Wonderful news from Ilford for us film shooters!

[TEZillman]

There's a huge difference between a company diversifying into other businesses and reinventing their brand. Kodak and Fujifilm can no more stop making film right now than band-aids can stop making adhesive bandages or Kleenex can stop making tissues. I'm not saying that they can't do it in the long run, but if there is a danger of damaging the brand by exiting the film business, they'll lose money on film for years before they do. Kodak should have dropped Kodachrome ten years ago, but they kept it because having it sold other products. Kodak has spent over a hundred years building brand loyalty through one line of products and that's film. They've slapped their name on all kinds of crap and survived because of film. They got a huge black eye in their fight with Polaroid but survived that too. They won't walk away from the brand.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Tom, so you think all those folks in offices around the world would stop buying Fuji's information and document solutions products if Fuji jettisoned the tiny part of their business that is film?

"Man, Fuji stopped making film, so we're not going to buy their medical systems, flat panel displays, office products and office printers!" They only sold 2000 billion yen worth of that kind of stuff last year.

 

[Nikon Bob]

All this speculation is just that. At the present time I can buy film. Very cheaply even! Color, black and white, whatever. I saw rolls of superia 800 in the local shop for $2 a roll. I just bought 10 rolls of Portra for $30 CDN. I can buy 100 foot roll of Tri-X for $48.99 USD, or if I want to buy Arista $34.99. As far I'm concerned the situation right now is far too good to worry about the future. Whatever comes comes. In the meantime I'm going to enjoy shooting film!

You are so right that this is a good time to enjoy film as it is very cheap and the processing for C41 colour is also cheap. It just might be far too good because there may be is an over supply for the demand that is there on a product that has a best before date. Heavy discounting to reduce inventories. If that is true then there will be a large increase in film costs to the consumer in the future. I think most factories that produce film were/are geared to supplying a far larger market that had existed. The market has gotten much smaller for film and existing factories will find it very costly to produce film on a short run batch basis instead of a continuous run basis. You can reduce capacity by closing plants but the few remaining ones can still produce faster than can be used. Yea, whatever comes you can still enjoy it now and hopefully for a long time but at a cost in the future.

Bob

 

[msbel]

I found myself in a dark room this past weekend for the first time in 20 years. I was under the tutelage of a master...but that is a different story.

Well, we brought up a print from a neg I shot on Pan ASA 25 with my Rollie 6008..

We used all of those intuitive hidden variables that makes film developing and printing process magic...rotating the cans in your hands to your own rhythm, drying strips, dodging and burning by hand and homemade tools, mixing the elixir of developer, and massaging with gloved hands...I observed and immersed.

What came up off of that paper took my breath away. First off, as advanced as digital has become, it is still "trying to be film-like" (at least that is what virtually every DSLR review I read say that is the goal), and that will never change. Call digital what it is...not film and never will be...this print was completely different in every aspect.

And now photoshop to me seems silly in most respects for my own personal creative process. I would much rather be in a darkroom generating a print from intuition and patience than sitting at my computer with layers trying to figure out why I cannot get it to look like what we created in the room.

Oh..and yes, it was Ilford paper and FILM!

Now I have to find a refrigerated trailer and go load up on film and park it in the back yard.

🙂






Yes, it was Ilford

 

[David Hughes]

What I find worrying is that the big supermarkets have stopped buying in bulk and selling cheaply. I try to put a film through each camera in the collection every year and need cheapness. Once upon a time I could get Kodak VR200 Plus for a couple of pounds for two 36 exp. cassettes in a box. Then it dropped to 99p and I stocked up and then it vanished only to reappear at nearly a fiver for one 36 exp roll.

Now it looks as though the Fuji Z200 is going through the same process. So I reckon I'll have to thin the collection down and stop using them but the idea of cameras for display and dusting doesn't appeal to me... And trying to work out which ones to dump is doing the head in. But I think I'll soon have to maintain a handfull of cameras and pay a lot more for film.

Regards, David

PS Anyone know if Adox is still available? I see it mentioned but need a reasonable/practical source for both buying and processing etc.

 

[Keith]

What I find worrying is that the big supermarkets have stopped buying in bulk and selling cheaply. I try to put a film through each camera in the collection every year and need cheapness. Once upon a time I could get Kodak VR200 Plus for a couple of pounds for two 36 exp. cassettes in a box. Then it dropped to 99p and I stocked up and then it vanished only to reappear at nearly a fiver for one 36 exp roll.

Now it looks as though the Fuji Z200 is going through the same process. So I reckon I'll have to thin the collection down and stop using them but the idea of cameras for display and dusting doesn't appeal to me... And trying to work out which ones to dump is doing the head in. But I think I'll soon have to maintain a handfull of cameras and pay a lot more for film.

Regards, David

PS Anyone know if Adox is still available? I see it mentioned but need a reasonable/practical source for both buying and processing etc.

Depending where you are Adox is available here at Freestyle in the US. I bought some 100 CHS from them in 35mm and 120 and wasn't hugely impressed with the results! Most likely my developing routine isn't tuned to the film yet though because I've seen results that I really liked here and elsewhere.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Michael, I don't quite understand your argument. Are you saying a Master Printer can do better in a wet darkroom than you can do with digital in Photoshop? It takes years and a lot of hard work to become a master in a darkroom or at Photoshop. Too many people condemn digital for it's appearance and Photoshop for its complexity who simply haven't taken the time to learn how to use it.

I don't buy the Photoshop is too complicated and time consuming argument. Back in the day when I shot a lot more 4x5, I would spend 12 or 14 hour days in the darkroom producing one or two exhibition prints. Watching a Master Printer at work should have convinced you just how difficult GOOD darkroom work actually is.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

"What I find worrying is that the big supermarkets have stopped buying in bulk and selling cheaply"

Film makes no sense as a consumer solution now. You can buy a new digital P&S as cheaply (or more so) than you could a new film P&S in film's hayday. And then you don't have the cost of the consumables associated with film photography. Because many people now share their snapshots electronically rather than as prints, even that cost is reduced. Which is why film selection is disappearing in consumer oriented venues. When's the last time you saw a film P&S for sale in a Target, K-Mart or Wal-Mart, other than a few disposable cameras?

 

[TEZillman]

Tom, so you think all those folks in offices around the world would stop buying Fuji's information and document solutions products if Fuji jettisoned the tiny part of their business that is film?

"Man, Fuji stopped making film, so we're not going to buy their medical systems, flat panel displays, office products and office printers!" They only sold 2000 billion yen worth of that kind of stuff last year.

You're not following what I have written at all. Ask yourself why, if the eventual outcome of the film market is as dire as some would say it is, Kodak and Fujifilm haven't already exited the market? What's the point of continuing to make a product that will only lose you money over the coming years? Are these companies just stupid? Do you think the millions they put into marketing research is telling them that there is going to be a reemergence of film as a predominate market sector? Of course not.

Ask yourself what would happen if one of the giants announced tomorrow that they were going to stop making film at the end of the year? What would be all of the consequences for their company? Think about all aspects of a business: labor, capital improvements, marketing, brand recognition, distribution channels, etc. etc. The impact would be staggering and what's worse is that most of the impact couldn't be predicted or measured in dollars and cents.

I would think that the unknown impact to their brand recognition would be enough to keep them in the film business for years, even unprofitably. As I pointed out before, I'm sure Kodak has been losing money on Kodachrome for years, but they kept it alive. Why? Why could they enter and take a significant share of the inkjet printer market? It wasn't because they were so well known for their disc cameras. The cheap ink concept helped, but no company could have done this without significant brand recognition.

The point I'm trying to make is that the concept that "since the trend of film sales is declining, eventually the level of film sales will reach a point where it is no longer profitable to make and sell film so manufacturers will stop making film" is too simple. We're talking about a complex decision that has far reaching implications. It's far easier to allow a diminished division of the company to limp along than to make a bold decision that could result in unknown consequences.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

It's like oil paintings,,, Few people use them, but there's a profit...

I guess there are and there will be more people shooting film than people using oil paintings... It's the need of expression what moves us: yet MANY people enjoy film better than digital.

Could be a bit more expensive, but maybe not to much. Finally it's a bussiness and there will be competition.

Cheers,

Juan

 

[David Hughes]

Hmmm, well, if the giants stopped making film then I think the smaller firms would do very nicely thank you and things would go on as usual.

There's an alternative in which all the small firms are bombed and the style police round us up and destroy all the film cameras but that might just not happen. OTOH... ;-)

Regards, David

 

[bmattock]

The bar to entry for manufacturing photographic film, especially color film, is high. There is zero chance of a low-budget garage-based company to get off the ground. This is primarily due to the complexity and regulatory requirements of manufacturing color film.

Black & White film may well have the opportunity for small-scale non-commercial manufacture, based on actual experience from people like Ron Mowry. How this translates to commercial activity is unknown.

Existing small-scale manufacturers, particularly in countries where emissions/pollution standards are low or non-existent and costs of labor are low as well may well be able to continue for some time after the bigger companies like Kodak, Fuji (and to some extend, Ilford) withdraw from film manufacturing, but a) they do not make color film and b) they're not likely to.

For these reason, I can foresee B&W film remaining available for some time into the future, but color film having a fairly short period of commercial availability remaining.

Comparisons to other obsolete manufacturing such as LP records and buggy whips are not useful, because the bar to entry into such fields allows a relatively small financial outlay and low or no regulatory standards requirements be met.

Statements such as 'where there is demand, there will be supply' are not accurate either. Supply is often exhausted before demand ceases, and although sufficient demand will reignite supply, the question is always 'at what price'? Recent events such as the attempted restart of the Polaroid manufacturing process for integral film shows that two things are required besides demand. First is one or more extremely motivated individuals who have more than a profit motive, and second is sufficient capital outlay. If the "Impossible Dream" project succeeds, we will then move to the phase where one finds out how many people will line up to pay $100 (for example) for a pack of integral film - and keep coming back for more.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

"It's far easier to allow a diminished division of the company to limp along than to make a bold decision that could result in unknown consequences."

That may be true if your company is making a profit overall. But Kodak is not making a profit. They are losing boatloads of money. They are still making a small profit on film because of the extreme cost cutting measures they have introduced, and the likely hood they are selling primarily from existing film stock rather than spending money in the manufacturing process.

A company losing money isn't going to prop up a losing division in the hope that it might be good PR. Kodak's future, if they are to have a future, is in the digital world, not in film.

 

[TEZillman]

" A company losing money isn't going to prop up a losing division in the hope that it might be good PR. Kodak's future, if they are to have a future, is in the digital world, not in film.

Obviously you have not read what I wrote. I said nothing about continuing to make film for P.R. purposes, nor did I say Kodak's future was in film. :bang:

 

[Pickett Wilson]

O.K. Call me dense, but I just don't understand what you are saying. 🙂

 

[Trius]

Pickett: Yes, their future is in the digital world, though I suspect they can continue to manufacture film for a long time at a profit.

My biggest question for EK is which digital world. I think they're pretty good in the high-end sensor world and R&D in that arena, but so far in the consumer market they're marginal at best, and non-existent in the "prosumer" (whatever that means) market. I haven't looked at and analyzed the numbers, though, so that's just a hunch.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

That's the big question for EK. They have no future unless it is digital, but they haven't been able to make profitable inroads into the consumer digital market. They are selling a lot of stuff, but the profit just isn't there.

 

[bmattock]

My biggest question for EK is which digital world. I think they're pretty good in the high-end sensor world and R&D in that arena, but so far in the consumer market they're marginal at best, and non-existent in the "prosumer" (whatever that means) market. I haven't looked at and analyzed the numbers, though, so that's just a hunch.

Eastman Kodak is involved in a large number of ventures that are not photography-related, which is also true of many other camera & film companies. Read their annual report to see a complete list of the industries they are involved in:

http://investor.kodak.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=115911&p=irol-reportsannual

 

[bmattock]

That's the big question for EK. They have no future unless it is digital, but they haven't been able to make profitable inroads into the consumer digital market. They are selling a lot of stuff, but the profit just isn't there.

True, especially with regard to their consumer digicams. Despite leaving the manufacturing arena and farming it out, their profit margins are not good compared to other companies such as Fujifilm.

 

[Tom A]

To get the thread back on track a bit. I think film will be around for a long time. Our choices might be a bit limited as to selection, but there is still a demand. Color negative film is still popular with Lomo/Diana and other "plastic" cameras - and they are a huge group. In the uS alone 2-300 000 users of basic C41 film.
Black/white film has been a small segment for a long time - but a steady market. It is also a mature technology. You dont have to sink million's into it for research and come up with a new product every 12-24 month. It is also a market that really doesn't like innovations or "new, improved" - we like the same film, untouched by "science" - I wish it to stay the same for decades as we have established our procedure - and hate to change!
What worries me is the supply of paper for wet printing. Kodak is already out of it (no great loss, they make great films but could never get the papers right). Paper is expensive to make (the highly specialized pulp used is not cheap), it is expensive to ship and "bulky" as inventory. The producers of it seem to come and go at an alarming rate too.
The inroad of ink-jet printing is taking its toll here - though for some reason, the paper with silver removed is costing more!!!!