"FILM IS DEAD" - Kodak

If 85% of the world can't even buy a simple film camera, how does this assure that film will survive. I don't particularly want to see film go because I still want to shoot my 4x5, 8x10 and leicas with B&W. But, I've been shooting for fun for 50 years and professionally for 39 years and am close enough and seen enough to assure you that it's happening much faster than I ever expected. Ten years ago, I would have bet you that digital wouldn't be cost efective or practical during my career. WRONG! I'm now in my 5th generatin of digital camera and will continue to upgrade as long as I can hold a camera.

Go back fourty years and see what was going on in photography then. Ansco & Dupont were major players in B&W film, paper and chemicals. Where are they today. Agfa-Gevert was a big player and noe Agfa is barely here. Ilford came in strong and still is a srong player along with fuji who kicked kodaks A$$ twenty yeatrs ago. Kodak deserved to be brought down a couple of notches and have a little attitude adjustment (another thread). Color was basically Kodachrome ASA10 and was available in sheets up to 8x10 and roll. Yes, it still loke great today but todays Kodachrome isn't even close to the old emulsion and processing is hard to find and inconsistent at best. I think kodak only has one lab running it now. E6 films changed the demand for kodachrome and kodak couldn't afford to keep thise expensive processes running. See what I'm talking about regarding digital vs film. Now look at kodaks product line in the past ten years. B&W products have been dropped in a major way. For example, super XX sheet film, ektalure paper, 110 film, 127 B&W, 127 film and on and on. Be real, there aren't enough fine art shooters in the world to keep some of the products in production. Kodak isn't in business to supply the minority, they are in the business to make big bucks and please share holders. I'm not just picking on kodak but see the trend across the board for fuji, agfa and ilford. Take a close look at the industry, virtually every newspaper and wire service is digital. Most commercial shooters are digital. Now many of the stock agencies will only accept digital files and consumer digital salers far exceed film camera sales. If you really think film and particularly kodak and polaroid will survive, let me sel you some stock in them.

DDP-YLS said:

Film will probably exist for the art photographer for some time but
youre wrong about the B&W film and chemicals not being affected.
Kodak has dropped B&W and color products like hot potatoes over the
past few years because of a decline in demand. Don't think for a
minute that any manufacturer will keep producing a product that
doesn't make a good proffit. Look at the number of layoffs that
kodak has had in the past ten years. It's just a part of doing
business.

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One shouldn't judge the film industry based on Kodak which has not been a very well run business and the guys running the company don't seem to have a clue.

Most of Kodak's delining profits during the past ten years is because of competition from Fuji and NOT from digital.

If Kodak dropped some black and white films, it was because some guy there figured it was beneath them, a huge company like Kodak, producing film for such a tiny section of the market.

Just because black and white film is a small percentage of the market, doesn't mean that it's not profitable for a smaller company. As long as people want to use black and white film, there will be somebody to sell it to them.

BobTrips said:

Now...

Caterpillar said:

....

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Member said:

4. My country is considered 3rd world. But when I asked many
traditional photo shops which is selling cameras, they all answered
me that 80% or more of their camera sales is now digital. Even if
you can buy a slr for U$200 with lenses and a flash, people were
still buying U$300-500 digicams.

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This is consistent with what I've seen in Thailand, India and
Bangladesh. Realistically the lowest earners in India and
Bangladesh are not able to afford a camera of any type but middle
class people seem to be quickly embracing digital. I was truly
surprised at how many people were carrying digitals, saw almost no
one shooting film.

I think that when we discuss film vs. digital on this site we
generally do so from an "interest in image quality" position. We
tend to forget the fun factor of taking a picture and showing it
around to the group/family.

That people would pass up a 35 mm SLR for a 2 or 3 meg compact
digital doesn't surprise me.

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This argument of dumping film or old cameras in 3rd world countries does not exactly hold water and people has this fixed mind set 3rd world people cannot afford a digicam is hard for them to accept. They also underestimate the power of marketing and perception of value. Take example cellphones.

In our country, even housemaids, street cigarette vendors have cell phones! And cell phones cost more than a U$5-10 plastic lens film camera! Heck, my housemaid has a cellphone. My neidhbor's housemaids have cellphones! It's only a nokia 3310 or even the older 3210, but it's still about U$30 phone used! And for a salary of U$30-40 a month, that is a lot of money! And yet, they would buy a cellphone rather than a film camera!

In any case, the point is not the economic capability of people here to buy. It's the perceived value of a product and willingness of the consumer to acquire it. Except for a few, digital cameras are "it" and many would save up eventually to get one. You would not imagine at what lengths of depravation people would go to to save up for something. I've seen some office worker's save up, use their credit cards on cell phones with cameras worth 3-4x their monthly salary!

To me, this is insane, but our country has more cell phones and cell phone users than land lines laid! Many here would be "archaic" or ancient if you do not have a cell phone.

The other thing I hope to dispel is that it is assumed that 3rd world countries are so "backward" that cell phones and digicams are the furthest from their minds. We are 3rd world only in terms of distribution of wealth, but not in terms of sophistication and appreciation of technology. The Intel P4 chip you might be using might be made in our country. So with your CD or DVD rom drive. In the 78-M of our population, maybe it's around 20-25M of that is in the urban centers. And the poor in the province are mostly "poor" for lack of money and basic services, but not in food. My housemaid receives a U$35/month salary and accepts this because in their province which is surrounded by the sea, they cannot get their agricultural products out. They never go hungry, but they don't have money becaue they cannot sell their produce outside their province. She can read, write, speak english well, etc. But opportunity for greater income is what drove her to the city.

Only the poorest of the poor, like in Mindanao, where people cannot read or write and hampered by a culture of patronage is it really bad. This is why there are rebels and bandits doing kidnapping in that part of our country.

But going back to cameras and cell phones, film and digicams, I think that many should accept the decline of the film industry. The handwriting has been on the wall for about 3-5 years and the paint is already dry.

So, I beg to respectfully disagree that there are still 3rd world countries who would patronize film. And even if there were, the revenues of the past years could not be sustained. As an additional note, I also noticed that many photoprocessing shops have closed here. The one that is flourishing is Cameraworld who invested hundreds of thousand of dollars for machines to process output from DCs. One of it's old competitor, Columbia, is just entering this and is late into the game. Their film developing business have suffered due to this digital shift.

---------------------

• Caterpillar

'Always in the process of changing, growing, and transforming.'

I must say that the digital camera has made me feel more comfortable when taking pictures. In the old days, one would have to resort to taking the film into the local drug store where the kid behind the counter would remember you from the last time you were there.....because the last time you were there, you took in a roll of nudies and you had to face them when you bought your pictures. Today, we don't need the local drug store. Today we have the world wide web to make those dirty little pictures available on. ;-)

JM

norman day said:

85% of humanity cannot even afford to buy a simple film camera...
so they ain't going to buy a digital camera

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Most of humanity that can afford to spend $200/year developing film can buy a $500 computer, $200 camera, and $40 CF card.

norman day said:

film.... and both Kodak and Fuji know it. It will be many decades
(yes, DECADES) before emulsion film is finally "eliminated"....

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It will probably never be "eliminated"...but the vast majority of people will be using digital in 5-10 years.

norman day said:

someone can devise a method of storing digital images that will
make them last as long as images "stored" on traditional
negative/transparency film

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A digital image burned on a CD will be in perfect condition in 1000 years. I that long enough?

norman day said:

How many of you digital fans out there
accidentally lost a favorite image because you have accidentally
over-written an image file

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Since I can make as many free copies as I want, for me the answer is never. I've misplaced film negatives though.

norman day said:

And here's me with my wonderful old
Kodachromes that were taken almost 30 years ago ,,,, slightly
dusty, yes .... BUT I CAN ACTUALLY HOLD THESE BABIES

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You can print digital images even more easily than film images.

norman day said:

and they are as brightly-coloured as they were when they taken.

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So will the prints you make from your digital images 50 years from now.

norman day said:

....(they are also sharp ... unlike digital images).

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If your digital images are worse than your film images, you're doing something wrong.

norman day said:

85% of humanity cannot even afford to buy a simple film camera...
so they ain't going to buy a digital camera .... a few memory cards
.... and a computer. If Kodak and Fuji announced tomorrow that they
would no longer manufacture emulsion film .... then some
enterprising guy in south-east asia would almost-overnight become
a multi-billionaire if he decided to set up a factory that produced
film.... and both Kodak and Fuji know it. It will be many decades
(yes, DECADES) before emulsion film is finally "eliminated".... and
even then, it will only come about if the peoples of the developing
countries are as rich as we are ..... and ... more importantly ...
someone can devise a method of storing digital images that will
make them last as long as images "stored" on traditional
negative/transparency film! How many of you digital fans out there
accidentally lost a favorite image because you have accidentally
over-written an image file .... or your flash memory card has
become corrupted? .... And here's me with my wonderful old
Kodachromes that were taken almost 30 years ago ,,,, slightly
dusty, yes .... BUT I CAN ACTUALLY HOLD THESE BABIES .... and they
are as brightly-coloured as they were when they taken....(they are
also sharp ... unlike digital images).

Cheers,

Norman

Mark H. said:

A bit of a stretch?? Well, here are some selected quotes from
todays (9/25) front page article in the Wall Street Journal. You
decide if I'm overplaying....

(unfortunately, this is visible on-line only to paid WSJ subscribers)

KODAK SHIFTS FOCUS FROM FILM, BETTING FUTURE ON DIGITAL LINES

Finally yielding to technology changes that have made its signature
product outdated, Eastman Kodak Co. is preparing a big strategic
move away from traditional film and plans to bet its future on new
digital markets.

In a risky move that the company charactarizes as a historic shift,
Kodak is expected to announce today that it will boost investment
in nonphotographic areas and make new forays into digital territory
dominated by big, entrenched competitors. It intends to compete
head-on with Hewlett-Packard Co, Cannon Inc., and Seiko Epson corp.
by launching a line of ink-jet printers for consumers

[......]

At the same time time, the company says it will make no more
significant long-term investments in traditional consumer film -
nothing, it says, as ambitious as its move to develop the
alternative-format Advanced Photo System in 1996.

[.........]

In July, the company said the drop-off in film consumption is
happening twice as fast as the company had expected at the
beginning of the year.

[.............]

In the consumer arena, the company's profitable traditional film
buisiness is being overwhelmed by filmless digital photography.

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A CD will last 100 years? Dream on.

Librarians have increasing amounts of their new collection items comming to them as digital information on CDs. Our University of California Santa Barbara librarian says she and most of her colleagues assume the dependable life of a CD is about 10 years. Then anything can happen, depending on the amount of handling and air polution a CD is exposed to. We all know many music CDs going back to the 1980's are fine, but she says for her archival purposes that's not a dependable life expectancy.

Most libraries periodically hire a duplicating service to take a truckload or so of thier CDs for duplication and discard the "old" ones. Librarians believe that the newer and more high-tech a storage medium is, the less dependable and shorter lived it is.

They fight the disintegration of post-1850 paper made from acid-filled wood pulp rather than the previous low-tech neutral rag base. They like the velum stock the Gutenberg Bibles were printed on, actually an animal skin, quite supple and readable today. Our librarian especially likes the 5000 year old Sumarian stone tablets in her collection. They show no signs of deterioration at all!

Some years ago Sony promised a long lived CD that did not burn its tiny holes on anything but the sealed recording medium inside the plastic sandwich. Librarians were jubilant. It never came out of the lab.

I have some 70 year old Kodachromes my father-in-law took in Mexico that are vivid and sharp today with true colors. And some 35 year old Ektachromes sporting green faces and plenty of fading.

Well cared for B & W negs and prints can certainly last the 100 years you hope for with CDs.

Frank Nesbitt said:

A CD will last 100 years? Dream on.

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--
JohnnyBGood
Actually, your correspondant says 1000 years...Only time will tell.

Time already told

A local magazine burned several 1000ths of CD's of different brands a year ago with a quality burner (sorry don't know which). Certainly the ceaper ones all failed for over 60% in about 6months. I myself had a project of 90 pictures stored on a quality TDK CD that wasn't readable in just one month. I was sure glad a had my negs.

jean bernier said:

Frank Nesbitt said:

A CD will last 100 years? Dream on.

Click to expand...

--
JohnnyBGood
Actually, your correspondant says 1000 years...Only time will tell.

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BTW why are you people so eager to proclaim film is death. Does it bother you that so many people (much, much more people have an SLR than a DSLR) still rely on film and haven't found "the light" yet??

Take pictures rather than making silly hype statements

reinierv said:

BTW why are you people so eager to proclaim film is death. Does it
bother you that so many people (much, much more people have an SLR
than a DSLR) still rely on film and haven't found "the light" yet??

Take pictures rather than making silly hype statements

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It's like a religion. It's not good enough that they have a digital camera. They will only rest when every last scrap of celluloid is destroyed.

--
Jamie W.
Kindness. Compassion. Understanding. Respect. Courtesy.
I try to live up to these words. Do you?

Colossians 3:8 --> But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as: anger, rage, malice, slander, and foul language.

PLEASE keep in mind that I am not saying that I am perfect and never do such things. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, I do my best to live by this, and encourage you to do the same! =)

Nonesense. If properly cared for, any CD will last 100s of years. If you're librarian says otherwise, she's simply wrong.

From:

http://www.willamette.edu/wits/idc/video/vcds.htm

"Videotapes are mechanical devices and degrade over time. A videotape has about a 15 year lifespan before the audio and video signals have degraded to static. CDs are digital and do not degrade."

Frank Nesbitt said:

A CD will last 100 years? Dream on.

Librarians have increasing amounts of their new collection items
comming to them as digital information on CDs. Our University of
California Santa Barbara librarian says she and most of her
colleagues assume the dependable life of a CD is about 10 years.
Then anything can happen, depending on the amount of handling and
air polution a CD is exposed to. We all know many music CDs going
back to the 1980's are fine, but she says for her archival purposes
that's not a dependable life expectancy.

Most libraries periodically hire a duplicating service to take a
truckload or so of thier CDs for duplication and discard the "old"
ones. Librarians believe that the newer and more high-tech a
storage medium is, the less dependable and shorter lived it is.

They fight the disintegration of post-1850 paper made from
acid-filled wood pulp rather than the previous low-tech neutral rag
base. They like the velum stock the Gutenberg Bibles were printed
on, actually an animal skin, quite supple and readable today. Our
librarian especially likes the 5000 year old Sumarian stone tablets
in her collection. They show no signs of deterioration at all!

Some years ago Sony promised a long lived CD that did not burn its
tiny holes on anything but the sealed recording medium inside the
plastic sandwich. Librarians were jubilant. It never came out of
the lab.

I have some 70 year old Kodachromes my father-in-law took in Mexico
that are vivid and sharp today with true colors. And some 35 year
old Ektachromes sporting green faces and plenty of fading.

Well cared for B & W negs and prints can certainly last the 100
years you hope for with CDs.

Click to expand...

keep dreaming and hopeing. From expirience I know they won't last 100years guarenteed. Once 1 month did the trick on a quality CD and I was real happy I had my negs.

Yobria said:

From:

http://www.willamette.edu/wits/idc/video/vcds.htm

"Videotapes are mechanical devices and degrade over time. A
videotape has about a 15 year lifespan before the audio and video
signals have degraded to static. CDs are digital and do not
degrade."

Frank Nesbitt said:

A CD will last 100 years? Dream on.

Librarians have increasing amounts of their new collection items
comming to them as digital information on CDs. Our University of
California Santa Barbara librarian says she and most of her
colleagues assume the dependable life of a CD is about 10 years.
Then anything can happen, depending on the amount of handling and
air polution a CD is exposed to. We all know many music CDs going
back to the 1980's are fine, but she says for her archival purposes
that's not a dependable life expectancy.

Most libraries periodically hire a duplicating service to take a
truckload or so of thier CDs for duplication and discard the "old"
ones. Librarians believe that the newer and more high-tech a
storage medium is, the less dependable and shorter lived it is.

They fight the disintegration of post-1850 paper made from
acid-filled wood pulp rather than the previous low-tech neutral rag
base. They like the velum stock the Gutenberg Bibles were printed
on, actually an animal skin, quite supple and readable today. Our
librarian especially likes the 5000 year old Sumarian stone tablets
in her collection. They show no signs of deterioration at all!

Some years ago Sony promised a long lived CD that did not burn its
tiny holes on anything but the sealed recording medium inside the
plastic sandwich. Librarians were jubilant. It never came out of
the lab.

I have some 70 year old Kodachromes my father-in-law took in Mexico
that are vivid and sharp today with true colors. And some 35 year
old Ektachromes sporting green faces and plenty of fading.

Well cared for B & W negs and prints can certainly last the 100
years you hope for with CDs.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

What is all this rubbish about CDs lasting 100 years, by then we will be replying to threads about " Is Digital dead?"

Actually I wouldn't mind betting that it will be much sooner than that. Technology moves very fast. Its taken film 150 years to reach its peak, it will take half that time for digital to do the same before something else will replaces it

reinierv said:

Yobria said:

From:

http://www.willamette.edu/wits/idc/video/vcds.htm

"Videotapes are mechanical devices and degrade over time. A
videotape has about a 15 year lifespan before the audio and video
signals have degraded to static. CDs are digital and do not
degrade."

Frank Nesbitt said:

A CD will last 100 years? Dream on.

Librarians have increasing amounts of their new collection items
comming to them as digital information on CDs. Our University of
California Santa Barbara librarian says she and most of her
colleagues assume the dependable life of a CD is about 10 years.
Then anything can happen, depending on the amount of handling and
air polution a CD is exposed to. We all know many music CDs going
back to the 1980's are fine, but she says for her archival purposes
that's not a dependable life expectancy.

Most libraries periodically hire a duplicating service to take a
truckload or so of thier CDs for duplication and discard the "old"
ones. Librarians believe that the newer and more high-tech a
storage medium is, the less dependable and shorter lived it is.

They fight the disintegration of post-1850 paper made from
acid-filled wood pulp rather than the previous low-tech neutral rag
base. They like the velum stock the Gutenberg Bibles were printed
on, actually an animal skin, quite supple and readable today. Our
librarian especially likes the 5000 year old Sumarian stone tablets
in her collection. They show no signs of deterioration at all!

Some years ago Sony promised a long lived CD that did not burn its
tiny holes on anything but the sealed recording medium inside the
plastic sandwich. Librarians were jubilant. It never came out of
the lab.

I have some 70 year old Kodachromes my father-in-law took in Mexico
that are vivid and sharp today with true colors. And some 35 year
old Ektachromes sporting green faces and plenty of fading.

Well cared for B & W negs and prints can certainly last the 100
years you hope for with CDs.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Phillip Bonfiglio said:

What is all this rubbish about CDs lasting 100 years, by then we
will be replying to threads about " Is Digital dead?"

Click to expand...

I really, really hope I will

;-)

Capital Man said:

It's like a religion. It's not good enough that they have a
digital camera. They will only rest when every last scrap of
celluloid is destroyed.

Click to expand...

Wrong! No one is trying to force film out of existance, we just don't have our heads burried in the sand.

that's the attitude we mean

DDP-YLS said:

YLS said:

It's like a religion. It's not good enough that they have a
digital camera. They will only rest when every last scrap of
celluloid is destroyed.

Click to expand...

Wrong! No one is trying to force film out of existance, we just
don't have our heads burried in the sand.

Click to expand...

DDP-YLS said:

Wrong! No one is trying to force film out of existance, we just
don't have our heads burried in the sand.

Click to expand...

I think the "film is dead" camp does have a head buried in the sand, because you don't see the fact that there are many types of photography, many uses for the photography, and many types of photographers.

Digital is the better choice for many combinations, but not all of them.

I don't see a reason why people would stop using single use film cameras, and the inexpensive point and shoot film cameras that they already own. I don't know why it bothers some people that there are people still using those kinds of cameras.

Get this through your heads anti-film people: Without a "digital darkroom", digital capture offers zero benefit to people seeking printed photos.

People will continue to desire printed photos because that's the way people are. Slide film is a tiny tiny part of the consumer film market because people prefer an ugly drugstore print over the much more beautiful projected slide.

Anti film people think that the unenlightened will learn the benefits of only printing their best photos, once the awe-inspiring technolgoy of digital is revealed to them. Sorry, this isn't going to happen this way.

Furthermore, people will always want to pay extra to have a genuine silver gelatin print on their wall instead of a "giclee print". This is only common sense based upon behavior of rich people who favor the handmade over the factory made, and the old ways over the new ways, at least when it comes to decorating their homes and hanging things on their walls.

Capital Man said:

Capital Man said:

Slide film is a tiny tiny part of the consumer film market because people prefer an ugly drugstore print over the much more beautiful projected slide.

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In the interest of disclosure I have both a DSLR, which I like very much, and two medium format cameras. Nothing in the digital realm can match a 100x100 inch projection of a medium format slide show. Granted, it's not everyone's cup of tea. But the ability to have IMax quality projection is quite a stunning experience and one of the main reasons I continue to shoot film on a selective basis and will do so until a 100 inch LCD screen makes it into my living room, which should be in about 60 years.

I don't hink anyone here has an attitude about film going away or trying to force an end to it. The discussion is based on observation and an educated guess. I shared my observations from a commercial photographic viewpoint. I have retianed some of my film gear but have only held onto it because it's my worn out old security blanket of thirty nine years. I'm not holding onto my film equipment because I have any call for film now. My clients never ask for film anymore. I have gone from 350 rolls of 120E-6 plus sheet up to 8x10 and 35mm E-6 per month to thirteen rolls of 35mm this year (9-30-03). Big difference! This is the choice of my customers. Personally, I love my 1D & 1Ds and it's perfect for 99.9% of my work. My clients love it because it saves them money and time. I figure I saved my clients around $95,000 in film, polaroids and processing last year. I also saved them more than that in high res scans plus the ability to work closer to deadlines. The additional confidence the client has at the shoot and the ability to check details and see if the shot will fit the layout is equally important. This morning, I did aerial photography from a Bell 206L hellicopter and photographed two 430 Bells in formation over the eastern appalachian mountains. This 2.5 hour flight cost the client around $8,000 to stage. By shooting digital, 1Ds, I knew I had the shots before we turned to go home. You can't do this with film. Film has it's place but digital is taking over. Like it or not, this is how it is. NO atitude intended.