zensusa
Hello, friends of analogue photography,
I don’t want to alarm anyone or, as has happened before, be seen as the bogeyman, but it seems the time has finally come: Kodak is phasing out its analogue operations, slowly but surely!
Please read for yourselves; source: Macwelt Online, today’s edition (26 August 2005):
Kodak closes production facilities
The end of the analogue era
Eastman Kodak is being forced to press ahead with its transformation into a provider of digital products.
To this end, it is closing several production facilities at its headquarters in Rochester, New York, and reducing output at a factory for consumer films in Xiamen, China. This will result in a total of 900 job losses, with the company writing off an estimated $153 million in one-off costs.
Kodak is consolidating the production of its colour photographic papers at plants in Colorado and England. It is also closing a disposal facility for polyester waste and will outsource this task in future. In July, Kodak reported a loss of $146 million, or 51 cents per share, for its second fiscal quarter, after demand for film and photographic paper had fallen unexpectedly sharply. At the same time, the company had announced the loss of 22,500 to 25,000 jobs. (tc)
Gast
I'm absolutely terrified!!!
What on earth was that all about???
Best regards
Martin
MirkoBoeddecker
Lothar,
Kodak decided to cut 27,000 jobs about a year ago.
This plan is now being implemented between now and 2007.
What Kodak is doing is not ‘shutting down analogue operations’, but rather adjusting production capacity to match shrinking demand, so that they don’t end up like Forte, Ilford or Agfa – saddled with a huge mountain of fixed costs and forced to seek a receiver because they simply slept through the structural adjustment ‘with both eyes closed’.
The discontinuation of photographic paper is also a business decision of this kind. Gelatin, silver, backing paper – everything has risen in price by around 200–500% in recent years, but the immense competitive pressure and photographers’ very high price sensitivity have made it impossible to pass these price increases on to customers. It is always the cheapest supplier who makes the sales.
We’re in exactly the same boat – any price increases from manufacturers can only be passed on to customers in small increments, if at all, because everyone around us is dumping goods as fast as they can.
The result is that around half the products in our catalogue are now being sold at a loss, and our profit margin is shrinking every month.
We can still afford to do this for now, in the hope of better times and because we still have the other half of our business where we make a profit.
But a company like Kodak can’t afford to do that. It’s under pressure to make a profit and is being audited. If an entire business division (such as photographic paper) fails to turn a profit for years on end, they simply cut their losses and that’s that.
Best regards,
Mirko
Gast
This is really nothing new, and it is probably common knowledge that a company like Kodak has to operate on a profit-making basis. Kodak never really managed to gain a foothold in the European photographic paper market. Its own D-SLR is no longer in production either, which is why Kodak is set to invest more in printers and materials in future and is expanding its market share in the manufacture of CCD and CMOS sensors. Photographic chemicals and film will certainly be around for a while yet. Even if these are phased out, there is still the option of using products from Fuji, Agfa or Ilford, and in the paper sector, Forte, Foma and Kentmere join the aforementioned companies. The analogue photography market is still very well served at present, and ever greater advances are being made in the digital darkroom. Yesterday I was holding an A3 print and was asked to guess how the image had been produced. I guessed baryta paper and a medium-format shot. In reality, it was an EOS 1D and the print was made with the new K-ink on a 300gsm substrate. You could only spot the differences in a direct comparison. If, like me, you live and breathe photography, I see no reason to panic. Whether analogue or digital, everyone can decide for themselves, and they complement each other perfectly.
Best regards
pan
Gast
Well,
what would you miss if Kodak stopped supplying? For me, PlusX and TriX spring to mind; these two films have characteristics that no other manufacturer I know of can match.
I find all other Kodak products replaceable; perhaps you could tell us exactly what you’d miss, and then we can put our heads together to see what might be a suitable alternative.
No one is happy about this, especially as Kodak – and I’ll say this quite openly – produces (consistently) top-quality products that only a few competitors can match.
However, it certainly won’t be the end of the world to switch to another company instead of Kodak.
Perhaps we should wait and see for now; after all, Kodak still offers 8mm film, which certainly isn’t a mass market product either.
Roland
Gast
Hello Roland,
Personally, I don’t miss Kodak, as I haven’t done any processing with Kodak film or paper for a long time. I simply wanted to share a bit of information – nothing more, nothing less.
On the other hand, there are also people who work with Kodak and swear by it.
One more word on ‘pan’. I also work and make a living from photography, yet there is a difference between working purely digitally and working with film and baryta paper. I know, and indeed experience it daily, how progress and quality in the field of digital image capture, processing and output are advancing. In many areas it’s wonderful, but personally, money aside, I would deeply regret it if I could no longer get hold of roll and sheet films, baryta paper, etc., because then a part of my working style, attitude and approach to work – indeed, my worldview and how I engage with it and the world – would be lost!
Probably not everyone will (be able to) understand this, but that is unfortunately how it is. “The journey is the destination” – I mean this statement entirely seriously and, for me, it is more than just a clever, off-the-cuff saying.
Incidentally, as a freelancer, I have also been working with digital devices, cameras, scanners, Macs and so on for many years. Indeed, even my bread and butter – graphic design, that is, my income from the graphic design sector – is now predominantly created using a Wacom tablet and, in that sense, directly and digitally on the Mac, without brushes, pens, paper, canvas or the like. The works only see real paper when they are printed as cards or posters at the printers. So from that perspective, I could cheer on the digital world, as it saves me effort, money and materials; – but I don’t cheer, because through this digital way of working, something is lost that can neither be clearly described in words nor weighed up against money.
This is my entirely personal view, but I have no wish whatsoever to spark any ‘ideological’ discussions here.
Until then, best regards
Lo
Gast
Hello!
I’d particularly miss the Kodak Portra 800; according to several retailers, there’s nothing else available.
Best regards,
Konsi
Gast
Kodak is discontinuing its paper production ONLY.
Here’s a post I wrote in a different context, but which illustrates the problem:
http://www.fotoimpex.de/forum/index.php?sh...findpost&p=4458
Mirko
PS By the way, this is a new feature on the forum: you can now copy a link directly to a post
