Personal ramblings on photography
DPReview: Kodak photo businesses sold to private equity
Well….
This is not good news. Private equity are the corporate looters. And this one is the one that removed “Co-op” from “Mountain Equipment Co-op”…
I don’t expect Kodak film product to be developing. Maybe it’s time to stock up. And when some Fujifilm are suspected to just be Kodak, I wonder about the broader impact.
When I wasn’t looking, 2 different model of film cameras where released under the Kodak brand. Just to be clear these are inexpensive and marginally better than the disposable counterparts, and Kodak is just a brand on top of it. This is not the Ricoh Pentax 17 at CAD$680.
From 2022, the Kodak Ektar H35 Half Frame Camera is manufactured by Retopro. It’s 35mm film half-frame camera, with a 22mm acrylic lens, f/9.5 fixed aperture, and 1/100 sec fixed speed and a flash. The frame is vertical in the natural camera orientation as the film transport is horizontal. About CAD$80. Comes in various colours in a design reminicent of older Kodak camera.
In 2023, a follow up Kodak Ektar H35N still made by Retopro, brought the lens to a fixed f/8 aperture with one of the element made of glass, and now has a bulb shutter speed and a tripod mount, and can perform multiple exposures. Still has a flash. About CAD$100. Comes in various colours with a slightly different design.
From 2024, the Kodak i60, manufactured by Meta Imaging Solutions is a 35mm film camera with a 31mm acrylic lens, f/10 fixed aperture with a minimum focusing distance of 1 meter and 1/125 sec fixed speed, and a flash. Really feels like a disposable camera you can refill. About CAD$80 as well. Comes in various colours in design directly inspired by the Instamatic 100 from 1963. Reading Kodak own website saying it uses “135mm film”, I want to scream. Beside the design it looks like all the others on Kodak website.
All in all it seems like competition to Lomography, both in quality and and price, albeit with maybe Lomography trying to provide more “fun”.
The future of film doesn’t look bright.
First, James Cater write Film is Alive! — But it May Have a Terminal Illness, where the author expands on how the tech satellite to film is backwards: minilab and cameras, neither of these are being developed or even manufactured.
Second, the industry is in turnmoil.
The spun-off company that still make Kodak film, Kodak Alaris, is looking to sell its film and paper unit, for a meager $34M, and this shortly after announcing that the just revived Ektachrome 100 slide film would be made available in sheet and 120 format in April, in addition to the currently available 35mm.
Meanwhile, Tetenal, the European film chemistry manufacturer face closure after 172 years of activity. And this is bad news, even after CineStill new chemistry announcement.
PetaPixel has a closer look at Tetenal:
Without Tetenal’s chemistry branch, a lot of photographers, photofinishers, labs, printing companies and even the once so mighty Kodak itself might be left out in the rain, as Tetenal reportedly produces not only chemistry for EU distribution under license from Kodak but directly produces source chemicals for Kodak’s U.S. manufacturing.
and
Another immediate effect of Tetenal’s demise might be a supply glitch for RA-4 paper chemistry that many labs, finishers, and printing companies rely on.
This does not look good at all.
NPR: How Kodak’s Shirley Cards Set Photography’s Skin-Tone Standard.
An interesting tidbit of the history of photography: Kodak printing calibration that was setting a skin-tone standard when in reality there is none.
Kodak Alaris is discontinuing the BW 400CN.
A very nice film meant to shoot Black & White and have it processed in a regular one hour minilab as it is a C-41 process film.
Now that one hour minilabs are an endangered specie and that it is much easier to find Black & White chemistry than C-41, it was bound to happen. Not sure exactly what to replace it with.
Here are some samples I shot a few years ago:
Kodak announced the plan to sell the film and imaging division to the UK Kodak Pension Plan in a move to settled debt and going toward exiting chapter 11
The question is whether the pension plan will deal with this asset as the film business or just as financial value? One would think the Kodak Pension Plan knows about Kodak business at its heart…
Time will tell, and I want to be hopeful.
The Kodak DCS is Kodak 1991 Digital SLR based on a Nikon F3. Kodak was pioneer in the area and Nikonweb interview James McGarvey who designed these.
Six models were priced from $20,000 to $25,000. A total of 987 units were sold from 1991 to 1994.
But:
Many people in Kodak were reluctant. Some of top management tried to stop our business, but some wisdom prevailed and they did not succeed.
That’s right, they were scared to disrupt their own business. But it got disrupted by the competition and now we see were Kodak is: between the rock and the hard place.
Christopher Bonanos write for the Washington Post: What Kodak could still learn from Polaroid. He goes on to explain the mistakes of Polaroid and what Kodak should learn from that to survive and keep film coming. The key argument is right here:
Yes, the remaining buyers of film are weighing this technology against digital methods of image-making. But they’re not choosing film for reasons of economy; it could never compete. They are choosing it for a particular look and feel, and because they want to differentiate themselves. Some are old-school professionals who prefer to work in familiar ways.
Bonanos is the author of Instant: The Story of Polaroid that I recommend.
It has been rumored that Kodak is trying to sell its still profitable film division.
What worries is that beside Kodak and Fujifilm, who makes color film? I like film photography in color. I do love color. If I can’t buy anymore film, I’ll be very sad.
Time to stock up, and hope that whoever buys Kodak film business, does it to keep it alive, or license the technology left to one that want to do it.
After the discontinuation of Ektachrome, Kodak is hiking the price of film, 15% across the board. (via Amateur Photographer)
That was expected I guess. It is also the price hike of 2004 on Fujifilm slide film that made me buy a 20D.