Personal ramblings on photography
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 colour film? I like film photography in colour. I do love colour. 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.
In Kodak bankruptcy reorganisation, the announcement of Ektachrome being discountinued mark the end of the Kodak slide film, after discontinuing Kodachrome in 2009 and stopping development at the end of 2010. The won’t stop producing E-6 chemistry though.
This is very hard on slide film shooters. Now the only source for colour reversible film is Fujifilm. Time to stock up.
Bryan Jones comes back on what Kodak represented to the sad realisation of what it has become.
The sad part of this is that Kodak is another example of the a company that fell from dramatic heights and has gone from a name that everybody knew to one that does not have nearly the brand recognition it once had that was all things photography.
To me, Kodak rings now with good film (a very niche product today) and crappy digital camera. That last part is no longer since Kodak announced they abandon the camera business in light of their bankruptcy reorganisation. They contributed a lot to photography, with innovations like the roll film, Kodachrome that made colour photography easier, the first digital camera in 1975, etc. The also contributed to make photography accessible to anybody, for the best or the worse. We, photographers, have a huge debt towards Kodak.
Incidentally I came back to photography a bit because I bought a Kodak digital camera in 1999 – which was at the time decent. Then I bought a Canon EOS film camera and ended up mostly shooting Fuji slide film… Today my TLR film camera sees a lot of Kodak film.
After inventing the digital camera in 1975, and resisting it heavily, now Kodak is abandoning the digital camera market all together during their bankruptcy, to reorganize, refocus in order to exit as smaller company. They won’t stop making disposable film cameras though, which is part of the film division.
Source Kodak press release and C|Net.
While this seems to be saddening, it is the reality of the business, and I understand this one.
Kodak was in the low-end of the market, their camera weren’t really great, albeit sufficient in the consumer market. But with the declining market for consumer compact digital camera, totally taken over by cell-phones, it seems to be the logical decision. Even the Japanese makers saw a serious fall this year, but most have a higher-end product line to sustain the business.
My only hope is that they don’t end up getting out of the film business ; the current press release does clearly state they continue. The end of Kodachrome was an unfortunate decision they had to make, and consolidating their film product line seemed to be sane ; they still make good products and it would be very sad if they discontinued them.
We’ll see.
A small documentary “Kodachrome 2010” by Xander Robin, with an interview of Dwayne’s Photo lab manager and how it came to an end.
The video was taken down on YouTube due to a copyright claim.
Robert Cohen found his last roll of Kodachrome and went to the Missouri fair to shoot it ; then drove down to Dwayne’s to get it processed, anxiously waiting to see if the film had any picture on it.
My biggest regret is to not have shot Kodachrome more often. I think that the 3 weeks turn around in France was part of what turned me off.
A quick explanation from Michael Krigman as to why Kodak is dying and Fujifilm is doing well. Michael bought a Fujifilm X-100 made of a Fujifilm sensor. But what did Kodak do?
As Kodak fades, FujiFilm embodies a new generation of photographic technology driven by genuine innovation rather than strict adherence to marketing formulas. A powerful lesson is hidden in this story.
Exactly.