Petition to bring back Kodak's IR-Ektachrome

We'd all love to see it. Not many of us are gullible enough to believe it could ever happen, though: a niche (IR) of a niche (slide films) of a niche (films). Also hellish expensive and not even standard E6 processing. How much IR-Ektachrome did YOU ever shoot? I shot maybe half a dozen rolls.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
... Also hellish expensive and not even standard E6 processing...
Click to expand...

"Standard" is, perhaps, the wrong word to use here. The old, and lamented by the OP, HIE used a very standard chemical process. It is just that it used the older standard, E-4, rather than the newer E-6.

Being a scientific film, apparently Kodak felt that leaving it unchanged for consistency over long years of archived forensic and scientific imagery was better than replacing it with a inherently different but similar film based on the newer E-6 processing.
 
I've read that this film would have never existed if it weren't due to the funding of the military to produce such a film. This film is very expensive to produce and Kodak doesn't see much of a profit when sold to the consumer market. I can't see this film ever being produced again especially in such a niche market.
 
Don't hold your breath on this one. The market would be so small the product would be unsustainable.
Even In its day it was a small-volume niche product, and for scientific use has been well replaced by electronic sensing.

Kodak announced the return of Ektachrome and suddenly we're all starting rumors they're bringing back whatever our favorite film is.
Methinks we may be getting a little greedy, or at the very least rather unrealistic...

Chris
 
The chance is much more possible for a future midterm Ferrania than Kodak. The former is based around a small pilot coater that will allow lots of flexibility because of the low volumes produced. However, developing it would be also very R&D intensive.
ADOX is rather parallel and they commented that a B&W IR was not feasible because of the cost of sensitizing the IR dyes. They produced an APX400 successor but withdrew the project because of economic reasons.

All of this doesn't mean that if someone puts the resources to contract production, it could be done. However, KA will not bear the risk.

Like lomography, they (supposedly) contract Kodak to make standard CN film and contract Inoviscoat for their Lomochrome, sales then are managed by Lomo and not the producer.


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100,000 people would sign the petition, they would bring it back, they sell 300 rolls total.. discontinued within a few months.. 🙂
Same thing would happen if they did bring Kodachrome back.
Seems like people want what they cant have, not because they want to use it, just because.
 
I worked for an aerial research firm in the early 70's and shot a great deal of 70mm and 9inch IRE but was the E3 version. When the E4 version came out we didn't feel it was as good. The E3 version had purer and much more intense color.

Even the E3 version of commercial Ektachrome was prettier than te E4 and E6 films but sadly the dyes weren't as stable.

I'd rather see Highspeed IR B&W come back before color.
 
I signed it. And I'm don't think I'm being gullible to think it could happen. It could. Even if its a small batch at an exorbitant price... there could be enough demand. Who knows? Two years ago, did you expect Film Ferrania to get back on its feet... so lets see. Fingers crossed... even if the chance is small.
 
finguanzo said:
100,000 people would sign the petition, they would bring it back, they sell 300 rolls total.. discontinued within a few months.. 🙂
Same thing would happen if they did bring Kodachrome back.
Seems like people want what they cant have, not because they want to use it, just because.
Click to expand...

So damn true!

And this makes nearly all these petitions so useless in the end.
 
300 rolls total? I'd buy at least one-third of it then! Perhaps one should reserve judgement on it being "so damn true" until one knows how well the relaunched Ektachrome sells?
 
Even if you would take ten times the amount of it, it just wouldn't be enough to even pay the costs of negotation with raw material suppliers. It's how it has been described before: It was never profitable to sell it to private customers, it was driven by military demand. There, it's all digital now and there is not a single analogue maniac working in their purchasing department.

For the start of a production batch of film, you waste an enormous amount of material and money until the quality reaches a professional level. These techniques rank among the most difficult disciplines in all production branches. And this is what it makes it so hard for Ferrania or other micro-companies to come up with even the "simplest" stuff like b&w.

Yes, I would be happy too if _real_ IR-Film comes back. But I'm an engineer and I work with costing for production of goods every single day and I simply want to give you the warm advice not to waste your time with this topic to become unhappy in the end.

Nothing else. But it's a free world and everybody can trust and believe in what he wants.
 
The big snag is that digital, with its inherent high IR sensitivity, is much more suitable for IR than film. Even HIE will not cover anything like the spectral range of a converted old digital camera, which will make it hard to bring back professionals and enthusiasts - and the few casual users won't need enough volume, unless IR photographs of cats, coffee cups and girlfriends grow into a huge internet fashion (which is overall unlikely given the subject matter).
 
Dear Cab-Helmet
Yes, I'm sure you're right. But it is not impossible, which is what you are suggesting. The chance may be really very small indeed,... like really really really small. Or smaller. Or even smaller. But not impossible. Perhaps engineers and mathematicians have a slightly different understanding of impossible?
Anyway, I signed it out of hope more than expectation.
Cheers
Simon

PS Take a day off.
 
Who said something is impossible regarding this topic? It has been done, so it can be repeated seen from the technical side. Like Kodachrome, like a broad range of slide films and so on. I would be really glad if everything comes back.

1 + 1 = 3 is impossible in our terms of view ;-)

I'm just talking of the point that there's simply not a business case for Kodak. I'm glad, they still exist after all the mess they went through and hope they don't mess it up with ill-fated adventures. But I have no fear that they do so concerning IR-film.

I want to have a range of slide films for the future and every money spent on adventures like these leaves less R&D budget for the rest of the product range.

These are the unpopular rules of capitalism. We weep if the price of a roll of Tri-x rises up 1 $...but are dreaming of color IR-slide film ;-)

Despite it's only a hobby, I prefer a realistic view on this topic. You can also call it "pessimistic", no problem for me.
 
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