Rochester, N.Y. (AP) – Eastman Kodak Co. soon will stop making black-and-white photographic paper, a niche product for fine-art photographers and hobbyists that is rapidly being supplanted by digital-imaging systems.
Kodak said Wednesday it will discontinue production of the paper, specially designed for black-and-white film, at the end of this year. But the world’s biggest film manufacturer will continue to make black-and-white film and chemicals for processing.
By the way my most recent Kodachrome color slides (K200) took three WEEKS to get back. Camera store says that is now just about normal.
Dave Nelson
Film? Wasssat? Seriously, while I love my D60, I have the most fun when I head out with my CrownGraphic, and shoot some 4x5. I hope that I’ll be able to do that for awhile yet.
While I understand the economic reasons for their decision, there is no replacement for shooting up a bunch of Tri-X Pan, developing it yourself, then printing your own pictures, as a method of learning the fine points of photography. The average digital camera user today wouldn’t know an aperature from a hole in the ground [;)]
Of course, with a good graphics program, I can do things on my computer that would have taken a lot of effort to reproduce in the darkroom.
Hopefully someone will fill the niche, although I suppose you can print B&W on color paper…
Some of the C-41 process B/W films are actually designed for that (Portra B/W for example). On color paper, they actually come out more Brown and White, though, and look better on true B/W paper. I have a hard time believing Kodak would drop anything related to B/W before they finally killed off Kodachrome, but oh well. I don’t run Kodak. If I did, you can be assured that I wouldn’t have dropped the Medium Format backs, or the Digital SLR line like they have.
Ummmm…didn’t Ilford bite the dust, too? Or at least getting close to it? I thought I had heard they filed for bankruptcy or something. Could be wrong, though.
I think Ilfor may be in a bit of trouble, but i’m not sure, I don’t really use much Kodak stuff anyway, I use Ilford Multigrade RC paper, for shooting color I use Fugi 100 or 400 , I do however love Kodak’s Tri-x 400, Just wi***hey made it in 100 ISO.
That’s why I use Plus-X, it’s Tri-X’s 125 ISO cousin.
I for one will be very sad to see B&W Kodak paper go, that is all that I have used during college, and I have had many positive results. The only time that I have had negative results were when I printed color slide film on B&W Kodak paper (let’s see how many people get that[;)]). I used Ilford back in high school with mixed results so I have always stuck with Kodak ever since.
That’s dumb. The black and white is really the only niche left for the film market, or at least the only one that is really used. Most digital black and white doesn’t even come close to film black and white in print.
I think I’ll just let that slide, rather than risk enlarging the issue. It does bring to mind an interesting image, though. You just never know what will develop…[:o)]
Yeah, Plus-X is pretty much the only B&W film that I use, I’ll Tri if I really need to, but I try not to. But I have have been able to make some very nice 11x14 prints from Plus-X with very little grain, I love the stuff.
In all seriousness, it actually does make for some pretty cool pictures. I had to do that for a photography project back in college. All you do is shoot a roll of color slide, then print it on B&W paper with the contrast set as high as it can go. This way you only get pure blacks and pure whites. A very abstract picture of something that probably tends to be very common!
Apparently you are correct… I searched around and found not only them, but AGFA as well. I fully expected the larger companies to ditch it, and film in general eventually… But if the smaller guys go to, it’s going to be a real loss. Smaller companies with a lot less overhead will probably pop up to fill the small niche for artists and the like… But it’s a shame to see all that experience technical knowledge lost. Hopefully they will be able to reemerge with a scaled down and more streamlined company. Frankly, I’ve found the whole move away from film to be fairly depressing. I lost count of how many pro film and color places I use to go to, that are now gone. I’m just as guilty as the next guy when it comes to switching, and part of me doesn’t feel guilty for the places that spent years screwing up many people’s orders (including mine) in arrogant bliss. But still, it’s really the end of an era. On the positive side… This might eventually make film photography the true art form it’s always struggled to be.
Crap, what’ll I use for Architectural pictures?, nothing works as good as Black and White.
I guess soon it will be the specialist companies making B&W film and paper at mega $ prices…Guess Julius Schulman retired at the right time…
the Maestro at work…It just dont look the same digitally…
I think I’ve been there… Is that the famous glass house in the Hollywood Hills? There will always be enough materials to do work like that. And it will just make that kind of work more valuable.
