illegal precursor chemicals to manufacture, yet people keep making it. just because the epa would not "allow" small scale film manufacturers to crop up...maybe it would become an illict black market. "got your tri-x" "who needs some t-max". hehehehe.

Denial is more than just a river in Egypt. Film is dead, end of story.

 

[Joerg]

hehehe...oddly enough, my other hobby is designing and building tube amps!! long live analog technology. oh...and i don't own a cd player. records only. 😀[/QUOTE]


Now we are talking!
Tubeamps and records and rangefinders!
Theyare more plentiful than ever! Thanks to "perfect sound forever"

Joerg 😀

 

[RJBender]

I never thought I'd see a used Nikon F4S for $265.
http://www.keh.com/shop/SHOWPRODUCT...=newused&BID=NA&CID=02&SOID=N&curpic=0&dpsp=0

I have heard that the life expectancy of a liquid crystal display is about 10 years. Notice some of the equipment listed has LCD "bleed"
http://www.keh.com/shop/product.cfm?bid=NA&cid=02&sid=newused&crid=13178236

R.J.

 

[bmattock]

Perhaps film production and processing will take a similar road?

Nope. Not one chance. LP's are pressed vinyl. Film is a complex soup of many toxic ingredients applied in a very precise manner using highly-specialized equipment in the dark. You don't need a water-treatment plant to make LP's, you can press them in a garage - and people do. You actually need your own fire department and water-treatment plant and toxic-waste disposal unit to make color film. The factories that make them are city blocks long and employ thousands - and they need to. The film companies rely on chemicals that they also make themselves - Eastman Chemicals will not be supplying chemicals to upstart film companies when Kodak itself is no longer making film.

I'm sorry, I wish it was not true. Enjoy film while you can. With B&W, you may have as long as a decade. Color will be gone by 2008.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[aad]

Ah Bill, ye ol' doomsayer! Our photo shops are seeing a resurgence in film interest among their customers. Surprised even them. New film cameras may get hard to find. Film-no. Remember Rodinal!

Most film I'm shooting these days doesn't seem to be made in Rochester anymore-but I bet I could start a film operation right here if it weren't for the price of labor. Just have to go to Croatia and fight with Efke!

 

[bmattock]

Ah Bill, ye ol' doomsayer! Our photo shops are seeing a resurgence in film interest among their customers.

Hi, I'm Bill, and I'm from Earth. I don't know where you live, but it must be nice.

Surprised even them.

I'll be it did, since that's made up.

New film cameras may get hard to find.

Yeah, as stock-on-hand is depleted.

Film-no. Remember Rodinal!

What about Rodinal? Show me the Agfa APX 100 made by XYX company.

a&o have announced that they will take over and produce Rodinal. That is great news for us - and I'm glad about it too. But I doubt they'll make it long. That's just a prediction, my opinion.

Most film I'm shooting these days doesn't seem to be made in Rochester anymore-but I bet I could start a film operation right here if it weren't for the price of labor. Just have to go to Croatia and fight with Efke!

Well, best of luck, really. If there is a market, and the bar to entry is that low, then I'd say go for it, and I'll gladly eat my words.

Time will tell. I believe I know which way the wind is blowing, but I've been wrong before.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[aad]

I don't think they made up any story for my benefit. I'm not sure why you would think so.

Setting up a coating and slitting operation isn't too hard-we had a lot of "backyard" operations in New England about 20 years ago, but much of that work went offshore, and automation reduced the labor requirements. That used to be part of my business. I'm not worried about film's future.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

just because the epa would not "allow" small scale film manufacturers to crop up...maybe it would become an illict black market. "got your tri-x" "who needs some t-max". hehehehe.

Now that is a thought that gives me shivers. Underground film. "The good stuff" in 36-exp? Or 100 ft? 😱

OK, like Jim Morrison once said (more or less): "I don't know what's gonna happen, man, but I wanna get my kicks before the whole sh** burns down". I think I slightly know how he felt now...that fridge of mine, lots of good stuff (including Kodachrome and APX).

 

[bmattock]

I don't think they made up any story for my benefit. I'm not sure why you would think so.

The 'human interest' news stories I've been posting links to here from time to time - I sit on most of them since everyone thinks I'm so gloom-n-doom - about all the mom-n-pops going belly up. The nearest one to me looks like a ghost shop. As the owner put it - they used to do E6 processing, but the chemistry kept going bad between customers. The last E6 customer they had, they discovered the chemistry had actually coagulated. Their only film camera for sale is an Olympus OM10 - still waiting for a buyer.

Setting up a coating and slitting operation isn't too hard-we had a lot of "backyard" operations in New England about 20 years ago, but much of that work went offshore, and automation reduced the labor requirements. That used to be part of my business. I'm not worried about film's future.

I'd be fascinated to know about it. I can imagine you could get acetate base, as well as making some form of gelatin. How you're going to coat to sub-micron size in a backyard operation is beyond me. Color too, or will you just stick to making B&W in your basements?

I guess Kodak, Dynacolor, and Ansco were just being crazy, thinking they needed to build their own water treatment plants and toxic-waste disposal systems to deal with the toxic products and byproducts, eh?

http://uspirg.org/uspirg.asp?id2=8822&id3=USPIRG&

In 2000, more than 100 million pounds of cancer-causing chemicals were released to the nation's air and water, with dichloromethane—an industrial solvent that is also used in the manufacture of photographic film—the most frequently released carcinogen nationwide.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/news/extra/kodak/0418VO3V73S_business.shtml

Film manufacturing's leftover pollution prompts concerns

'Brownfields' specter raises head, but officials vow company will be good steward

By Corydon Ireland
Staff writer

(April 18, 2004) — One hundred years ago, a Kodak Park worker would get off the Lake Avenue trolley and walk up a cinder path to a gated picket fence. Inside, 30 neat buildings were connected by pathways lined with flowers and trees.

...

But there are 1,300 acres of land within the Kodak Park fence line, and much of it covered with chemical tanks, spilled on or underlain with polluted groundwater. More than a third of the park, 475 acres, is polluted enough to appear in a New York state registry of inactive hazardous waste sites.

But more importantly:

The DEC [The New York Department of Environmental Conservation] also has legal oversight on any physical changes that take place at the 800 or so inactive hazardous waste sites statewide, including the five at Kodak Park.

If any Kodak Park building is demolished, Kodak is required to investigate any history of pollution or spills, clean it up and segregate the waste before the wrecking ball rumbles up.

”We’re trying to make sure things don’t get overlooked,” said Thomas L. Marriott, head of the DEC’s regional Kodak team.

Still, disposing of land or buildings at the facility would be, and already is, difficult.

”The Kodak properties are brownfields,” said Rochester environmental attorney Thomas Walsh, a former member of the state Superfund advisory board.

”Brownfields” are urban and industrial properties for which reuse or redevelopment is complicated by suspected or actual pollution. They’re common in every city, and the target of federal and state programs designed to open them for new uses or redevelopment

Like I said - making photographic film is one of the single most polluting operations that there is. The chemicals are toxic, hard to handle, hard to come by, and hard to apply correctly. Even when done by experts - the legacy is a horrifying mess such as the one Kodak faces as part of their switch to digital.

And some mom-n-pop operation is going to make film?

I really don't think so. But prove me wrong.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[dostacos]

Will the atomic pulse take out my light meter, too?
If so, how will I use "Sunny 16" in a Nuclear Winter?

And what's the best film to document Armageddon, anyway?

"Excelsior, you fatheads!"
-Chris-

ISO -3200 pull process to ISO 32,000

 

[bmattock]

http://www.alternet.org/story/16030/

According to the EPA, Kodak released more dioxin into New York's environment in 2000 than any other source. Kodak isn't just number one in dioxin emissions, however. As of 1999, they've also ranked as New York State's leading producer of recognized airborne carcinogens and waterborne developmental toxicants. They've also gained notoriety as New York's number one source for releases of suspected endocrine, gastrointestinal, liver, cardiovascular, kidney, respiratory and reproductive toxicants as well as neurotoxins. Kodak alone released more toxic chemical emissions listed in the federal Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) than all of the 144 major polluters in Erie (Buffalo), Niagara (Niagara Falls) and Monroe (Rochester) counties combined.

During the 13-year period from 1987 to 2000, thanks primarily to Kodak's toxic stew of emissions, Rochester ranked number one in the U.S. for overall releases of carcinogenic chemicals, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG). Kodak alone was responsible for over 90 percent of the 64.4 million pounds of carcinogens released during that period into Rochester's air and water.

And I'm not picking on Kodak - I like Kodak. We'd hear about this from Eastern Europe and China too - if their governments were as nit-picky as the USA EPA is (and the US EPA is notoriously UN-picky compared to many developed nations).

Remember Dynacolor? Became 3M, then Imation, then sold off to Ferrania? Now located at the old Dynacolor plant in Oklahoma? Well, they had a plant in NY too:

http://www.cqs.com/super_ny.htm

Monday, August 11, 1997 Page 70 of 83
City Name Address EPA Site #
SWEDEN FORMER 3M/DYNACOLOR PLANT 98 SPRING STREET NYD986913283

What's that above? Superfund cleanup site, that's what. PCB's and other toxic chemicals used to make photographic film. Want proof?

http://www.wasteinfo.com/news/stories/archives/2001/03/RR/R01331.htm

Environmental tests on soil and water at 3M's former Dynacolor facility in Rochester, N.Y. have revealed elevated levels of cadmium, zinc, lead, cyanide and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The latter two were at levels that posed health concerns. After almost a year of negotiations, several homeowners in the area agreed to sell their homes to 3M, which operated the photofinishing facility from 1961 to 1978. The properties were worth an estimated $80,000 to $90,000 apiece, but lost more than 20 percent of their value as a result of the contamination.

I can go on...

Somebody tell me - this sound like something you can (or should) brew up in your garage?

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[troym]

Like I said - making photographic film is one of the single most polluting operations that there is. The chemicals are toxic, hard to handle, hard to come by, and hard to apply correctly. Even when done by experts - the legacy is a horrifying mess such as the one Kodak faces as part of their switch to digital.

True enough, but I'm not sure that moving to digital will lessen the pollution associated with image making. Making sensors, chips, integrated circuit boards, and the like, which are used in digital cameras, requires lots of acids, solvents, and heavy metals. Silicon Valley has one of the highest concentrations of Superfund Sites in the country--there are about 2 dozen in Santa Clara County, CA, alone. Most of the sites are associated with "clean" high-tech manufacturing plants for computer and chip makers.

So, out of the frying pan, into the fire.

 

[ch1]

Okay Bill - what I really want to know is 3 things:

1) Where were you on the ZF thread today when they all started speculating on the latest teaser (i.e. before they then all got sidetracked onto that damned Nazi thing again)?

2) And where were you on my right flank when I was defendiing the US from the left during that stupid "policeman stops photographer now latter sues city" thread? I was looking for you, brother.

3) As to using this long awaited Nikon press release as another "film is dead" thing - aren't you being a "provacateur"? If not, when are you going to GIVE me all of your WORTHLESS film gear like I asked for three months ago? C'mon Bill, they're waiting for me to bury them! 😀

Regards,
George

 

[bmattock]

True enough, but I'm not sure that moving to digital will lessen the pollution associated with image making. Making sensors, chips, integrated circuit boards, and the like, which are used in digital cameras, requires lots of acids, solvents, and heavy metals. Silicon Valley has one of the highest concentrations of Superfund Sites in the country--there are about 2 dozen in Santa Clara County, CA, alone. Most of the sites are associated with "clean" high-tech manufacturing plants for computer and chip makers.

So, out of the frying pan, into the fire.

I agree that silicon is as big a polluter as photographic film. Environmental controls are also political machines. I'm not saying it is right - I'm saying it exists. No company is going to be permitted to legally make photographic film in the USA ever again. When Kodak shuts down and Ferrania quietly closes up shop in Oklahoma, that's it.

But if a start up wants to build a chip fab - that's different. Not to those exposed to the chemicals, but to the politicos and the 'people'. They want computers and digicams, man, not film.

I'm so jaded, I make jaded look enthusiastic.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[ch1]

I agree that silicon is as big a polluter as photographic film. Environmental controls are also political machines. I'm not saying it is right - I'm saying it exists. No company is going to be permitted to legally make photographic film in the USA ever again. When Kodak shuts down and Ferrania quietly closes up shop in Oklahoma, that's it.

But if a start up wants to build a chip fab - that's different. Not to those exposed to the chemicals, but to the politicos and the 'people'. They want computers and digicams, man, not film.

I'm so jaded, I make jaded look enthusiastic.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

Bill,

We've been exporting polluting industries for decades. We'll just do a LBO on the Kodak and Fernia plants and move production to Mexico or futher off-shore.

We're talking global markets.

I shoot all kinds of film - do you think I give a hoot where they make it?

Regards,
George

 

[bmattock]

Okay Bill - what I really want to know is 3 things:

1) Where were you on the ZF thread today when they all started speculating on the latest teaser (i.e. before they then all got sidetracked onto that damned Nazi thing again)?

I was reading and laughing. I started the Canon-buys-Leica rumor. What a riot.

2) And where were you on my right flank when I was defendiing the US from the left during that stupid "policeman stops photographer now latter sues city" thread? I was looking for you, brother.

I posted, didn't I? I meant to, sorry. You know my righteous 'rights' rants. I can go for hours, days even. My wife backs slowly away when I get spun up on civil liberties.

3) As to using this long awaited Nikon press release as another "film is dead" thing - aren't you being a "provacateur"? If not, when are you going to GIVE me all of your WORTHLESS film gear like I asked for three months ago? C'mon Bill, they're waiting for me to bury them! 😀

I love film! I am in the process of evaluating some Chinese B&W film (Era) with an eye towards importing it to the USA and selling it to you lot. Film is grand!

But I face facts, too. The 'use by' date is coming up fast for film. For me too, but that's a different story.

I still get amazed by the things I read - I guess that's what gets me going. Someone says "They'll make X as long as there is a demand for it." Like fun, they will! That's never been true - show me where that has ever been true! Supply ALWAYS ends before demand does in a free-market economy. That always leaves a tiny bit of demand left when the supply is gone. OK, maybe 8-track tapes. But still!

The other thing that makes me do mental loop-de-loops is when some yobbo reads a news story about "digicam sales are slumping this quarter" and decides it means that digical cameras are a fad and film cameras are now officially on the way back. Talk about your wishful thinking!

The last thing is the 'quality' argument. I hear it about film, music LP-vs-CD, and every other damned thing. Like quality ever mattered to the 'consumer.' If it did, we'd not allow MTV to exist, and we'd beat Yanni until the soles of his feet bled. Seriously, you can argue all you like that LP is superior to CD - I agree. Beta is better than VHS - true. Pepsi is better than Coke - whatever. NOBODY CARES and IT DOESN'T MATTER. When a billion or so 'consumers' decide they want digicams, the higher resolution and quality of film over digital means jack.

See, this ain't Hollywood. The good guy - film - loses. Sorry, but that's it.

Sometimes I think you guys wind me up just to see me spout amazin' facts and puzzlin' evidence at the newbies. Who's zoomin' whom?

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Huck Finn]

Better then to narrow your body production to one or two "high end" offerings to preserve your "lens mount" technology while concentrating on lens production. And also "milking" the latter by continuing to license it to Sigma, Cosina, Tamron etc. as well as, now, Zeiss.

I don't believe that any of these companies ever made anything on license from Nikon, meaning that Nikon has never made a dime off sales by anything they sell. Cosina has done some work for Nikon as a subcontractor (OEM), but this is a different matter.