"Kodak is considering hiving off its traditional photographic film arm and selling or spinning off the business it created more than a century ago."
This kind of a move would not surprise me, considering the growth in the marketing of digital photography. Our local camera club has had numerous discussions about this. I’ve been shooting with Nikon SLR’s for some 30 years, and I suspect that I will eventually make the switch to digital, especially after having seen what one of my cousins in Denver, Colorado is able to do with it.
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
Just out of curiosity, do you have a source for this?
I ask because I haven’t heard a word about it on any of the photography forums I read, some of which have members very well connected with Kodak, and this would indeed be big news.
Anyway, I don’t know if spinning off film would be such a wise move for Kodak. First of all, there’s motion picture film, which is still a huge industry, and Kodak is the main supplier.
Just in the past year, Kodak has improved their entire line of professional color negative film to have finer grain. They made a pretty big improvement, and I’d hate to see them just flush all that research away.
Film’s going the way of the horse and buggy. No matter how great film is, it ain’t gonna be around too much longer. I’d say it’s a good move for Kodak, assuming they want to stay in business.
Kodak just sold off its Health Imaging (or Health Sciences) Group (X-Rays, blood analyzers, etc.), but no mention locally (Rochester, NY) about their getting out of film altogether (YET!).
Film will be dead when all the landscape photographers out there can get a digital camera with as much resolution as an 8x10 piece of film and it cost less than $1000.
As it is now, there are a whole bunch of people, myself included, who are using film in a big way because we can build an entire film system for the cost of one mid-level DSLR. I use 35mm manual focus equipment, which is dirt cheap. Medium and large format cameras are even cheaper compared to their pre-digital price. You can get started with a basic Hasselblad system for around $400-500 now. My entire 35mm system, with really nice lenses from 21mm(soon to be 20mm) all the way up to 400mm cost me less than a new Canon 5D.
Fuji has seen it fit to reintroduce one of their classic films that was discontinued a year or two ago. Clearly, there’s still enough of a market to justify them doing this.
Where do you have your film processed? All the labs i used to use stopped E6 processing; that is when I switched to digital. But I really miss the image quality of the film!!!
[#ditto] If I can still get film for a 1910 Kodak Autogragh, 100 years after it was introduced, I think I’ll still be able to get 35 mm film for my Pentex K1000 20 years from now. Film may become less common but its like saying “no one I know paints so why produce oil paints anymore” Film is alive and well in art circles and at art schools across the country, granted Kodak per say may stop making film, but some spin off company will always produce film.
Do it yourself, its not that hard.
Funny I know where I can still find horses AND buggys[:D]
I use a great local lab that does E6, cut and mounted, in and out the door in two hours for $8 per 36 exposure roll of 35mm.
If you don’t mind waiting two weeks, you can drop it in the box at Walmart and they send it to Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas. They do a really nice job on it for only $4.88 per 36, although, like I said it takes two weeks.
I went to the ;local photo shop to get passport photos for a cruise
They used a digital camera. I have black hair & print came out that
I aged fifteen years with white hair and red all around my eyes.
My wife has brown hair & it suddenly turned straw blond.
There was a garbage bin with fifteen GOOD older cameras that
people threw away when buying new digitals… We picked up a couple
of nice camera cases for free.
“There was a garbage bin with fifteen GOOD older cameras thatpeople threw away when buying new digitals”
I’ve also gotten into tinkering with older cameras, and one big thing I’ve learned is that you NEVER throw away an old camera.
Even if it’s completely dead, there’s likely something that will be of use to you or somone else down the road.
Just for example, I have a dead Mamiya fixed-lens SLR back someone in one of my boxes. Someone came along needing a rewind knob and advance lever for that particular camera. A few months later that same person was able to provide me with a focusing screen for a Canon A-1 when I bought a camera with a damaged screen.
They’re not making these things new anymore, and there’s a good chance that no matter how bad a camera is, there’s something useable on it by someone.
My comments:
This isn’t the first time that I’ve heard that Kodak is looking to get out of the film business. I heard it early last year too.
Kodak isn’t the only company making film. I think that Kodak film will be around for a long time, even if it isn’t under the “Kodak” brand any more.
Morseman,
I can understand your dissatisfaction with your pictures, but I don’t think it’s fair to attribute the problems to digital technology. With a competent photographer using a decent digital camera, I can all but guarantee that your results would be better than shots from a 35mm film camera.
As for film, well, as long as it’s still available in 4x5 sheets, I’m happy. I can’t afford a scanning back for my View Camera just yet. When I can, it’s “Adios!” to that awful stuff. I’m sure film will be around for years (after all, there are still folks shooting Daguerreotypes out there), but it will become more and more of a specialty. Perhaps every so often I’ll get an urge to try shooting a Daguerreotype, an Ambrotype, or maybe some B&W film! Then again, maybe not! [swg]
E6 is not difficult? Interesting.
My other area of reluctance is cost. The local lab here told me they were getting out of E6 due to the cost, as the chemicals are pricey and need to be fresh to do a good job.
Any thoughts?
Maybe I should set up a lab that specializes in rail photography, and advertise in Trains.
You must be extremely competent with digital, then. Or you have extremely good (read:expensive) equipment. Or are a wiz with photoshop. Or I am just a lousy photographer. Or all of the above.
I have YET to see anything come out of my D70 that comes close to what came out of my F100 using Velvia or Ektachrome VS. While the cost savings are great with digital, I just do not have the same ambition to go and shoot digital, because I am fairly certain I will be dissappointed with the results.
All of the techie stuff I’ve read about film vs digital indicated that at around 25megapixels digital will achieve the quality of good film. Perhaps if one is shooting for web publication 6mp is ok, but I feel that if enlargements or submission for a serious publication are a possibility, one cannot beat good film.
Comparing film camaras to digital cameras might be like comparing kits to ready-to-run. There is a market for both, even though the demand may not be the same for both segments. Modelers who have honed their model building skills and have a lot of time to devote to the hobby might preferr the kits whereas other people might preferr spending their time on layout construction, scenery, or operation aree probably happy with RTR.
Film cameras can be very expensive to use frequently but may also not give the best results if they are not used often enough to maintain a person’s expertise. I fall into this category. I now have an unused Vectus 400 APS camera that I replaced with a digital camera when none of the first pictures I took of my newborn grandson (born January 4, 2006, ten weeks pre-mature) came out. Everyone I know uses only a digital camera now. Film is no longer the choice for other than professional photographers (many of whom are also going digital).
zardoz - I too am slow to be converted to the new media, and still shoot K64 for my trackside ventures. Something kinda relaxing about getting a box of fresh slides back from the developer, sorting and cataloging them (probably from my baseball card days as a kid). But, little by little, I’m being educated on digital. As a layman, I can tell you that where digital absolutely shines is indoor and nighttime photography. It takes a lot of the thought process out, and allows you to focus more on the composition. And, with the photobucket and photoshop type programs, you can work with a throw-away shot to make it better.